Four Christmases

Four Christmases By Nell Iris 2015 “Kiss Uncle Auden, Merry,” my sister Emily says to her daughter, purses her lips, and make kissy sounds to show Merry what she means. Merry, fourteen months old, with adorable black hair resembling a punk mohawk—no matter how hard Emily tries to tame it—clashing spectacularly with the pink frilly dress she’s wearing, smacks her tiny hands on my cheeks and giggles when my beard tickles her palms. She looks intently at me, opens her mouth and tilts her head, and gives me a wet, sopping kiss. My mouth, my beard, and my chin all end up drenched as the rest of my loud family cheers her on and shouts “Good girl!” I blow a raspberry on Merry’s cheek, ruffle her hair, and set her on the floor where she toddles away. I snatch my phone from my sister’s grip—she took pictures of the kiss, of course—and get up and go to the bathroom to wash my face. As I towel off, someone starts the music in the living room, and my Granny’s all-time favorite Christmas song, “Grandma Got Run Over by A Reindeer,” booms from the loudspeakers. “Someone get me some eggnog,” Granny yells. With a chuckle, I tiptoe through the house to the back door, get dressed in my outerwear, and sneak out. The silence that follows after I close the door is wonderful and vital for my continued sanity. I slump against a porch post, heaving a deep, long, relieved sigh. Shaking my head, I snicker. I love my family to pieces, but a Whipple family Christmas is a loud and boisterous—and long—affair. We begin with breakfast here at my parents’ house, followed by gift-giving by my parents’ Disney-esque tree, then we just keep going through lunch and dinner until we crawl home and slip into food comas. It starts off quiet enough—people aren’t all that chatty before the first few cups of coffee—but when we get going, we never stop. And when someone—usually Granny—breaks out the eggnog, all bets are off. I adore my granny—she’s a fierce and spunky lady—but she’s the loudest of us all, especially after eggnog. It’s the only time of the year she drinks anything alcoholic, so it doesn’t take much to make her giggly. We always know when the tipsiness happens, because that’s when the singing starts. She’ll make one of us put on “Grandma Got Run Over by A Reindeer,” and listen to it on repeat as she sings along at the top of her voice and out of tune. She’s even made a routine for it: she lifts her glass of eggnog, roars out the word “eggnog” in the lyrics, then cackles like a madwoman. Then she looks expectantly at the rest of us, waiting for us to laugh. And we do, of course, because we love her, but if our chuckles become more polite than hearty after the tenth time, she doesn’t seem to notice. I join in the fun, too, even though I’m not a sing-along kind of guy. I’m the quiet type, who’d much rather observe everyone, preferably with a sketchpad on my lap and a pencil in my hand, but it’s been a Whipple family Christmas tradition for as long as I can remember, and it wouldn’t be the same without it. But now I’m in desperate need of a break and a few minutes of silence, which is why I snuck out. This, too, is a Whipple family tradition. They all pretend not to notice that I disappear from family gatherings unless I’m gone for too long; then someone—usually my younger sister Emily—will come find me and herd me back into the fold. The chill in the air nips at me, and a shiver racks my body. I wind the thick neon-pink scarf I grabbed before fleeing around my neck—making sure it covers my ears—and shove my gloved hands into the pockets of my second-hand lavender peacoat. I should have worn my ultra-warm down jacket instead, but noooo, I had to look nice on Christmas. As though my family would care. Besides, they know I’m always cold and wouldn’t raise an eyebrow if I arrived wrapped in a thick blanket. As a kid, I was all skin and bones, knees and elbows, and was constantly freezing, even in summer. It didn’t help when I reached puberty and shot up like a weed. These days I’m not rattling around like a skeleton anymore, but I’m still skinny. Tall and skinny. And delicate. My wrists are stupidly slim, my shoulders bony and angular, and I have a thigh-gap that would make any model jealous. I try to hide my fine and narrow features by letting my black hair fall around my face, and by growing a beard. I’m pretty sure the facial hair doesn’t fool anyone since it’s as soft and swishy as the rest of me. I need to move around before I turn into an ice sculpture, so I jump off the back porch, and look into the sky. The air is full of huge, light snowflakes twirling leisurely all around me before landing softly on the frost-coated trees and shrubbery in the garden. It’s not enough to actually be considered a snowfall; it’s more like a reminder that today is December twenty-fifth after all, and we shouldn’t think we’re spared the snow even though there’s barely enough to cover the ground. It’s as though the weather is keeping us on our toes, teaching us not to take anything for granted. I start walking; my feet find the path leading from the garden, through the woods, and down to the clearing by the creek half a mile or so from the house. I haven’t been this way for years—not even since I moved back to Idaho in March. The only times I’ve been home the last decade since I left for college is for Christmas, and usually, it’s too cold and snowy this time of year to go for a walk. It looks more or less the same; some trees are taller than they were when I was eighteen, but other than that it’s exactly like I remember. I’m in no hurry; I’m eager to refamiliarize myself with the trees and bushes and everything. When I was around twelve, a family of rabbits used to live not far from the house, and I sat against the trunk of a tree for hours, trying to catch a glimpse of them so I could sketch them. I wonder if their descendants are still living here in the forest? Now that I can admit it to myself, I missed this place so