Cozy

There's nothing sweeter than snuggle milk under our snuggle blanket on our snuggle couch as the sun is just rising in the sky through a cold and misty window. Just me, a sleep-sweet toddler, and non-stop cuddles for a half hour or so, until we're off to the races. I fear the day he's too old for this ritual. Another tidy way to sum this up:

Warm baby = best blanket.

Homemade

The Instant Pot, if you haven't heard, is the octopus of kitchen appliances, with seven functions in one like an army of arms steaming your vegetables, defrosting and baking your chicken, and perfectly cooking your pasta into one lovely dinner—all in under 15 minutes. It'll probably bake you a cake and frost it, too for all I know. It's truly a wonder.

I know I sound like an infomercial right now, and I expect I'll probably carry on like this for another three weeks (at least). But here's how how I went from kitchen drop-out to head cheerleader for the IP team:

• Last year a close friend of mine starts talking about some crazy kitchen trend. I ignore her. 
• She alerts me—via chat—that a pretty substantial Amazon sale is going on. She convinces me that despite recently dropping down to one income, my family should invest in one. She's very convincing. 
• I decide it will be a "Christmas present" for my "husband," which will justify its hasty purchase, so when it arrives in the mail I tuck it away in our basement. It's summer.  
• Our other close friend buys one at the same time, and from that day on, I hear nothing but nonstop IP recipe reviews from both of them. I feel completely left out, annoyed that the holidays are so far away, and based on the chatter, not entirely convinced of the investment. What was I thinking? 
• At last, Christmas Eve: when deliberating on how we'll cook the turkey, I resist a gigantic urge to give my husband his "gift" a little early, but am talked out of it (by him). I will regret this later.  
• Christmas comes and goes. I completely forget to wrap and give my "gift" to "Erin". It remains in the basement until sometime later. I'm thinking about Curry (as I often do) when, in a flash, I remember the Instant Pot. I yell to my husband that he has a late Christmas present to open! I don't even pretend like wrapping it is an option. 
• After a rather weak reception by said recipient, I spend the next 72 hours memorizing the manual, studying the IP forums, and cooking the next five consecutive meals in the IP. 

I'm happy to report that mashed potatoes, green beans, and steel coat oats have a thumbs up. For dinner tonight, I steamed kohlrabi, caramelized onions and mushrooms, and cooked a batch of wild rice to perfection. Hooray for gifts that are actually for yourself!

Family

When I was little, "family" meant my mom, dad, sister, and me. We were close. Maybe too close? We tolerated various members of our extended family—and occasionally enjoyed spending time with them—but for the most part we preferred hanging out together, laughing, eating, and watching movies. I didn't learn until many years later that my parents could be pretty overbearing and...intense, I'm told.

When I moved away, "family" became my tight circle of friends.We were also close...in pretty intimate and familial ways. We broke the rules, we bucked tradition. We established an anti-establishment spin on what a family could be. We vowed to find ways to stay close forever, and even raise our children together. I don't doubt that had we had more flexible careers and a property we could afford, we could've been mistaken for a Big Love commune.

But alas, New York is cruel to those with real estate dreams, and so our family became splintered the way families do when no roof can contain them. Couples welcomed bouncing babies and became threesomes. Some of those threesomes moved away, myself and my partner included, with promises to stay close. Weekly video calls became monthly phone calls. Monthly phone calls became off again on again chat rooms. Our bonds remain strong, but the tethers long.

Today, "family" has an entirely different meaning. Our circle is a lot smaller than I expected. But having weathered our respective blood lines, our far away and fickle friends, the ups and downs of a nontraditional relationship, and several moves to unfamiliar, sometimes unfriendly places, my husband and son and I are growing bonds that get stronger every day.

Someone made me smile

We decided, long before our children were ever born, to never lie to them.

This is a bit laughable as I look back on it now, as I probably tell tiny white lies every day: "I'm sorry baby, I can't play with you right now because Momma's working," I say as I click through Facebook to skim the news. Or, "Darn it, it looks like we're all out of cookies.... how about some cheesy broccoli instead?" [Note: I'm pretty sure Erin still abides by this rule, though I have no idea how.]

But as a couple, and for such a weighty construct as Christmas, how to handle Santa Claus has been a tricky and longstanding debate.

We aren't religious, so embracing the story of Jesus never felt right. And perpetuating the commercial hullaballoo of Santa Claus didn't appeal, either. Any fictional character or myth that requires a lot of elaborate storytelling or choreography to be convincing seems like a violation of trust, if not a complete departure from the basic tenants of physics, logic, and common sense. Our unusually perceptive son would be on to us before long anyway, so what was the point?

Yet, Santa Claus is an institution much larger than us. Who wants to be the assholes whose son ruins Christmas for everyone? So we compromised: we'd tell our son about "Santa," but it'd be Erin dressing up each year for a brief cameo. That way, Daddy being jolly old St. Nick would be true, while not confusing his more innocent classmates when Ash talks about the presents he got from him. Or at least, that was the idea.

Trouble was, we failed to work out the particulars. Last year it didn't matter: the kid was 7 months old and wouldn't have known Santa from a houseplant. I'd gotten a cheap costume for Erin online and it was no trouble to mildly bewilder our son when he was handed a ball by a strange man in a red suit. No biggie.

