EPISODE 11 EPISODE 11Thanksgiving was over.
For some reason, my sports watch alarm went off at midnight, waking me from a strange dream. In the nightmare, I had been unable to run from a creature molded from leftover stuffing and mashed potatoes with gravy dripping from its outstretched arms, due to the weight of my own enormous thighs.
I started to drift off again, when a form suddenly appeared at the foot of my bed. She wore a floor-length, polyester, red-and-green-plaid skirt, a white ruffled blouse with a huge tab collar, a crocheted vest, and a Christmas tree pin.
“Hi, like, I’m the Ghost of Christmas Past, and I’m here to take you on, like, a pretty decent trip back to the seventies,” the apparition said while twirling a segment of her long hair. No sooner did I grasp the ghost’s braided macramé belt than we were whisked on metal roller skates to the home of my youth.
It was two weeks before Christmas 1974, and Maz was preparing her shopping list while Tray and I decorated the Christmas tree with silver tinsel, careful not to rest the tiny plastic strips on the blazing hot bubble lights.
Maz’s list included the names of our little family, along with aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. She had saved enough in her Christmas account to buy fruitcake, tea towels, Avon perfume, Barbies, Tonka trucks, and decorative tins of ribbon candies.
Although Tray and I loved to go downtown to see shops decorated with lights and mechanical elves, that night we begged to stay home so we would not miss the new Rankin Bass special, The Year Without a Santa Claus, which our console television might pick up if the antenna was turned just right.
Maz agreed to put off shopping one more day. Instead, she wrote out her twelve Christmas cards and served us cocoa in Santa mugs with cookies, which we were disappointed to find contained prunes, raisins, molasses, mincemeat, anise, or some other objectionable ingredient. Nevertheless, we lay contentedly on the green shag rug listening to a Burl Ives record, gazing up at our tree and its Styrofoam egg-carton star.
I reached out toward this vision of my youth, but was wrenched from my trance when a bubble light scorched my arm. “Ouch!” I exclaimed, and was abruptly dumped back into my own bed, surrounded by nothing but the dark night and a faint tapping sound.
I soon found the source of the tapping. Seated on the end of the bed, her thumbs poking away at an iPhone, was the second apparition. She glanced at me and said, “Hey, how’s it going? I’m the Ghost of Christmas Present, but hold on a sec, I have to answer this.”
Finally, the specter finished texting and proclaimed, “Alrighty, touch my yoga pants and let’s do this thing, because I’ve got carpool duty in a couple hours.” I grabbed her spandex waistband and was transported to scenes of unimaginable Christmas chaos.
First, we saw the three-page Christmas list I’d made right after Halloween, which included gifts for the school lunch ladies, Anna’s ukulele instructor, the seven neighbors we like, and the three we don’t but can’t leave off the list for fear of inciting neighborhood conflict.
Next, we joined a stampede of Black Friday shoppers, all poised to pepper spray each other over the last Play Station game console at Walmart. Then the Spirit took me to Starbucks, where we paid five dollars for a mocha peppermint chai tea and three hundred dollars for gift cards for the kids’ teachers. Then we dashed home to type, print, and mail out 150 copies of the annual family Christmas letter, replete with exaggerated superlatives about the kids and the daily activities of our dog.
Then we ate, and ate, and ate. Everything from gallons of hot dip to platters of cookies packed with peanut butter chips, candy chunks, marshmallows, and M&Ms. We washed it all down with cartons of eggnog which, according to the sell-by date, would still be potable come Valentine’s Day.
Finally, the Ghost of Christmas Present dropped me in front of our HDTV virtual fireplace glowing beside our artificial tree with its economical LED lights. Exhausted and embarrassed by the modern-day holiday delirium, I pleaded, “Have mercy, Spirit! Haunt me no more!”
Just then, a figure approached from the shadows, cloaked in a black hooded garment. “Are you the Ghost of Christmases Yet to Come?!” I yelped in fear. The apparition nodded silently and handed me a small high-tech device. With a swipe, I activated a life-sized holographic Christmas tree. A second click started microwaving a frozen Tofurky dinner with vegan trimmings. In mere nanoseconds, I sent warmly personalized holiday video messages to friends of friends of friends on Facebook.
But then, the Spirit pointed a long finger at the futuristic device. On the screen appeared countless images of pale people sitting alone in the dark, without family and friends, without fresh pine and twinkle lights, without hot cocoa and old movies, without music and laughter. They sat alone, clicking buttons on Christmas.
“No, Spirit!” I cried, repeating over and over, “I promise I will heed these lessons and honor Christmas in my heart!”
As if it had all been a dream, I awoke in my own bed and rushed excitedly down the stairs, shouting to my daughter, “Turn off that virtual fireplace this minute, Lillian Molinari!”
“Anna!” I bellowed, “Preheat the oven! We have cookies to bake!”
“Come and witness this glorious morning, young man!” I called up to Hayden, who was still slumbering soundly.
To Francis I demanded, “Off with you, my good man, to the Winn-Dixie for the fattest turkey in the freezer case!”
I ripped up my three-page shopping list. I tied a big red bow on the dog’s collar. I rifled through the pantry for cocoa and mini marshmallows. I blasted my favorite Sinatra holiday CD and danced silly circles around our kitchen.
God bless us, every one, I thought with a full heart. Bless us, every one—not virtually, but truly.