1. Eggnog
The only morning I have ever looked forward to getting up early for has been Christmas morning. Even now, the enthusiasm I had for this special morning has faded, but when I was ten years old, it was one of the most important mornings for my family. Still hyped-up on excitement and sugar cookies from Christmas Eve, I was always the first one awake at 6 am, waking my big brother and my parents up because, “It’s Christmas, it’s Christmas!” We all clambered out into the living room sharply dressed in our matching red snowflake pajamas where our real-life tree in all of its glory waited for us. Its lights and ornaments sparkled technicolored in the dawn of the morning, and our light-up angel topped the tree. I separated the presents into four separate piles—one for each of us—while my family rubbed the sleep from their eyes. Mom and my brother sat together on the couch my dad had picked out that my mom hated, while my dad took his place in the recliner. I sat on the floor with my dog next to the fireplace where I had set Santa’s milk and cookies the night before.
Santa Claus had eaten three of the four sugar cookies we’d put out for him and taken a large bite out of the fourth, and the glass of cold milk was empty. Outside, the reindeer food I’d made in school from granola, pretzel sticks, and M&M’s was scattered all around the backyard—a sign that the reindeer were sloppy eaters. My brother’s motion sensor that he had gotten in a spy kit the Christmas previous sat on the hearth—his poor attempt to prove to me that Santa wasn’t real. Dad told me he had gotten up in the middle of the night to turn the beeping motion sensor off after Santa dropped off the presents. My parents were determined to keep me believing in Santa Claus for as long as possible.
Dad had started a fire in the fireplace after he had fully woken up, making the morning all the more cozy. Mom was trying to smooth down my brother’s red hair that was sticking up in different directions, and my brother was swatting away her helping hand while pushing up the glasses that kept sliding down his nose. We went around, taking turns to open our presents. I bounced up and down with impatience. My turn always seemed to go so much faster than my brother’s. Maybe because he liked to carefully remove the wrapping paper instead of rip it off in shreds, something he continues to do to this day. Finally, every present had been opened.
Mom poured us each a glass of eggnog—nonalcoholic, of course—from a carton from the fridge while Dad got out his tools to attempt to free my Barbie doll from its plastic prison. Mom’s long brown hair was pulled up into a hasty ponytail to keep her hair out of her face. She handed us each a glass of eggnog in a small glass, despite our complaints. My brother and I didn’t want eggnog—we’ve never liked the taste and continue to avoid the holiday beverage as young adults. But Mom made us each take at least a sip because it was Christmas, so we obliged. We each took turns trying to see how small of a sip we could take, emphatically gagging afterwards at the taste. Mom and Dad drank coffee because they were the Grown-Ups, and the smell of the cream and sugar mixed with the smell of sugar cookies and cinnamon rolls permeated the room.
Mom and Dad sat together on the dark blue couch Mom hated and watched my brother and me play with our new toys. They were still happy, then, or at least they were better at hiding their marital problems for the sake of me and my brother. Mom wore her soft white robe over her pajamas and protected her feet with her slippers, and my dad wore his pajamas and house shoes. The morning slipped by, and I was submerged in my own world playing with my Barbies. After a small lunch that wouldn’t spoil our appetite for dinner, we piled in Dad’s car and went to the mall, still dressed in our pajamas. We looked at the available movies and picked our Christmas movie—every year we went to see a different movie that had come out in Christmas week. It was my favorite tradition. After enjoying the movie, we headed home to drink hot chocolate and eat cookies shaped like trees and candy canes.
2. Coffee
We were still figuring out how to do major holidays for a year or two after my parents’ divorce. Christmas was important to us as a family, so my mom and dad tried to keep things relatively the same even though my dad was living in an apartment instead of with us. When I was thirteen, we had decided that my dad would spend the night before Christmas at our house and sleep on the couch—we hadn’t gotten rid of it yet because my brother loved it; it eventually made its way to college with us years later. We still opened our matching pajamas on Christmas Eve so that we could all match, this year choosing green trees. My brother didn’t want to match—he was fifteen and too cool for us—and my dad didn’t like the shirts that came with it, so we looked a bit more eclectic.
Dad was up before us that year, already making coffee when I scampered out of my room, sliding on the kitchen tiles in my fuzzy socks. I poured myself a cup of the Grown-Up bitter tasting liquid into one of my mom’s national park coffee mugs, grimacing because of the taste but doing my best to pretend I liked it. At the time, I couldn’t fathom why people would crave coffee, although I would discover the appeal when I went to college. Before too long, the whole family was up, and we were in the living room like always, doling out presents and unwrapping them. My brother got a book on homemade science experiments, and I got a huge dollhouse that was as tall as me—as a thirteen year old who hadn’t yet hit her growth spurt yet.
