Tis the Season

“He was trying to dress for work... in the dark…no lights.”
“Why?”
“So he would not wake me.”
“How sweet.”
“But he was grumbling, ’Bargains! Arghh! Can’t get these darn socks on!
"I said, 'Dave, you’re trying to put on my evening gloves.'”

I recall holiday visits from Uncle Harry and Aunt Gloria. Harry, my mom’s brother, was a government worker who liked to smile, was short of opinions, and suffered his wife’s bitterness about my mom’s suggestion that they consider institutionalizing their Down’s syndrome daughter. They would travel from the Bronx to our large, suburban New Jersey house bringing my mom’s father, who was called Zayda. Zayda’s real name was Peter Herman. A former carny, Zayda specialized in telling jokes to bring in the rubes. When I knew him, he worked in a department store selling wallets and ladies handbags. He still liked to tell jokes even though he never got over my mother having stopped taking care of him when she left his household – despite having lost his wife - to marry my dad. Uncle Dave, my mother’s other brother, and Aunt Doris would arrive from Brooklyn to also share the holiday meal. They were a good-natured, fun-loving couple who taught their two sons to resent their relatively wealthy relatives. Grandpa Joseph Friedlander, my dad’s father, would arrive by himself, having figured out how to take a train from Manhattan. He was a strong, silent, cigar smoker who never forgave his wife for having first taken his sons to live separately and then dying. Despite their family history, we would gather around the dinning room table and, like a scene from Annie Hall, the conversation rollicked. Jokes, stories, remembrances, and family misadventures flowed with the Manischewitz wine. Offenses, hurts, and hard feelings were put aside during those raucous meals while they related to each other as they had while growing up during the Great Depression. In those growing up years, their survival depended on caring for each other.

I’ll admit the big-screen TV is great. The latest video games and gadgets are cool. However, the chance to put those aside, along with an entire year’s worth of self-righteous anger, for a few hours of enjoyment with family and friends are what we remember about the holidays.