Too Many Christmases?

I remember a simpler time, when my life contained a single, solitary Christmas. Until I was eleven or twelve, the Shaffner Family’s modus operandi was pretty straight-forward. The entire annual celebration took place on December 25th, in the living room of our home. Grandma and Papa Cushing arrived at our house after we had finished the nuclear family exchange, ready to watch us open the pretty boxes they’d brought. The whole affair started when I woke (typically before dawn), and concluded before noon.

By my teens, we bifurcated the celebration. Christmas Eve we traveled over the river and through the woods to Grandma’s house. She made the tastiest teriyaki chicken wings (perhaps not the most stereotypical New England Christmas rite, but among my favorites). My cousin and I, though we couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds each, could eat our weight in chicken wings. Sometimes our eating even interfered with the opening of gifts.

After wrapping up (pun intended) at Grandma’s house, my family returned home for a challenging evening of staring at the presents underneath our glowing fake tree, anticipating the following morning.

Seems a lot more complicated than that these days.

Not that I’m complaining -- the holidays were amazing this year. But two ornaments on our five-foot tree proclaimed this as our First Christmas Together, and that included our respective families, so we had a little traveling to do...

Grandma told me that she’d never heard (in her eighty-three years) of one person having as many Christmases as Keryn did this year (SIX!). Here’s a rough recounting, with a touch of humor thrown in for good measure.

December 23
10:30am Depart Boston two hours late, driving north to Maine. The traffic on I-95 is slow on the autumn holidays because there aren’t any tourists. (Good to know, in case any whackos out there are planning a winter sightseeting voyage).
1:00pm Arrive in Winslow at Gram’s (her paternal grandmother) house and feast on a bucket of KFC before tearing into presents. The highlight is a rechargeable plastic four-wheeler for Keryn’s cousin. It supports 180lbs, so I was disappointed I couldn’t ride it… If only I’d shed twenty pounds leading into the holidays! I remember circling the CHiPs motorcycle in the Sears Catalog back in 1984. Probably cost a thousand bucks back then. These days you can get one for a hundred. Alas…
6:00pm Say our farewells, exchange hugs, pack our booty into the trunk, and take off for Bucksport.
8:00pm Arrive at my childhood home, exhausted.
10:00pm Crash and burn…

Above: Christmas Puppy Ripley goes crazy watching us open presents at Celebration #3.

December 24
7:00am Because my mother has not changed the clocks since Daylight Savings ended, I force myself out of bed an hour earlier than the already too-early-for-my-taste time I’d planned.
10:30am My sister and brother-in-law arrive from Portland. They’re running on borrowed time, since they have a diabetic cat to medicate (not their own, they have a business doing that kind of thing). We waste no time filling a Hefty bag with paper, ribbon, bows, and boxes.
12:30pm We’re late to the second party of the day--the one at my aunt’s house. Oh, and did I mention my sister has an eight-week-old puppy? I’m feeling good about the fact that two days in a row, I am not the primary cause of tardiness.
1:00pm Christmas with my aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandmother. There’s pot roast and potatoes, my father’s gift-to-mankind gravy, lobster stew, and Crown Royal on the rocks. The puppy demands our attention. I sip my Manhattan and try to channel Cesar Millan. Calm assertive state. Rules, boundaries, limitations. More pot roast.
4:00pm The party ends. Keryn has to be back in Boston for Christmas with her family and my brother-in-law has to deliver insulin to a housecat.
9:00pm My bad directions put Keryn in Roxbury (where she does not want to be). Fortunately, she gets back on the Central Artery and finds Storrow Drive.

December 25
Keryn has Christmas with her family (that’s #4 for her, if you’re counting). Then her clan dashes off to Logan for their flight to Columbus.

December 28
3:00am: Normal Girl and her family rise so they can make their 5:30am flight. (Yikes!!!)
5:30am: I’m packing my bags for an exciting bus ride home. Keryn boards an airplane.
7:15am: Nothing like a packed-solid bus! Ooh baby.
12:00pm: I arrive in Boston.
12:10pm: Our final celebration (#4 for me, #6 for her) begins as Keryn unwraps a genuine lump of coal and I don a new tee-shirt proclaiming, “Careful or you’ll end up in my novel!” How true it is…

So back to the original question: is there any such thing as too many Christmases?

I’m going to answer with a resounding no. Bring it on!