That year, Arthur Christmas had come out. It was a movie about the younger son of Santa Claus and how he had to save Christmas. I had been wanting to see it, so I begged and pleaded with my big brother to let us go. He eventually gave in, probably to make me shut up. I didn’t want to go to the mall in my matching pajamas this year, though. I was just a teenager, my face was breaking out, I was one of the only girls in my class who hadn’t started wearing real bras yet, and I hated my glasses. I wasn’t going to add goofy Christmas pajamas that matched my parents on top of all that. So, instead, we all decided to wear “real people” clothes rather than our pajamas to the theater.
After the movie, instead of us all going home together as a family, my dad dropped us off at our house before driving across town to his apartment. My brother and I tried to enjoy our new toys while my mom napped, but something seemed off. Christmas was just different than it used to be. And I wasn’t sure I liked it anymore.
3. Mimosas
My enthusiasm for Christmas morning continued to wear off as I got older. I was still excited, but I was definitely a lot less eager to get up at the crack of dawn as an 18-year-old. My brother and I were home with Mom from college for Christmas break. She was up before us and was sitting at the computer in the kitchen and drinking hot coffee. I walked out of my room—now it was my turn to try to rub the sleep from my eyes. Mom looked up as I entered the kitchen, smiling at me. “Merry Christmas, baby.” She and I matched in our gray snowmen pajamas—my brother stopped wearing them when he hit puberty, and we had stopped getting Dad matching pajamas a few years previous, so it was just me and Mom keeping one of my favorite childhood memories alive. She wore her white robe, now rough and tattered with age and use, and her slippers were worn; her reading glasses she had started to need in the past few years were perched on the bridge of her nose. I, too, wore my slippers that matched hers.
She offered me coffee, but I refused, although I had grown to love the caffeinated drink with cream and sugar.
“My throat hurts,” was my excuse. My brother was still sleeping, and my dad wasn’t due to come over until closer to noon, so Mom gave me a smile that felt like a secret and went to the cabinet that housed her liquor. She pulled out a tiny bottle of champagne and told me to get the orange juice out of the fridge. Then she mixed the two drinks together in a tall Christmas mug decorated with candy canes and snowflakes, making sure to offset the alcohol with the orange juice.
“What’s this?” I asked her.
“It’s a mimosa. For your throat,” she said, kissing my forehead. “Don’t tell your brother.”
We moved to the living room, Mom with her coffee and I with my mimosa. I was finally a Grown-Up, or at least well on my way, although Mom was still trying to ease me into the real world. We cozied up under a fleece blanket that was covered with dog hair along with our dogs on our blue couch and turned on the television, making sure the volume was turned down so we wouldn’t disturb my slumbering brother. There weren’t any sprinkle-covered sugar cookies or an empty milk glass on the hearth; instead, the cookies were on a plate shaped like Santa in the kitchen. The brightly wrapped presents sat in the corner under our tree—still a real life tree, still decorated by the ornaments collected over the years, although we had lost the angel topper at some point in the move to our new house a couple years before; instead, we topped the tree with a star. This year I wasn’t in a hurry to pass out the presents and rip them open. I was content to sit on the couch with my mom and savor every last sip of my mimosa.
After a couple of hours, my brother woke up and ventured out into the living room to join us. Dad showed up about an hour later, his arrival sending our dogs into a frenzy at the unfamiliar car. He wore an old t-shirt and sweats, and had brought us festively flavored coffee from Starbucks. My brother took one to be polite, but he never finished it. I took the peppermint flavored one, although I preferred to drink my mimosa.
I separated the presents out among the four of us like I had done when I was a child, and then we took turns unwrapping them. My brother still uncovered his presents with a careful precision, but it no longer bothered me. I opened a book about the humans of New York that my mom had gotten me, and Mom and Dad sat on separate chairs—my mom on the couch and my dad on the loveseat. We looked up the movies online to see if any jumped out at us, but we couldn’t agree on a movie we would all enjoy. Dad went to his home, and we all made an empty promise that we would reschedule our Christmas movie, although we never did. My brother retreated to his room to beat his new videogame. Mom made us each another mimosa, and we sat on the couch together in our snowmen pajamas. This was our new normal. I looked at my mom reading my new book and smiled.
