Merry Christmas!

Trafton B.

December 25, 2010 - 2:57 PM

Merry Christmas. Happy Chanukah. Happy Kwanzaa. Happy Ramadan. And for the other world holidays being celebrated throughout the month of December.....Happy [insert holiday title here]!

Don't worry, I'm not about to give you a middle school report on world holidays although I could try to recreate my 6th grade presentation on Boxing Day if you'd like. It's just that have no clue who is reading this blog so it would feel irresponsible to limit my audience to only those who celebrate Christmas. Regardless, I'd like to give you all a quick recap of the past week, which was full of holiday cheer.

The festivities began on Sunday night with the annual carol singing party at the Gray's house. Every year our same group of six families, which I affectionately refer to as our family of friends, meets on the Sunday before Christmas for dinner and caroling. No, we don't walk around the streets of San Mateo, we're much too kind to impose our painful disharmonies on strangers. Instead we ate a nice meal, still separated into a kids' table and an adults' table, and sang our favorite Christmas songs together from "Oh, Holy Night" to the Springsteen version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." It's always a fun evening to look forward to having and being over. Seriously, we're awful singers.

Tuesday night the Wagstaffe and Bean Families were in the city for Steve Silver's Beach Blanket Babylon, which is described as "San Francisco's zany, musical spoof of pop culture with extravagant costumes and outrageously huge hats." It's sort of like a classy, real-life theater version of South Park for those in my generation than understand the reference. I feel guilty making that comparison because Beach Blanket Babylon is infinitely more elegant that South Park ever could be, but it's similar in that the script and characters evolve based on current events. Tuesday night we heard songs a spoof songs by Barack & Michelle Obama and Jonas Brothers, and there were references to things like Tiger's divorce and the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." The grand finale is known worldwide thanks to the show's enormous hats, some of which are thirty feet tall, full of twinkling lights, San Francisco buildings and running models of cable cars.

On Wednesday we moved the party to the Wagstaffe house to make gingerbread houses. Gingerbread house is really is misnomer considering that we use graham crackers and very few of us actually make houses. Designs this year included a Zen garden, a Smart Car, pueblo village, house on stilts, the Alaskan Iditarod and more. Matt, who works as a model maker for an architecture firm in the city, attempted to make a house on a hill, which involved making a topographic model of a hillside with graham crackers. He wasn't able to finish on Wednesday night, but it usually takes him a day or two for his overly elaborate ideas to come to fruition. I wonder how he did. This year we had twelve designs, which we hope to make into a calendar. I'll let you know how that goes too.

Thursday night was the McCaffery's Holiday Party where we catch up with our old friends from elementary school. It's always a mystery as to what will happen at the McCaffery's party. Who's going to show up this year? Who's graduated? Who's found a job? Who's still living with their parents? It's you're average cheerful yet cutthroat holiday get together. Then most of us, parents and kids alike, wake up the next morning wishing there wasn't an open bar.

Last night my family shared a delightfully low-key Christmas Eve. Most of it was spent wrapping gifts and preparing for tonight's dinner. We had chicken noodle soup in front of the television and went out to the movie theaters to see "True Grit," which by the way was fantastic! If you're a Coen Brother fan then you must see it.

On Christmas Morning my mother, bless her heart, woke up at the crack of dawn to start making her signature cinnamon rolls, which were then delivered by her "elves" - i.e. my sister and me - to some family friends. Usually it takes us about an hour to deliver rolls to three or four families, but this year's rounds took twice as long because two of the three houses hadn't even woken up yet! At 10 AM! Doesn't any know it's Christmas Morning!!

Earlier today my family exchanged presents and immediately broke for mid-afternoon naps. Now we're preparing for one more dinner with the Wagstaffe Family as reruns of the 2010 Giants World Championship Parade play in the background. We'll also exchange gifts one last time for Soba Santa, which is no different from Secret Santa aside from the name. It's a long story, but we named our father Soba Santa because about three years ago he forgot to buy any presents, classic right? So on Christmas Eve he ran to the Japanese Supermarket close to his office building and bought a Sapporo beer for my mother, a "Sumo Chef" apron for myself, and a package of uncooked soba noodles for my sister. Henceforth Soba Santa was born and he has yet to live it down.

Once again, Merry [insert preferred holiday title here] and Happy New Years!