Tacking Up for Christmas

Last Christmas season, my then-boyfriend and I were riding around with my parents after sunset.  We had probably just eaten some too-salty Mexican food at a nearby dive when we drove past someone’s lit up reindeer. I know you’ve seen them.  Those white holiday reindeer that the less savory members of society see fit to display on their lawns beginning three days before Thanksgiving and ending a week before Valentine’s Day.  This year, they released a new model that has a rotating head.  Just in case you thought those plastic reindeer were fake, their heads move and you discover they’re real.

“Oh, I just love those” said mom wistfully.  I was sitting behind her, but I imagined her face lighting up like those bloody reindeer.  I was gripped with terror.

There is one thing you must understand about my mother.  She loves Christmas.  I mean, really loves it.  Really. 

To illustrate.  Every year, in her 4.000 square foot home, she lines every staircase with plastic garland and bright red velvet bows.  Inside and out.  She twists the fake garland around two or three light posts outside, also attaching a bow.  A large bow.  She also attaches bows to every other light fixture outside of the house that might be seen by a passing stroller, but would surely be missed by anyone traveling at a speed exceeding 2 miles per hour.  She hangs a giant plastic star from the center of the front porch.  She hangs three wreaths outside – two for the matching front doors and one for the side door.

Inside the house, there’s more.  In her enormous great room with the sophisticated stone fireplace that centers it, she tosses out stuffed animals wearing holiday clothing.  Several of them.  Stuffed animals we’d probably given her as gifts when we were in elementary school and had no concept of the painful durability of their presence in our lives.  She puts out little holiday candles and holiday towels and holiday dangly things everywhere.  Each of the four bathrooms has holiday nightlights and finger towels and knickknacks she has collected over 45 years of marriage at day-after-Christmas sales for under $1.00.  The solid wood bookcase in the great room, filled with books of war and trains and destruction and Hitler and the like (courtesy, dad), gets trickled with little bits and pieces of holiday-sales past.  But that’s not even the best part.

The woman has three, count them THREE, Christmas trees.  “Well, we need one family tree in the great room,” she once explained, as if there were no other alternative.  “I mean, that’s where we open all the presents.  And I have to have the white grandma tree with all the ornaments she made for us.  It belongs in the dining room so we can enjoy it while we eat.  And the other tree I won in the raffle.  It looks so nice in the foyer I couldn’t bear to give it away!”  She’s very matter-of-fact about this over-tree reality.  To her, it seems perfectly reasonable that she should have as many trees as she can collect.  There is nothing wrong with putting an 8 foot Christmas tree in every room.  Indeed, what else is she supposed to do with these little plastic needles from heaven?

To top it all off, the great room – with its stuffed animals, colored-light tree, embarrassing number of presents, and endless trinkets – also enjoys, atop enormous entertainment center that houses a 2,000 inch television dad desperately needs, a 2” x 10” plastic and yarn village replete with cotton “snow”, painted people, miniature plastic holiday (and regular) trees, several houses, a church, a flower shop, a butcher, a grocery, a bookstore, a library, a school, and a pub with a pool table.

It’s a good thing dad has such an enormous, and fully stocked, bar inside the great room.  Without all that liquor nearby, I’m pretty sure over the holidays I wouldn’t be able to sit still in that room for more than 22 seconds before I’d start twitching and convulsing.

But back to last year’s drive home from the Mexican restaurant.  “I really love those.” Mom had said of the plastic white reindeer, after which I began to twitch. 

“Mom.  If you ever get those bloody reindeer.  Ever.  I will never.  Not ever.  Visit you at the holidays again.  Never.”  I said.  There was a great deal of conversation about this comment.  You’re a terrible daughter.  We’re going to get them just to spite you.  Within ten minutes, though, they were off on some new tirade and I was free.

This year, my now- fiancé and I drove in for the holidays at around 2 a.m. on the 22nd.  The neighborhood was quiet.  Dark.  We were tired.  As we rode through, I said, “You know what we should do?  On the 26th, when all the holiday crap is on sale, we should go get mom and some of those bloody reindeer.  Real cheap, like.  And just stick them right on the lawn.  See how long it takes them to notice the deer.”  He laughed.  The decision was made.

We saw them when we turned into my parents’ dark driveway.  They were sitting there, waiting for us.  Smiling, I’m sure, though I couldn’t see their faces very well in the dark.  “They already got them?!” I cried.  My devious folks hadn’t said a word.  “That’s it.” I said.  “We’re taking them down.  Right now.”

My fiancé glared at me.  It had been a long day of flights and driving.  “We are NOT doing this now.” He declared, unconvincingly.  He knows I’m the boss of him, so within two minutes we had unearthed the miserable tackiness and hidden them where they belonged, behind the garbage can at the side of the house.  We crawled inside silently and fell asleep.

The next morning, mom greeted my fiancé as he came downstairs.  “You aren’t going to believe what happened.” Mom smiled.  “We got some of those reindeer we’d talked about last year and today they’re gone!  Someone stole them!  I called the police and they’re on their way over.”  It must be said that my mother is a terrible liar.  Horrible.  If she’s trying to lie to you using more than about four words, you’re going to know it by the time the first syllable of the fifth word is uttered.  My fiancé just smiled.

And thus began the deer antics for the duration of our week-long stay with my folks during the holidays.  When mom left the kitchen (where we spend most of our time) that overlooks the bay window that overlooked the deer, we would defile the deer in some way.  We turned them upside down.  We planted them in a bush.  My brother even got into the act and had one deer mounting the other.  Every day, there was something new. 

My nephew got a toy AK-47 for Christmas.  This particular nephew is dangerously partial to my mom.  He was glaring at us as we began to set the deer up for a tea party. Holding his gun and screaming to Nana (his name for mom).  “You put those deer back!” he called, pointing his gun at us.  It was a scenario I had never imagined for myself.  Reversing the effects of a holiday prank at gunpoint.

The day after Christmas, mom said, “You’ll be happy to know that I’m taking the deer down today.  I want to get them down before we leave for our New Years trip.”  But I wasn’t happy.  I was dismayed.  What were we going to do with our time when the holiday decorations were gone?