Nobody does Christmas like my loud and boisterous Cooper-Haney family. Our celebrations are chock full of traditions and extravagant food. (We’re full of crap, too, which makes the revelry all that much more fun.)
This is the third year for our newest tradition – a hearty game of Dirty Santa for the Big Kids. With a $10 gift limit and an obnoxiously creative group of dysfunctional adults, the gifts always range from the ridiculous to the sublime...from Dusty’s thrift store hairless baby dolls to Dale’s handcrafted truck testicles:
As fate would have it, my dear sainted Mom was the schmuck who ended up with the gonads. She lifted them out of the brightly decorated Christmas sack and held them aloft with a questioning look on her face. There was a moment of collective silence before I loudly asked, “Okay…who gave Mom a set of nuts?” Nobody fessed up. Nobody had to because my older brother Dale was doubled over with guilty laughter.
He somehow convinced our sweet, trusting Mom that they were homemade ‘nunchucks’ --- a Chinese weapon of destruction. She was clearly intrigued by the idea and began to swing the ‘weapon’ round and round, for practice. We finally had to tell her the truth, out of fear that she would be toting them all over town for protection.
Dale has a special knack for creating Dirty Santa gifts. He was also responsible for this masterpiece…
I have never known anything but a Christmas that was bursting at the seams with family and fun, yet I have never done a single thing to deserve such a bounty of love. Could never do enough to be so deserving.
Sure, our family makes a concerted effort to stay close and will do whatever is required to maintain the ties that bind. But really, doesn’t it mostly come down to just plain ol’ dumb luck of the draw?
I know that Jesus doesn’t love me one bit more than the neighbor down the road with a foreclosure sign in his yard or the abused single mom seeking refuge in a homeless shelter. I will never understand the imbalance of undeserved blessings. I can only stay humble in my gratitude and diligent about paying it forward.
When I was younger I naively believed that everyone’s Christmas was just as fun and blessed as mine. It took a melancholy young lad named Dickie to make me realize just how charmed my Christmases truly are.
I was 14 years old when I shared my first Christmas with Dickie. I couldn’t possibly tell you what gifts we exchanged those forty (seriously?!) years ago. I’ve forgotten the gifts, but I clearly remember the uncharacteristic sadness that overcame him during the holidays. Although he never spoke of it, I knew his Dad had died suddenly of a heart attack when Dickie was only 10 years old. It became a familiar pattern during our dating years, Dickie becoming quiet and withdrawn during Christmas, only to breathe an obvious sigh of relief on December 26th and the return to normalcy.
It was many years later that he shared with me the story of his family’s first Christmas without his Dad.
His Mom was still very much in a state of depression, and Dickie and his brother Jackie were both acutely aware of their bleak financial situation. Even so, his Mom made an effort to acknowledge the holiday with a little aluminum Christmas tree bearing two wrapped packages underneath. As the still-grieving family gathered together Christmas Eve to unwrap their gifts, the 10-year old boy was beyond disappointed to find he had received nothing more than a tacky pair of argyle socks. Although his wish list of possibilities was very short, it had never included the possibility of ugly socks. What he had really wished for was a pair of super spy x-ray glasses.
The forlorn young boy feigned sleepiness to escape and hurried upstairs to his room, wanting nothing more than to put the unbearably sad evening behind him. He turned out his light and crawled into bed, knowing full well it was hopeless to wait up for a Santa that would never come.
As he lay silently staring at the ceiling, he was startled by the sound of heavy footsteps clomping up the stairs, accompanied by a booming “HO HO HO!” He sat straight up in bed as his 15-year old brother burst into his room and turned on the lights.
"HO HO HO! Here’s your Christmas presents little boy!” said Jackie to his younger brother as he threw an old white duffel bag onto the bed.
Dickie scrambled to open up the bag. As he shook out the contents his eyes grew brighter and brighter and his buck-toothed smile grew wider. An army canteen on a belt. A white sailor’s hat.
“But, Jack! This is your best stuff… stuff I’m not supposed to touch.” Dickie said to his beaming brother.
“Nah. I don’t need ‘em anymore. Merry Christmas, brother. I love you.”
Dickie told me that he fell asleep that Christmas Eve with a heart open to the possibility of hope that everything would be okay.
