How To Survive A (Very Large) Family Christmas, Or, Saturday Morning at 10:10am

I hope everyone, celebrating or not, had a wonderful time yesterday. Let me now review time-honored principles of wonderfulness on Christmas, and other family gatherings.

1. Cook good food. In our case, roast chickens stuffed with lemons and rosemary, (or apples and onions), a rib-eye roast of grass-fed beef with Bearnaise sauce, sauteed kale with olive oil, chile peppers and vinegar, (or pancetta), roast potatoes, salad with home grown mandarins and avocados, and a spice cake with whipped cream, home grown Meyer lemon syrup, homemade caramel sauce, raspberries, and strawberries.

2. Sing songs. Here that meant Swedish Christmas carols alternating with Mariah Carey singalongs. My Mac on the linen-covered table under a crystal chandelier lit with candles. "All I Want For Christmas, Is You...Baby."

3. Drink just enough alcohol and not too much. This is cross-cultural and needs no explanation.

4. Spend some time in quiet together, after the chaos. We retired to the living room and sat, in companionable conversation, listening to YouTube video songs as requested by the group. Aretha Franklin at 14 singing gospel; Ray LaMontagne's, "Jolene."

5. Muster for good will to all. We were 16, from 5 different families, speaking 2 languages. With various histories of past happiness, past sadness, past arguments. Divorces, deaths, sorrows. But, precisely because we were so many people and were so aware of the possibility of misunderstandings (or worse, understandings of things shouldn't have been said), we focused on goodwill and kindness. It has not always been so.

(Oh, and it doesn't hurt when your mother, for no reason whatsoever, gives your daughter a necklace. From the family, although, "Not in the direct line." Originally for a little girl. 6 rose gold medallions the size of thumbnails, strung from a chain, spelling out a name in a diamond-covered, dangling, monogram. Teeny diamonds, but, still. I promise, I am very, very thankful for good fortune. Up in my little 3 bedroom house it's not so visible. Here at my mother's, well, it's a lot.)

6. Finally, luck. Luck beyond fortune. Sometimes you have good days and sometimes not. The same goes for families. This one was a good day for ours. I hope for yours as well. If this year was a miss, luckily, Christmas will be here again in 12 months for another try.

From my Finger Paint iPhone app. With a little Photoshop. Because it's never too late to learn something new. Very, very, very best wishes to all.

The High WASP Christmas Tree And Its Friends.

High WASPs are, as my mother would say, big pills about Christmas trees. About all Christmas decorations, actually. No matter how evolved we fancy ourselves, come Christmas, we revert.

We don't believe Christmas decorations are decor. They are symbols. They are family. As such, to be revered, experienced for meaning, and rarely changed. Everything has to be highly traditional, as in, the way your grandmother did it, or completely kitsch*. As in the lit-up Santa I bought on West 14th Street in Manhattan that flashed red and played a digital version of Jingle Bells.

Christmas tree lights? Um, white. They can be shaped like pine cones if you like. Or little candles on branches. Colors? Um, red, green, gold, even silver, if you feel daring. Theme? Um, Christmas?

We put angels up even when we're not religious. Especially those from our grandmother's Austro-Hungarian 2nd husband. He didn't give us his family's court sword. Would have been tough to hang on a tree, no?


Ornaments? Anything you like. Just don't let them match. Stuff made by kids, by you, bought at the Stanford Shopping Center, bought the year you moved into your new house, bought the year you moved out. Fish. Fish are good. They are however, as my son once said to the great amusement of my best friend, dumb. From Gumps, home of the greatest traditional glass ornaments ever.


Other decorations? As long as you adhere to the principles above, anything goes. A creche? Sure. Hand-carved and from another culture, even better. Garlands of greenery? Sure, especially ones that smell good and are tied with plaid bows. Red and green plaid bows, goes without saying. Tiffany bowls full of ornaments on your table? Yes*. Again, have to be red, green, gold or, well, you get the picture. We apologize but we cannot countenance aqua at Christmas. Or lavender. Blue is OK and Hannukah is great and if you have a cultural holiday with a color association that falls around Christmas just let us know. We will support you and celebrate you. But Christmas is red and green and gold, and, well, you get the picture.


Want something new? 2010 appears to beg for resurgence and reemergence all around? Mix high and low. Handmade and mass market. Tell a story that reminds you of Christmas. Which to us means home. In this case, home, not house. Sometimes house decorations do make home. Clear? No? Like I said, we're kind of pills about Christmas. But good with making sure you have enough to drink. And enough light to read by. Me, I'm building a little imaginary Scandinavian village. Where elves live under the shade of pink glass tree-ish things. Happy Holidays to all. Don't mind us. Another glass of Scotch and we'll be quiet.

Chubby elf house handmade by even*cleveland, 2009. Glass tree, Target, 2007.

