Some people say that when two families become one it is a beautiful thing, generally this is the kind of person who collects figurines of kittens and angels and babies sleeping in cabbage patches. I strongly disagree: All families have their own Christmas traditions and when two families merge their holiday traditions, there is inevitably conflict. To this day I cringe with embarrassment when I remember the first Christmas I spent with my partner’s family.
It’s all a matter of tradition. In my huge family we draw names for a gift exchange: we cap each gift at $25, and each person gets to open exactly one present. This system allows us to open the gifts rapidly so we can get to what is always our priority: Eating. On Christmas Eve, as staunch Italians, we always have fish for dinner, and then at midnight we serve the roast pork. Next comes homemade cannoli and biscotti.
Not so in my partner’s reserved and restrained family of New England WASPs. To start, his family consists of just his parents and one, unmarried brother: no cousins, in-laws, nieces or nephews. His mother’s house is decorated with all the charm of a Puritan jail: there is a wreath on the front door and a tiny, fake tree on an end table. Their traditional Christmas dinner comes from Boston Market.
Unfortunately, my partner neglected to tell me that because there are so few of them, their habit is to buy each other literally dozens of small gifts, which they call “stocking stuffers” and I call “cheap Christmas trash.” I did not realize that this was their tradition until Christmas Day, when I went downstairs and saw piles and piles of wrapped presents. “Who else is coming?” I asked my partner. “Just us,” he said happily, “we like to open lots of presents.” I was immediately at a disadvantage; I had come from Florida with exactly three gifts: a beautiful crystal bowl for his mom and shirts for his father and brother.
After breakfast it was time to open the gifts. The first thing I unwrapped from his parents was a potholder. This was followed by a pepper mill, a set of serving spoons and a frying pan. Subsequent gifts included a potato peeler, a vegetable steamer, a cookie sheet, a cheese knife and, mystifyingly, a hairbrush.
Meanwhile my partner was opening his gifts, which included a set of screwdrivers and a pair of pliers. He then received a flashlight, an electric drill, a tape measure, some anchor bolts, a hammer and some sandpaper. His last gift was a blow dryer.
I was trying desperately not to read some deeper meaning into these gifts, but I could not help but think that while I cooked dinner and he remodeled the house our hair would look great.
I handed my partner’s mother the one gift I had brought her from Florida, explaining that in my family we just buy one gift per person. His mother and father exchanged glances, as though their most dire expectations had come true. His mother unwrapped the crystal bowl and set it on the coffee table, where everyone looked at it as though expecting it to perform tricks. “How nice,” she said.
In a kind of stupor I watched as his mother took the bowl into the kitchen, filled it with cat food and put it on the floor. “How nice,” echoed his father. “Real nice,” said his brother.
An awkward silence persisted until dinnertime, when, with unaccustomed enthusiasm, I offered to go to Boston Market and buy dinner for the family. “It’s my gift to you all,” I said wildly. My partner’s mother beamed: “Get lots of stuffing,” she said. “It’s a tradition!”
“How nice,” I said, and escaping into the cold New England night, I drove to Boston.