And that was precisely when I fell in love with Jackie Dean Haney. (Actually, he had me at "HO HO HO"...)
The Dickman is now firmly entrenched in our Christmas traditions and plays an integral role. There is no greater anticipation than wondering what gastronomical sensation he will contribute to our yearly dessert contest. Although it’s almost impossible to top his previous wins of Snicker Balls (took forever to chew) and Peanut Butter Pie (took forever to swallow), he always manages to wreck my kitchen while serving up another unforgettable Christmas memory. Unforgettable.
Still, through all the years of craziness and chaos that we call our annual Cooper-Haney Christmas Extravaganza, I occasionally catch Dickie exchanging a brief, knowing glance with his brother Jackie. A silently poignant remembrance of Christmas Past, with a shared appreciation for the Beautiful Mess of Christmas Present.
Which for me, is the crux of Christmas...this brief season of heightened emotions. Those dual threads of sorrow and hope, which weave in and out through our lives, are never more tangible than during the holidays. Sadness for what is lost and an unquenchable hope for what is to come, tightly twisted together much like the brightly striped candy canes of Christmas.
So why is it that instead of slowing down long enough to acknowledge the unnamed yearnings evoked by Christmas, we allow ourselves to be distracted by irrelevant silliness like self-righteous religious posturing and the semantics of political correctness? Why do we allow ourselves to be pulled into the frenzied mass of mace-carrying shoppers furiously swiping maxed out credit cards in overcrowded malls filled with cynically outsourced Santas?
When really, what we should do is simply just...stop. Stop trying so hard to bring on the ‘merry’, and pause long enough to give a respectful nod to the melancholy. I strongly believe we can’t appreciate one without the other. Isn’t hope the only cure for sorrow...isn't giving the very best way to deal with loss?
My understanding of the true meaning of Christmas came with the realization that Santa doesn’t always appear as a fat jolly man in a funny red suit. He might even appear as pimple-faced teen aged boy carrying a duffel bag. And Christmas gifts don’t have to be shiny or new to be the Best Gift Ever.
Haven’t we learned through the years that long after the presents are forgotten, what we hold on to are the memories shared with our loved ones, and the hopeful possibilities of the New Year to come?
This is the third year for our newest tradition – a hearty game of Dirty Santa for the Big Kids. With a $10 gift limit and an obnoxiously creative group of dysfunctional adults, the gifts always range from the ridiculous to the sublime...from Dusty’s thrift store hairless baby dolls to Dale’s handcrafted truck testicles:
As fate would have it, my dear sainted Mom was the schmuck who ended up with the gonads. She lifted them out of the brightly decorated Christmas sack and held them aloft with a questioning look on her face. There was a moment of collective silence before I loudly asked, “Okay…who gave Mom a set of nuts?” Nobody fessed up. Nobody had to because my older brother Dale was doubled over with guilty laughter.
He somehow convinced our sweet, trusting Mom that they were homemade ‘nunchucks’ --- a Chinese weapon of destruction. She was clearly intrigued by the idea and began to swing the ‘weapon’ round and round, for practice. We finally had to tell her the truth, out of fear that she would be toting them all over town for protection.
Dale has a special knack for creating Dirty Santa gifts. He was also responsible for this masterpiece…
I have never known anything but a Christmas that was bursting at the seams with family and fun, yet I have never done a single thing to deserve such a bounty of love. Could never do enough to be so deserving.
Sure, our family makes a concerted effort to stay close and will do whatever is required to maintain the ties that bind. But really, doesn’t it mostly come down to just plain ol’ dumb luck of the draw?
I know that Jesus doesn’t love me one bit more than the neighbor down the road with a foreclosure sign in his yard or the abused single mom seeking refuge in a homeless shelter. I will never understand the imbalance of undeserved blessings. I can only stay humble in my gratitude and diligent about paying it forward.
When I was younger I naively believed that everyone’s Christmas was just as fun and blessed as mine. It took a melancholy young lad named Dickie to make me realize just how charmed my Christmases truly are.
I was 14 years old when I shared my first Christmas with Dickie. I couldn’t possibly tell you what gifts we exchanged those forty (seriously?!) years ago. I’ve forgotten the gifts, but I clearly remember the uncharacteristic sadness that overcame him during the holidays. Although he never spoke of it, I knew his Dad had died suddenly of a heart attack when Dickie was only 10 years old. It became a familiar pattern during our dating years, Dickie becoming quiet and withdrawn during Christmas, only to breathe an obvious sigh of relief on December 26th and the return to normalcy.