much living all those years in a concrete jungle. It was last Christmas when I finally acknowledged what I’d been refusing to let myself think for the last couple of years; I wasn’t happy in New York anymore, if I’d ever been. I didn’t want to leave and go back to my lonely, shitty apartment far away from the people I love, where I spent too much time working a boring job so I could afford the rent, and no time pursuing my dreams. It’s not like I expected to graduate college and immediately succeed as an artist or a children’s’ book illustrator—not even “Auden with his head in the clouds” is that deluded—but I also didn’t expect to not have time to ever work toward my dreams. And last year, surrounded by my loud, crazy family, I wondered why I was even doing it anymore. I wouldn’t have to work the awful long hours just to survive if I moved back home—a definite upside of living in a small town. Here, I would still have to get a job, but I’d also have time to work on my art. On top of that, in October last year, Emily gave birth to a lovely little girl, Merry, named after my Disney-crazy sister’s favorite Sleeping Beauty fairy godmother Merryweather. Merry spent most of last Christmas in my arms, lulled to sleep by the beat of my heart. I held her close, inhaled the sweet baby scent from the black tuft of hair on her head—teasing Emily that she should have given her daughter a more punk-y name, like Patti or Debbie, to go with the hair—and gazed in awe on her little heart-shaped mouth, mesmerized by how her limbs moved and jerked in sleep and how she made sucking motions with her mouth. Whenever she clenched a tiny fist around my little finger, my heart filled with love for this wondrous creature. The thought of leaving my darling Merry, and not seeing her for an entire year—or maybe fourth of July if I could save up enough money for a plane ticket—made my stomach twist and ache. So when I stepped off the plane back in New York on December twenty-eighth, I made a decision. And in March, I moved back to Idaho, to my family’s unbridled joy. Not to Pine Valley where I grew up and where my parents and siblings still live; instead I found a job in Riverwoods, thirty minutes away by car. Close to my family, but not too close. So here I am. Back in a place I thought I’d left behind forever when I was young and idealistic—and thought I couldn’t be an artist anywhere else but in a big city—but completely satisfied with my decision. Even if it means having to sneak out during family gatherings to get a few minutes of alone time. It feels…right. As I step into the clearing, I lean back my head and draw a deep breath. I love the crisp smell of the air in winter just before a heavy snowfall, and how I can almost taste the freshness and the looming snow on my tongue. I shiver again and burrow deeper into my scarf as a gust of wind chases between the trees and makes ripples on the otherwise-calm creek. With a happy hum, I walk closer to the water and realize I’m not alone. Someone is standing by the creek, with his back turned to me, wearing only a hoodie that makes me shudder at the thought of how cold he must be. His broad shoulders are slumped, his head hangs, and he radiates the complete opposite of Christmas cheer. “Sorry. I didn’t know someone else was here,” I blurt, and he stiffens when he hears my voice. I grimace, wishing I’d kept my mouth shut and had just turned and left without drawing attention to myself. The guy must be an Eldin—even if I can’t make out which one of them just by looking at his back. Except for my family, the only people ever coming to this clearing are the Eldins, my parents’ neighbors and mortal enemies for over a decade. “Try opening your eyes,” the guy grunts. His harsh tone and the annoyance rolling off him in waves make me wince and step back. “Sorry, sorry. Just needed a moment’s peace and quiet, but I’ll leave you to it. I’m sorry.” With a morose shake to my head, I sigh. The animosity between my family and his is a mystery to me. Something happened the summer when I was fifteen and away at art camp, but I never found out what. When I left, our families were, if not friendly, at least neighborly. When I got back, the relations between the Whipples and the Eldins were frosty enough I was surprised they hadn’t erected an equivalent of the Berlin wall between our two properties. All I ever learned was that my younger brother Dylan had been involved in a fistfight with Dale—the eldest of the Eldin kids—but no one wanted to tell me why. Not even Emily, which is saying a lot considering we’ve always been very close. Best friends. I can guess, of course. My family—even my younger siblings—is ridiculously protective of me and have been ever since that time I was bullied in school and the whole bunch of them rallied around me like a clan of aggressive Mama-Bears. Mom and Dad went on a warpath with the school, and my siblings glared at everyone who dared to look strangely at me. My brother Dylan even punched a kid or two, which resulted in him having to endure lectures about how violence never solves anything, and “We use our words in the Whipple family.” So it had to be something about me, for sure. But since they tend to shield me from anything that can hurt me, they refuse to tell me. But what I don’t understand is how a fistfight between two kids escalated into a full-blown feud between our two families? Whenever I ask them about it, my dad and Dylan clam up and stalk out of the room. By now, I’ve given up even trying to find out what the heck happened. As I start to leave, the guy straightens. “No. Crap. Sorry.” He turns around and I recognize the middle brother, Porter, even though his face is mostly shadowed by the hood. “I didn’t mean to snarl. Hanging out with the old man rubs off on me. Forgive me. Stay. I understand the need for peace and quiet, and there’s room for both of us.” He straightens his shoulders and shoots me a smile, a little weary but genuine enough.