The only morning I have ever looked forward to getting up early for has been Christmas morning. Even now, the enthusiasm I had for this special morning has faded, but when I was ten years old, it was one of the most important mornings for my family. Still hyped-up on excitement and sugar cookies from Christmas Eve, I was always the first one awake at 6 am, waking my big brother and my parents up because, “It’s Christmas, it’s Christmas!” We all clambered out into the living room sharply dressed in our matching red snowflake pajamas where our real-life tree in all of its glory waited for us. Its lights and ornaments sparkled technicolored in the dawn of the morning, and our light-up angel topped the tree. I separated the presents into four separate piles—one for each of us—while my family rubbed the sleep from their eyes. Mom and my brother sat together on the couch my dad had picked out that my mom hated, while my dad took his place in the recliner. I sat on the floor with my dog next to the fireplace where I had set Santa’s milk and cookies the night before.
Santa Claus had eaten three of the four sugar cookies we’d put out for him and taken a large bite out of the fourth, and the glass of cold milk was empty. Outside, the reindeer food I’d made in school from granola, pretzel sticks, and M&M’s was scattered all around the backyard—a sign that the reindeer were sloppy eaters. My brother’s motion sensor that he had gotten in a spy kit the Christmas previous sat on the hearth—his poor attempt to prove to me that Santa wasn’t real. Dad told me he had gotten up in the middle of the night to turn the beeping motion sensor off after Santa dropped off the presents. My parents were determined to keep me believing in Santa Claus for as long as possible.
Dad had started a fire in the fireplace after he had fully woken up, making the morning all the more cozy. Mom was trying to smooth down my brother’s red hair that was sticking up in different directions, and my brother was swatting away her helping hand while pushing up the glasses that kept sliding down his nose. We went around, taking turns to open our presents. I bounced up and down with impatience. My turn always seemed to go so much faster than my brother’s. Maybe because he liked to carefully remove the wrapping paper instead of rip it off in shreds, something he continues to do to this day. Finally, every present had been opened.
Mom poured us each a glass of eggnog—nonalcoholic, of course—from a carton from the fridge while Dad got out his tools to attempt to free my Barbie doll from its plastic prison. Mom’s long brown hair was pulled up into a hasty ponytail to keep her hair out of her face. She handed us each a glass of eggnog in a small glass, despite our complaints. My brother and I didn’t want eggnog—we’ve never liked the taste and continue to avoid the holiday beverage as young adults. But Mom made us each take at least a sip because it was Christmas, so we obliged. We each took turns trying to see how small of a sip we could take, emphatically gagging afterwards at the taste. Mom and Dad drank coffee because they were the Grown-Ups, and the smell of the cream and sugar mixed with the smell of sugar cookies and cinnamon rolls permeated the room.
Mom and Dad sat together on the dark blue couch Mom hated and watched my brother and me play with our new toys. They were still happy, then, or at least they were better at hiding their marital problems for the sake of me and my brother. Mom wore her soft white robe over her pajamas and protected her feet with her slippers, and my dad wore his pajamas and house shoes. The morning slipped by, and I was submerged in my own world playing with my Barbies. After a small lunch that wouldn’t spoil our appetite for dinner, we piled in Dad’s car and went to the mall, still dressed in our pajamas. We looked at the available movies and picked our Christmas movie—every year we went to see a different movie that had come out in Christmas week. It was my favorite tradition. After enjoying the movie, we headed home to drink hot chocolate and eat cookies shaped like trees and candy canes.
2. Coffee
We were still figuring out how to do major holidays for a year or two after my parents’ divorce. Christmas was important to us as a family, so my mom and dad tried to keep things relatively the same even though my dad was living in an apartment instead of with us. When I was thirteen, we had decided that my dad would spend the night before Christmas at our house and sleep on the couch—we hadn’t gotten rid of it yet because my brother loved it; it eventually made its way to college with us years later. We still opened our matching pajamas on Christmas Eve so that we could all match, this year choosing green trees. My brother didn’t want to match—he was fifteen and too cool for us—and my dad didn’t like the shirts that came with it, so we looked a bit more eclectic.
Dad was up before us that year, already making coffee when I scampered out of my room, sliding on the kitchen tiles in my fuzzy socks. I poured myself a cup of the Grown-Up bitter tasting liquid into one of my mom’s national park coffee mugs, grimacing because of the taste but doing my best to pretend I liked it. At the time, I couldn’t fathom why people would crave coffee, although I would discover the appeal when I went to college. Before too long, the whole family was up, and we were in the living room like always, doling out presents and unwrapping them. My brother got a book on homemade science experiments, and I got a huge dollhouse that was as tall as me—as a thirteen year old who hadn’t yet hit her growth spurt yet.