It was many years later that he shared with me the story of his family’s first Christmas without his Dad.
His Mom was still very much in a state of depression, and Dickie and his brother Jackie were both acutely aware of their bleak financial situation. Even so, his Mom made an effort to acknowledge the holiday with a little aluminum Christmas tree bearing two wrapped packages underneath. As the still-grieving family gathered together Christmas Eve to unwrap their gifts, the 10-year old boy was beyond disappointed to find he had received nothing more than a tacky pair of argyle socks. Although his wish list of possibilities was very short, it had never included the possibility of ugly socks. What he had really wished for was a pair of super spy x-ray glasses.
The forlorn young boy feigned sleepiness to escape and hurried upstairs to his room, wanting nothing more than to put the unbearably sad evening behind him. He turned out his light and crawled into bed, knowing full well it was hopeless to wait up for a Santa that would never come.
As he lay silently staring at the ceiling, he was startled by the sound of heavy footsteps clomping up the stairs, accompanied by a booming “HO HO HO!” He sat straight up in bed as his 15-year old brother burst into his room and turned on the lights.
"HO HO HO! Here’s your Christmas presents little boy!” said Jackie to his younger brother as he threw an old white duffel bag onto the bed.
Dickie scrambled to open up the bag. As he shook out the contents his eyes grew brighter and brighter and his buck-toothed smile grew wider. An army canteen on a belt. A white sailor’s hat.
“But, Jack! This is your best stuff… stuff I’m not supposed to touch.” Dickie said to his beaming brother.
“Nah. I don’t need ‘em anymore. Merry Christmas, brother. I love you.”
Dickie told me that he fell asleep that Christmas Eve with a heart open to the possibility of hope that everything would be okay.
And that was precisely when I fell in love with Jackie Dean Haney. (Actually, he had me at "HO HO HO"...)
The Dickman is now firmly entrenched in our Christmas traditions and plays an integral role. There is no greater anticipation than wondering what gastronomical sensation he will contribute to our yearly dessert contest. Although it’s almost impossible to top his previous wins of Snicker Balls (took forever to chew) and Peanut Butter Pie (took forever to swallow), he always manages to wreck my kitchen while serving up another unforgettable Christmas memory. Unforgettable.
Still, through all the years of craziness and chaos that we call our annual Cooper-Haney Christmas Extravaganza, I occasionally catch Dickie exchanging a brief, knowing glance with his brother Jackie. A silently poignant remembrance of Christmas Past, with a shared appreciation for the Beautiful Mess of Christmas Present.
Which for me, is the crux of Christmas...this brief season of heightened emotions. Those dual threads of sorrow and hope, which weave in and out through our lives, are never more tangible than during the holidays. Sadness for what is lost and an unquenchable hope for what is to come, tightly twisted together much like the brightly striped candy canes of Christmas.
So why is it that instead of slowing down long enough to acknowledge the unnamed yearnings evoked by Christmas, we allow ourselves to be distracted by irrelevant silliness like self-righteous religious posturing and the semantics of political correctness? Why do we allow ourselves to be pulled into the frenzied mass of mace-carrying shoppers furiously swiping maxed out credit cards in overcrowded malls filled with cynically outsourced Santas?
When really, what we should do is simply just...stop. Stop trying so hard to bring on the ‘merry’, and pause long enough to give a respectful nod to the melancholy. I strongly believe we can’t appreciate one without the other. Isn’t hope the only cure for sorrow...isn't giving the very best way to deal with loss?
My understanding of the true meaning of Christmas came with the realization that Santa doesn’t always appear as a fat jolly man in a funny red suit. He might even appear as pimple-faced teen aged boy carrying a duffel bag. And Christmas gifts don’t have to be shiny or new to be the Best Gift Ever.
Haven’t we learned through the years that long after the presents are forgotten, what we hold on to are the memories shared with our loved ones, and the hopeful possibilities of the New Year to come?
“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet
ice cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so?
It came without ribbons. It came without tags.
It came without packages, boxes or bags.
And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before.
What if Christmas, he thought,
doesn’t come from a store.
What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”
~ Dr. Seuss ~
