Home for the Holidays

November 13, 2021

I put my Christmas tree up last weekend. Something about covid has compelled me to put it up early over the last couple of years. It’s only about 4 feet tall, and takes less than ten minutes to decorate with my puny collection of ornaments with two main themes: 1) Kentucky and 2) Harry Potter. I have my little Maudie ornament that my mom bought me and the Swiss Cake Roll ornament that Santa left in my stocking at my sister’s house last year, and a Mario ornament I bought at Target. And that’s about it. I hung Maudie’s stocking by the tv with little care, and plugged in my Spiced Apple Toddy wallflower plug-in from Bath and Body Works and TA-DA, it’s Christmas.

Now, the masses will tell me that I’m not giving Thanksgiving the due diligence it deserves, and that I’m running full speed toward the most commercially-driven holiday of the entire year. Honestly, if it were socially acceptable to celebrate Toyota-thon in any meaningful way, I’d be doing that. Since it’s not, I’ll go ahead and do Christmas. On Thanksgiving, I’ll wake up early in Kentucky and drive to Cowboys gas station to pick up two Ale-8s and two Courier Journals. Then I’ll delight my sister for hours with my wonderful sense of humor while she cooks Thanksgiving lunch and I look through the Black Friday ads. We’ll game plan our shopping trip – prioritizing our Angel children that we shop for every year. We’ll eat and eat and eat, then sleep it off until we wake up at early-o-clock to hit the road in my sister’s sleigh (ok, it’s a Yukon with heated seats). We’ll shop and marvel about how far we can make $200 go for each of our angels, get in our annual Black Friday argument, make up, and then head home. Holidays in America, baby.

I remember watching my aunts go through the Black Friday song and dance when I was a kid. Some subset of the family – usually Dad, Sam and I would make the drive to Bath County for Thanksgiving at Mamaw Jo’s (my dad’s mom) house. We would arrive early to see Mamaw and a couple of my aunts in the kitchen, and then slowly watch the masses arrive. My dad is one of ten siblings, so once you factor in all the wives, husbands, and kids (and kid’s spouses and kids), the crowd grows exponentially. People were always fussing over seats – you’d be warm and cozy in the chair near the wood stove, but make the mistake of moseying back to the kitchen for more mashed potatoes, and someone would jump in your spot. All of my uncles would be antagonizing the kids in the living room – one year, they called my cousin Hunter “Milton” instead of his real name for the entire day, just to watch him get spun up and frustrated. And at some point in the day, one of my aunts would come in with a stack of newspapers and pass them around, and there they would sit at the kitchen table with their ink pens, making their attack plans. As for me, you could usually find me in the corner drinking an Ale-8 (or 7). Thanksgiving is so quiet now – we only have two kids to antagonize (and let’s face it, it’s usually them antagonizing me instead of the other way around). But I like that my sister and I are keeping the tradition alive and gather around the table to cut out and mark the deals we want to go after.

I would give anything to go back and relive a Thanksgiving at my Mamaw Jo’s house. I can still smell it – the smell of the old house, the smell of the turkey, the smell of the wood stove. The holidays always make me think about my Mamaw. She’s been gone since 2008 – she died in early December. I remember going to her house to see my Papaw before her visitation and I looked in the freezer and saw that she already had her turkey for Christmas dinner. It’s such an odd detail to remember, but it just seems to be the perfect symbol for the woman she was – always thinking about other people, trying to make sure we are all taken care of. She was already getting ready for Christmas with her family, because it was so important to her – it was so important for us all to have a nice meal and be together, and she worked herself to death every year to make it happen. I’ve cooked Friends-giving dinner before for about 10 people, and I was so exhausted when the last guest left my apartment. I felt like I was shopping, cleaning, and cooking for days leading up to the event. I think about all she had to do to get ready for the Crouch masses, and even with the help she got from my aunts, I still don’t know how she did it. And every year she did this for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I know that most moms do this – they go above and beyond for their families, especially during the holidays. I saw it in my own wonderful mom, and I see it now in my sister. In fact, my sister has a lot of my Mamaw Jo’s most wonderful traits. She’s always working her tail off to make things special for her kids – planning birthday parties, trying to make Christmas magical – just thinking about all the work she puts into moving the damn elf on the shelf every night for three weeks makes me want to take a long winter’s nap. She’s such a good mom – probably similar to the type of mom Mamaw Jo would have been if she had been born in this generation. I know things were different for her. Money was less abundant, there were more mouths to feed, times were harder. My dad once told me a story about a little wagon he and some of his brothers got to share for Christmas. But I can imagine that giving them that wagon really meant something to my Mamaw and Papaw and sometimes wonder if they had to move mountains to make things like that happen.

I wish I knew more about her and her life. I wish I had been old enough (or maybe just thoughtful enough) when she was alive to really sit down with her and hear her stories. I wish I knew more about her personality – beyond the loving, sacrificing mom and grandmother personality that I saw. Was she funny? Did she worry as much as I do? Did she like to read? Did she have a bucket list? Are these silly questions? Was she such a truly selfless and outwardly focused lady that these thoughts never entered her mind? Maybe so. I have so much respect for the version of her that I got to see. I often wonder if I’m like her at all. I know my life is a complete 180 from the one she lived. She got married young and started raising her family, and spent her life in rural Kentucky. But am I like her at all? I really strive to be. I try to give to the people around me and work hard for my loved ones. I don’t know that my efforts hold a candle to her (or my sister, or my mom and dad). I’m not a religious person, so I don’t really believe that she’s somewhere looking down on me while I walk this life. But I still catch myself wondering how she would feel if she were looking down. I wonder if she would be proud of me, or maybe even confused or disappointed in the relatively selfish lifestyle I’ve found myself in. I’ll never know the answer to this.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to loading up my car with clothes and a dog to head to Kentucky for the holidays in a couple of weeks. Let’s not forget, it’s my month of gratefulness. I’m grateful that I have too many wonderful holiday memories to fit into these paragraphs – including the equally impactful but unmentioned people on my mom’s side of the family. I’m grateful for the memories I have. I’m grateful for the memories that we will make this year. I’m grateful that I have the means and time off to go home for the holidays. I’m grateful for my puppy who keeps me from being lonely in this season in the meantime, and that we get to spend our first holiday season in our home. I’m grateful for the example that Mamaw Jo, my mom and sister set for me – the example of selflessness, and how strength looks different for different people. I’m grateful for me and for the fact that I try to live up to that example, no matter how many times I screw it up and fall short. I’m grateful. And even though my tree is up already, and the Christmas music is playing in my car, I’m not losing sight of Thanksgiving – after all, I have a lot to be thankful for.