I survived the family gathering

Merry Effing Christmas from the Chronic Malcontent. I spent the day in the tub, recovering from a sugar high. Last night was the paternal annual family gathering. You know how I feel about families. And gatherings. My siblings hung me out to dry. My brother and his girlfriend opted out with conveniently contracted head colds. My older brother, who lives in Seaside, Oregon, was ostensibly blocked by rain and snow. My sister had the best excuse: She is in Munich, where it is apparently 50° and sunny, learning how to sprechen deutsch with her British boyfriend. Likely story.

So it was just me, escorting the maternal parental unit to the party. The evening was cold and damp, but not raining, not icy. Just a typical chilly Portland Christmas. I parked across the street and helped her over the curbs. Mom wore her best Christmas sweatshirt and jeans and chugged up the wet concrete steps to the front door like a little locomotive. She's by far the oldest of the clan, the last of a generation, but you can't call her the matriarch of that family, since we are related to them by marriage. We are all that is left of my father's presence, and once my mother is gone, I'm sure they will forget all about us. At least the children will. The grandchildren never knew us.

I've come to realize raising families has a lot in common with working retail. Parents are the sales associates, going through the daily obligations of birthing, rearing, and launching children. Merchandise in, merchandise out. You price them, front and face them, and send them out into the world and what do you have to show for it? You track sales against costs and hope you net a profit. But you can never win. It's never done, as long as there is breath left in the body.

I remember holiday gatherings on other Christmas eves. My father's mother had a lot of siblings, so there were tons of cousins and second cousins. With so many people, it's not surprising something went wrong. Somewhere back in the foggy history there was an argument. People chose up sides. My mother is the bridge between what is left of the factions. I wonder if anyone remembers what they were fighting about.

I went to the party with the intention of going off my strict no-sugar diet. I didn't just fall off the wagon, I jumped off, lay down on the ground, and let the wheels of epicurean indulgence crush me to a pulp. My cousin Anne makes a particularly luscious type of cookie. I'll pass on the fudge, just give me those deceptively simple little white wafers with the creme filling. I ate three. Plus some other crap. And a few swallows of a Chardonnay to really put paid to the debacle. Meanwhile, three children under the age of five jumped around and screamed like fiends. The teenage generation huddled together on the couch, watching an iPad or something, coming up occasionally to forage. The 40-something generation sprawled in chairs, exhausted from watching their little jumping brats, too dazed from alcohol and sugar to do more than mutter lame attempts to connect: Hi, how are you? What was your name, again? I grazed the dessert table. People left me alone.

At one point toward the end of the evening, I wandered into the kitchen and found four adults (one my mother), all wearing Christmas red, standing apart from one another, not talking, not moving, except for their jaws, slowly chewing brownies, fudge, and chocolate. Their eyes were distant. Were they getting ready to share some philosophical epiphany on the nature of the chemical relationship between fat and sugar? They were in the zone. Some zone, anyway. My entrance didn't break the spell. I had to say something before anyone woke up and responded. I wanted to take a picture, but no camera could have caught the eeriness of the scene.

We left before the white elephant game began. Thank god. As we staggered out into the frosty night, I wonder if others would go away feeling like they missed out on something. All that work, the shopping, the baking, the buying, the wrapping... demolished in the space of a few hours. What will the kids remember? How fun it was to jump on the couch with the cousins. How tense and anxious the adults were at the beginning of the party, and how strangely morose or maudlin they were by the end of the night. What will the adults remember? How much work it was. How annoying the kids were. How great it felt to sink into a glass of Chardonnay and a mouthful of chocolate. How wonderful it is that this horrible season only comes once a year.