But this year, with a precocious 20-month old, the message really mattered. The sheer mechanics of this plan was worth discussing in detail, yet we completely neglected to do so until it was too late. Did we agree on leaving gifts out under the tree? Turns out, nope. Who was responsible for the goodies in the stockings, us, or Santa? Totally unclear. If Santa arrived at a time when Daddy was conveniently "in the bathroom," what's all this business about him coming down the chimney during the night? And who the heck are all those imposters at the Mall? There were answers for none of it.

We got so many things wrong that morning, including who, what, when, where, and why Santa is....yet when Kris Kringle arrived festooned with an obvious fake beard, no belly, and suspiciously similar glasses to Daddy's, (not to mention a"Ho, ho, ho" that bellowed in a familiar baritone), we still managed to completely dupe our son. When Ash looked nervous, we went as far as to tell him it was "just Daddy in a costume" but it did no good: as soon as Erin reappeared in Daddy clothes, Ash ran off to figure out where the heck Santa went. And has been talking nonstop about him and the globe he left for days now. All in all, the ruse was a roaring success. Once again, I found this to be the most amusing possible thing, and delighted in capturing it best I could. This is one tradition that promises to make me smile for decades to come.

Thankfully, we have a few more years to get our story straight. :-)

The night before

The night before Christmas, I can never sleep.

Part of it is my fault. I stay up too late puttering around, there's a myriad of things to do: last minute presents must be wrapped, the house must be rigorously cleaned (more than usual, for who doesn't want a fresh house on Christmas morning?), and as I've recently learned, there's no better time to prune the toys, as they'll never be missed once the new ones arrive.

But the late hour is often compounded by the fact that I've also probably stayed up late a night or two before that, for it's the holiday season and I'm prone to overextension. So by the time Christmas Eve rolls around I'm completely overtired, and when I'm overtired, I can't sleep. Throw in a little residual Christmas spirit from my childhood—where somewhere in my unconscious I have one ear cocked for sleigh bells on the roof and rustling under the tree—and I'm pretty much screwed.

Not in the morning, mind you. Adrenaline and my child's unadulterated glee gets me through that part, not to mention the excitement of presents and spiked coffee. But when the booze and caffeine wear off, and the work of the day begins (picking up the explosion of wrapping paper, starting dinner prep, corralling an overstimulated toddler) I start to fade. I have to will myself to remember that exhaustion is my number one trigger for anger snaps, so I voluntarily busy myself in the kitchen for an hour or two, doing my best to steer clear of anyone likely to provoke me. Because no one wants that kind of Christmas, least of all me.

But as dinner gets well underway, and my child becomes wholly occupied with his new amusements, a few glasses of wine later and I'm back to floating on serene contentment, loopy if not completely happy. My partner's holiday cheer has rubbed off, the day is deemed a wild success, and sure, maybe I'm a little tipsy, too. A delicious feast ensues, cleanup is put off till morning, and I'm primed for what I know is perhaps the the best feeling in the world: collapsing into bed, fully spent, on Christmas night.

Sparkle

On our Christmas tree each year since I was my own son's age there has been a tiny, nondescript ornament nestled in amongst all the blinkies and sparkles. What it lacks in pizazz, it makes up for in sentiment: it's by far my most most adored, cherished ornament, the one I pile all my nostalgia onto (trumping the handmade ornaments my parents made before they were married, the snowblob with my son's handprint, and the Walnut I colored with markers and put on a string on in Kindergarten) because it includes a most basic and treasured ritual: reading aloud on Christmas eve, from the tiniest of books, the Night Before Christmas.

But as we decorated the tree this year, for the very first time in my entire life, I realized that I can no longer even squint through glasses to see the tiny print. My son not yet old enough to read, this seemingly timeless tradition may have to end, or be severely compromised by allowing someone else besides me or my blood to execute it. Or relying on the likes of Google in an unfair assist.

So, I comforted myself by falling back on my second most favorite tradition: eating the year-old piece of candy I hide in my Reindeer squeezy-mouth ornament each season as we're packing away our Christmas decorations. Oh, and catching hell for it from my husband who thinks the shelf life of chocolate is like, an important detail or something.

This year on on its eve we'll read the Night Before Christmas even if I have to pull the words out from deep in my memory bank to do it. All the while, I'll try to remember that even the strongest of traditions die out with time. But like old bulbs on an ancient string of lights, they can be replaced with new ones that'll sparkle and burn bright for years to come.

Tree

There's something unnervingly authentic about cutting one's own Christmas tree, though I can't say I'm entirely for it. It's a personal decision, perhaps, and one I think of in the same vein as hunting: assuming it's a healthy, sustainable population, which most tree farms are these days (and more so), taking the living out of another living thing is a perfectly respectable decision, if not the most ecologically and morally responsible, when you're willing to do the dirty work yourself. You know. Get muddy, curse the cold, question whether you really have it in you to look that poor thing in the soul before you cut its life short.You might even go to great lengths to repurpose all the usable parts: tree scraps become mantel ornamentation, dried needles become fodder for winter fires. Yet, every time, I think to myself: gosh, wouldn't it be easier if we just went to the Christmas tree store? Wouldn't it be better for Mother Earth, her trees in dwindling supply, to just opt for a fake one, like the Tofurky of the forest? I grapple with these questions each year as we trundle off into the woods, a waiting thermos hot chocolate my only conciliation, knowing full well our adventures in tree hunting are always more pain (in the rear) than cost. But I know the real reason we do it, and it's 100% selfish: the feel of the greenery when we touch it, the smell of it filling our house, the springy way it gives when our ornaments land. It's the very taste of Christmas—and it's delicious.