*Town and Country Mom does this too..
**For a peak experience in this approach, go to kidchamp.net

11 Terribly Suitable High WASP Presents. OK, OK, Gifts.

Presents. We like to call them presents. Do High WASPs give a certain kind of Christmas present? Is everything monogrammed, crystal, silver, or very, very old? Featuring horses? Greyhounds? Plaid?

Luckily, no. Mostly, like everyone, we want to give our friends and family things they might like to have. We ask each other, before Christmas, "What do you want?" "Well, what do YOU want" "What are you getting for Sister A?" "Do you think Brother-In-Law B will like this?" And, of course, what about Mom, Dad, Mom's husband, Dad's wife? Sometimes we give Hanukkah presents. Cultures do change. Thank goodness.

Our exchanges are pretty practical. Especially since the family fortune dwindled and the Dow Jones entered this long drought. Imagine an almost empty grain silo, wind whistling, chaff blowing. Please excuse the slight exaggeration. But the days when I gave friends silver Tiffany cigarette cases, plane tickets to London, and diamond earrings? Gone.

The point is to get somebody something they want, not something you want to give.

As it turns out, everyone, sometimes, does just want the best blue cashmere sweater, the most comfortable pair of slippers, or a good way to connect to the Internet. A femme's friend Robert agrees. Quirky, unique presents are sometimes more fun to read about than to receive. Here are my suggestions for things your friends and family might really want.


1. Alphabet earrings from Catbird $40 each earring
Catbird says these are their #1 seller. I'm not surprised. We High WASPs especially like words and letters. Not that we are in any way responsible for Catbird's success, of course. These could make a nice untraditional monogram, especially if you got that third hole pierced. I think I'd wear a "Y" in one ear, and an "N" in the other. Yes and No. Because that's how I feel about most everything.

2. Bracelet from Scosha $169
Our artsy cousin likes presents that remind her of the days of safaris, caravans, wild travel. String a little diamond on some silk fishing line and go to the opera.

3. Monogrammed necklace from Catbird $300
Because classics are classic for good reason. Beautiful. Unfortunately, this takes 3-5 weeks to produce. Oops. Know anyone with a January birthday? But this one can be had in 2 weeks for $240. Just enough time, if you like to live dangerously.

Bow created under Creative Commons license from cuttlefish's Flickr photostream.

4. Handmade Minimalist Wallet by Makr Carry Goods $65
Men are very particular about wallets. Some of them just want a place to stash a few cards, a license, and some cash. The coins of course will wind up in a mug under the telephone, on top of the TV, or denting your silver Tiffany's bowl. Love is worth it.

5. Blue Pearl Wedge Tote from scabbyrobot at etsy $88
How to get that click of yes for less. Love the soft, sophisticated blue leather. Hate her store name so much that I can barely stand to read sca....Nope.



6. More Men's Slippers Than You Know What To Do With. From LL Bean $49.95
A tradition. One year we gave my father 4 different pairs of slippers., thinking we were hysterically funny. Sheepskin-lined slippers. Delicious as chocolate chips in oatmeal cookies. Feet in love. Meaning of luxury.

7. Built By Wendy Black Fishnet Sweater $105 (reduced from $150)
We're apt to have a black sweater or two already. And still might ask for another come present time.

8. John W. Nordstrom Crewneck Cashmere Men's Sweater $155
Extremely high quality, very soft. My son says people pat him when he wears his. Always a good thing, patting. This sweater fills a very nice niche between Neiman Marcus, Tse, and Pringle high-end stuff, and Bloomingdale's $79 fuzzies that give up the ghost almost immediately. I'm picky about cashmere and I like it.


9. Something With Design Integrity From A Mall Store $34-$129
Rushing through the mall, realize you need to give someone a present, and still want to make it count. Pottery Barn has some design guy with no ego hidden back in Vermont, as I imagine him, turning out lovely, traditional house stuff. Particularly these picture frames. And leather chairs, of course.

10. Antiqued Mexican Retablo With Story $32.92 (I know, what's up with the $0.92?)
We like to give each other folk art. Probably the endless hunt for cultural authenticity. We also like to buy photographs from Peonies and Polaroids.

11. Novatel NiFi 2200 Mobile Wi-Fi Hotspot Modem (price incomprehensible*)
Yes. Well, since our family fortune exited, stage left, we do have to work. And work is always better with colleagues. My tech friends have done the research. They say that IF one of your team has a Verizon wireless access card, then he or she can use this device to enable the whole team to get online without dealing with annoying connectivity issues, T-Mobile Hot Spot fees, or hotel lobbies that insist you have to actually stay there in order to use their network. Hurrah for collaboration and no additional fees.

Et voila. Having given each other presents, we then like to play word games. The favorite is Fictionary. Played with a big real dictionary, slips of paper, and a ragtag assortment of pens. One year my son defined a word, I don't remember which one, as, "Human guts. Very siccuhtating." Another, more poetic fictitious definition, again for a word I don't remember, "Dust of the cave." Happy Holidays to you all.

*In the way pricing associated with data plans always is.