Over the River and Through the Woods

to my Mother-in-Law's house we go, differing Christmas spirits, and latkes

On the shuttle on the way to the airport, I asked the little girl and her mom next to us where they were headed for the holidays. “Boston, for her first White Christmas!” the mom said proudly.

“Oh, wow, are you going to make a snowman?” I asked the little girl.

“Yes…” she ventured shyly.

“Cool!” I exclaimed. “I wish we were going to see snow for Christmas, but it’s not snowing where we’re going. When you make your snowman, do you think we could be one of the three balls?” I gestured to my kids. “Like, in spirit? Maybe the head?”

“No,” she answered flatly.

“Okay, how about a stick, then? Can we be one of the arm sticks?”

“No,” she answered, bolder now, but not having fun with it - dead serious about the impossibility of me being the benevolent spirit inside a stick on the side of some frozen water in her future.

“Ooookayyyy…can we be the carrot?” I knew as I asked that was too big - if I couldn’t be an imaginary arm stick I certainly couldn’t be the nose. She, of course, shook her head. “Fine, can we be one of the small black circles that make up the mouth?”

She shook her head from side to side, unsmiling, looked right at me. “NO.”

“Wow, okay…” I said, leaning away from her as her mom whispered a half-hearted “Parker! How come they can’t be part of your snowman?”

“K, hate her,” I muttered in Tyler’s ear, a woman on the verge of 41, a mature wife, mother, and citizen of the world.

“Where are you going for the holidays?” I asked the other family that wasn’t now my mortal shuttle enemy.

“Turkey!” they proclaimed proudly. “And you?”

“We are going to the opposite of Turkey,” I replied. “South Carolina.”

“I can’t wait to go fishing with Papa,” Rowan said wistfully, looking like a beautiful, small-scale lesbian in his vest, free PRIDE t-shirt he got at the farmer’s market, sharp new haircut, and single earring he got while tagging along with Zoe when she got her ears pierced last week.

“Rowan, it’s winter, there won’t be any fishing on this visit,” I reminded him for the 47th time.

“Oh yeahhhh.” Kids can somehow remember every detail of what you said and what they did when they were pre-verbal, and yet nothing of what you told them yesterday. It’s so bizarre.

Last week, I went to teach Zoe’s kindergarten class about Chanukah. I told them the basic story, sang the prayer in Hebrew as I drew candles on a dry-erase board menorah and they all pretended to sing along, and read them this really beautiful, almost melancholic, meditative book Hanukkah in Alaska before I handed out latkes topped with jam. They sat, rapt with attention as I read the book, and gobbled up the latkes fiendishly. Three girls yelled CAN YOU GIVE MY MOM THIS RECIPE!?!!! and I told them yes, they came from a box in the freezer aisle at Trader Joe’s.

I stole this photo from the kindergarten newsletter, where the images always look like they were taken on a broken camera in 1992.

One girl raised her hand and when I called on her, she yelled “I WISH I COULD CELEBRATE HALLIKAH. I LOVE HALLIKAH!!!!” I giggled while saying she was welcome to celebrate it. She shook her head sort of sadly, like, no, that’s not going to happen. No Hallikah in my house. When I first started my Chanukah presentation, that same girl had raised her hand and, a propos of nothing, and shouted out “YOU ARE THE BEST MOM FOR ZOE, YOU ARE THE PERFECT MOM FOR EXACTLY HER.” I have no idea where it came from, but it was so weirdly moving!

On their way out to morning recess, a little boy with two missing front top teeth came up to me. He had played it cool at first, told me he didn’t want a latke, but when he saw all the other kids inhaling them he raised his hand and told me he changed his mind. He approached, his backpack hanging off his little arm, ready for his exit.

“Hey. You did double good today. Thanks, Zoe’s mom.” He gave me a thumbs up while sustaining eye contact.

I instinctively put my hand over my heart in delight. DOUBLE GOOD?! May we all strive for that exact report card this holiday season. Proud to be on that list!!! And okay, fine, I hope that Parker is out there in Boston, making a double good snowman. And you know what? She can’t stop me, I’m in the spirit of that stick arm, giving her a branch’ed thumb-up.