A Note On Christmas Dishes
It’s roughly 4:00 P.M. on Christmas Day and I’m ready to rip off these tights my mom made me wear. They’re white with presents on them and pair well with the velvet dress that I am coordinating with my little sister. A Christmas Story is playing on a TV somewhere but right now I’m interested in how to possibly wear all these cool new outfits I just got at once. My brother has inhaled his 4th cookie and I can over hear my dad lecturing him about it. Grandpa is messing with his train that’s chirping on a track around the tree. My great-grandmothers sit in their chairs like they were ordered to observe and not partake. I don’t yet quite understand the limitations of elderly people but I’m glad they’re there. My sister is hugging my moms leg. Somewhere there is a deck of cards waiting to be played.
“Dinner will be ready in an hour” my grandma attempts to yell, while sounding wary of her own time she just set. “Oh, shoot. I forgot the butter downstairs.”
“I’ll get it for you grandma!” My brother exclaims proudly as he grabs another cookie. “Oh, you’re such a good young man Zack, there’s some chocolate milk down there too for you kids.” We knew.
These are just some of the memories I have of Christmas Day. It’s what I would like to think is pretty standard across America: a woman preparing food, a family bustling about, a Christmas movie we’ve all seen a hundred times, and a child somewhere observing it all only to later reflect on and appreciate the moment.
I’m aware how fortunate I am to have these memories. Though a lot of my childhood was spent experiencing hard times, I do have this. As I review my Christmas Day dinner list that I will prepare for my new family I have married into, a reminder goes off on my phone.
“Grab grandma’s dishes” it reads.
I smile. At last, it is finally time to use these dishes. My grandmother who is thankfully still very much alive and in my life, has stepped down from cooking Christmas Day as of many years ago. All her children and grandchildren now live in different states and time has come to where she needs to sit down just a little longer, and relax hopefully.
“Let me do it.” I’ll say. I can do it now. I’m honored to do dinner now.
I was always one of those girls who simultaneously wanted to be a career woman and a housewife. I enjoy cooking and caring for others while also having my own passions outside the home. I’ve forever looked up to women like my grandmothers; I was blessed with two of them and two great-grandmothers that I had the pleasure of knowing until I was 16. My grandma I am writing about today, Sandy, always had such a calm and caring demeanor. I’ve read her face a few times where she looked frustrated but I never heard anything unkind be spoken. She was something I wanted to be when I grew up: a kind woman who took care of not only her own but of anyone else who needed a little extra helping hand. She is also a really good cook and cookie baker, something I’m currently working on.
Luckily, throughout the many years of moving and figuring myself out as an adult, my grandmother had tucked away something I would later treasure. I don’t know if it’s because she knew little girls like me would grow up and want to be serving her family on dishes that had sentimental meaning, but she saved some Christmas dishes for both me and my sister to enjoy. They sat in my parents garage for a few years and I feared them getting thrown out or destroyed. But when that reminder went off and I uncovered them from my basement I could see they were just as she intended them to be: clean and neatly packed, un-chipped, and ready to be served at a table while a Christmas movie plays in the background.
At one point in my life I gave up the idea of ever using these dishes. I was living alone while working on college and a career, very hurt from relationships that went sour. Time eventually mended those wounds and I eventually found myself eagerly volunteering our new home and table for Christmas dinner to my in-laws.
Though this year the gathering will be small due to travel concerns and the virus, I will think fondly of the day as I pull out my Christmas dishes that were so kindly tucked away for me for the first time, and treasure my first Christmas as a married woman. Maybe one day I’ll have a little person observing me from another room and looking forward to something as simple as this. But for now, on December 25, 2020, the tradition of feeding someone you love and eating on a plate only intended for this day lives on.