That year, Arthur Christmas had come out. It was a movie about the younger son of Santa Claus and how he had to save Christmas. I had been wanting to see it, so I begged and pleaded with my big brother to let us go. He eventually gave in, probably to make me shut up. I didn’t want to go to the mall in my matching pajamas this year, though. I was just a teenager, my face was breaking out, I was one of the only girls in my class who hadn’t started wearing real bras yet, and I hated my glasses. I wasn’t going to add goofy Christmas pajamas that matched my parents on top of all that. So, instead, we all decided to wear “real people” clothes rather than our pajamas to the theater.
After the movie, instead of us all going home together as a family, my dad dropped us off at our house before driving across town to his apartment. My brother and I tried to enjoy our new toys while my mom napped, but something seemed off. Christmas was just different than it used to be. And I wasn’t sure I liked it anymore.
3. Mimosas
My enthusiasm for Christmas morning continued to wear off as I got older. I was still excited, but I was definitely a lot less eager to get up at the crack of dawn as an 18-year-old. My brother and I were home with Mom from college for Christmas break. She was up before us and was sitting at the computer in the kitchen and drinking hot coffee. I walked out of my room—now it was my turn to try to rub the sleep from my eyes. Mom looked up as I entered the kitchen, smiling at me. “Merry Christmas, baby.” She and I matched in our gray snowmen pajamas—my brother stopped wearing them when he hit puberty, and we had stopped getting Dad matching pajamas a few years previous, so it was just me and Mom keeping one of my favorite childhood memories alive. She wore her white robe, now rough and tattered with age and use, and her slippers were worn; her reading glasses she had started to need in the past few years were perched on the bridge of her nose. I, too, wore my slippers that matched hers.
She offered me coffee, but I refused, although I had grown to love the caffeinated drink with cream and sugar.
“My throat hurts,” was my excuse. My brother was still sleeping, and my dad wasn’t due to come over until closer to noon, so Mom gave me a smile that felt like a secret and went to the cabinet that housed her liquor. She pulled out a tiny bottle of champagne and told me to get the orange juice out of the fridge. Then she mixed the two drinks together in a tall Christmas mug decorated with candy canes and snowflakes, making sure to offset the alcohol with the orange juice.
“What’s this?” I asked her.
“It’s a mimosa. For your throat,” she said, kissing my forehead. “Don’t tell your brother.”
We moved to the living room, Mom with her coffee and I with my mimosa. I was finally a Grown-Up, or at least well on my way, although Mom was still trying to ease me into the real world. We cozied up under a fleece blanket that was covered with dog hair along with our dogs on our blue couch and turned on the television, making sure the volume was turned down so we wouldn’t disturb my slumbering brother. There weren’t any sprinkle-covered sugar cookies or an empty milk glass on the hearth; instead, the cookies were on a plate shaped like Santa in the kitchen. The brightly wrapped presents sat in the corner under our tree—still a real life tree, still decorated by the ornaments collected over the years, although we had lost the angel topper at some point in the move to our new house a couple years before; instead, we topped the tree with a star. This year I wasn’t in a hurry to pass out the presents and rip them open. I was content to sit on the couch with my mom and savor every last sip of my mimosa.
After a couple of hours, my brother woke up and ventured out into the living room to join us. Dad showed up about an hour later, his arrival sending our dogs into a frenzy at the unfamiliar car. He wore an old t-shirt and sweats, and had brought us festively flavored coffee from Starbucks. My brother took one to be polite, but he never finished it. I took the peppermint flavored one, although I preferred to drink my mimosa.
I separated the presents out among the four of us like I had done when I was a child, and then we took turns unwrapping them. My brother still uncovered his presents with a careful precision, but it no longer bothered me. I opened a book about the humans of New York that my mom had gotten me, and Mom and Dad sat on separate chairs—my mom on the couch and my dad on the loveseat. We looked up the movies online to see if any jumped out at us, but we couldn’t agree on a movie we would all enjoy. Dad went to his home, and we all made an empty promise that we would reschedule our Christmas movie, although we never did. My brother retreated to his room to beat his new videogame. Mom made us each another mimosa, and we sat on the couch together in our snowmen pajamas. This was our new normal. I looked at my mom reading my new book and smiled.
