The holidays began and ended in the garage for me.
On December 23rd at about 3:00 a.m., I opened the garage door to greet Kristie who had just arrived in her little silver compact (packed to the hilt) from Virginia. I had been up all night editing home videos to give as Christmas gifts anyway, and as I ran up our sloped driveway to wrap her in a welcoming bear hug, there was something magical about the combination of the hushed nighttime cold and the old-school Christmas lights glowing from our front porch and the stars twinkling in the sky from a thousand light years away. We were both nearly collapsing in our exhaustion, but as we twirled around in joy upon her arrival, I looked up at the inky black sky and memorized it for a moment.
The next ten days made up the best Christmas I have had in a long time. Christmas Eve was a cooking extravaganza for our Italian feast that night. When Joshua’s dad and step-mom arrived late in the day, antipasto was chilling in the fridge; meatballs had been rolled and were simmering in homemade marinara sauce; minestrone was bubbling away on the stovetop; eggplant parmesan was finding its way into the oven; the dough for our cannoli shells was just being prepped. We had planned a seven course meal for the six of us that night and everything was to die for. Course one – antipasto from Kristie’s family recipe. Cubes of Swiss cheese, slices of Genoa salami, olives of all shapes and sizes together in a vinegar dressing. Riesling paired with the first four courses. Two – homemade minestrone and warm, crusty bread with olive oil and Italian spices for dipping. Three – house salad and refills on the bread. Four – palette cleansing wild berry sorbet and fresh strawberries. Finish off the Riesling and switch to Lambrusco. Five – the most delicious eggplant parmesan I have ever tasted. Six – fresh spaghetti with meatballs. Seven – homemade cannoli and coffee. We sat around the table talking and sharing and laughing and crying for over three hours. It was the most fun that I might have ever had at a meal… and possibly the most food I’ve ever eaten in one sitting. By the seventh course we all felt like we might actually die if we had to go one more round.
On Christmas I woke up and looked out the window and was greeted by one of my favorite things… the silence of snowfall. Within an hour the ground was blanketed in white and there was no sign of the weather letting up. My parents had managed to fly into Charlotte that morning but their connecting flight to Asheville was cancelled at the last minute. Thus the Geiger clan was faced with the indomitable task of finding a way to get my parents up through the mountains in the midst of what was turning into an unrelenting snowstorm. Ever brave and always throwing caution to the wind, the Geiger men determined to drive down the mountain on an unplowed highway to pick up my parents in Greenville, SC where they had managed to get a flight into the Greenville-Spartanburg airport after some finagling in Charlotte.
Christmas night was wonderful. There was feasting, feasting, and more feasting on a traditional holiday dinner (roasted turkey—thank you Alton Brown for the wonderful recipe—and dressing and cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes and honey baked ham and green bean casserole and sweet potatoes and corn pudding casserole and roasted potatoes… can you tell we like potatoes?) and plenty more laughter to go around. After dinner we settled into the living room to actually read the Christmas story (Joshua did a wonderful job leading this portion of the evening) and what I originally thought might be hokey turned into a tender spiritual experience for our entire family. We ended in a round of heartfelt prayers and then someone (who shall remain nameless, she writes sheepishly) yelled out, “Can we open presents now?” and we all moved again to the downstairs living room, where the peaceful aura surrounding our beautiful Frasier fir soon erupted into a frenzy of wrapping paper, hoots of delight, and general merriment. Add in a rousing group reading of Dr. Seuss’s “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” and it was a perfect night.
The rest of our time together flew by in a happy blur. There was sledding and snowball fights, movie watching and the passing of the holiday popcorn tin, a battle of the sexes game of Guesstures and a highly inappropriate and hilarious round of telephone that ended in a marriage proposal. (Can’t believe my sis-in-love is old enough to be getting married!) There was so much eating I think we all gained 15 pounds, and a trip to Grove Park Inn to see the gingerbread house display and eat overpriced hors d’eouvres in front of the mammoth stone fireplaces. There was the undertaking of decorating unintentionally flat Italian butter cookies with fabulously homemade meringue icing. There was spanakopita and champagne to ring in 2011 with Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest, and there was a day of resolution-making and open-hearted sharing.
It all ended yesterday, as Joshua and I stood in the garage and waved goodbye to Kristie as she drove up our sloped driveway and headed home to Virginia, little silver compact packed to the hilt. As we closed the garage door, a wave of sadness engulfed me and I felt my eyes getting misty. I wasn’t ready for it to end. The laughter, the cooking and eating, the community… it is wonderful. I wish I could live like that all the time. It makes me thankful that Joshua and I don’t live completely on our own, because even though the atmosphere at our house isn’t always as care-free and contagious as it was this Christmas, it is communal. Kristie left yesterday afternoon, but the Worthys rolled back into town at about 4:00 a.m., and it’s a new year with new promise. And I couldn’t have asked for a better way to say goodbye to 2010.
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