Serbian Christmas, Deconstructed

On Tuesday, January 7, to the delight of some and dismay of others, the full, half- and quarter- breed (slivers of Serbs, or SOSs) descendants of Serbian immigrants to Amador County celebrated the other Christmas Day, complete with shotgun (blanks) announcements of the impending arrival at local Serbian “open house” parties, singing, the sipping of refined Serbian beverages, and for some, church.

Personally, I had a short run of about six years when I accompanied my elderly great aunt (Tete), a Total Serb (TS), to Christmas Eve service during the last several years of her life. My Tete’s sister, my Baba (grandmother), on the other hand, had no use for church. I never bothered to find out why. Personally, I suspect it was like a few other things in her life, from her pot roast to her lemon pies to her 62-year marriage to my Djedo: we didn’t always understand how things worked; they just did.

On Serbian Christmas, if you were anywhere in the vicinity of North Main and downtown Jackson in the early afternoon, you likely saw a long line of cars snaking along, stopping every so often to blast off a few black powder blanks. Of course, blanks can hurt people too, which is why you may have heard someone yelling, “Cesti ti Bozic!” which is Serbian for, “Knock it off you crazy Serb!”

After a few stops that usually serve to both entertain and annoy passers-by, the procession came to a rest at a handful (okay, two) of open houses parties hosted by local SOSs, for local and visiting Serbs, plus a whole lot of Serbian wanna-bes who are looking for any excuse to skip work. On the doorsteps of these homes was a spattering of coins, left during the night by the local Serbian Santa, promoting a long-standing Serbian tradition of giving, and thievery.

I was lucky enough to be born to the son of a TS, and my quarter-Serb status gained my entry to some of these open house parties, back when my grandparents and their friends were still in their swinging 50s, and I was a mere teenager. I picked up on the fact that the old folks could still rock it. I may have also picked up a screwdriver now and then, but who’s carding? Turns out, nobody was back then.

The shooting rituals that take place can be traced back to the old country, when one household would shoot off guns, alerting another household, on the next hillside, that they were either ready to receive guests, or offing their cousin for stealing the Yule Log. Of course, now we have cell phones to do this job, but how fun is that? Bottom line, neighbors of Serbs are among the most patient and forgiving people in the world.

For the record, I don’t own a gun, but on Serb Christmas I’ve got no problem borrowing one and shooting a few blanks. Who doesn’t? (Well, a few people I know, including my husband, but he gives me a long leash on Serb Christmas. As evidenced a few years ago when he politely suggested that perhaps it wasn’t exactly on his list of favorite things to look across the room and see the arm of a slobbering SOS (or was that an SOB?) draped across my shoulders like a blanket. It was harmless, I assure you, until an hour later when the same SOB accidentally caught my son’s cheekbone with his fist during a little three-teenage-boys-on-one-grown-man wrestling match.) Yes, Serbian Christmas is just one of those magical times when it makes sense to let it all hang out. Or, it makes no sense at all, but people still do. With a little help from Brother Slivo, one (liquid) shot at a time, grievances can be aired, repaired or deepened; if it’s the latter, just remember that it isn’t a knife fight you’re going to.

The point is this: The cultural traditions that we kids and grandkids of Total Serbs choose to partake in mean something to us. They connect us to another dimension of our loved ones—their long gone, but not forgotten big personalities— which often matched their big Serb feet. Even the quieter among them may have blossomed on that one day a year. I’ve seen the grainy reel-to-reel films, in which faithful, churchgoing Total Serbs of yore could occasionally be seen with a hand on the wrong -ich’s butt at the last house party of the evening, or within the hallowed walls of the old Wells Fargo Club. The cultural traditions, cherry-picked as they may be, remind us that one day a year, we are one, be it TS, SOS or even SOB.

In fact, I suspect that some of the Total Serbs that we SOSs were raised by and among may have over-indulged in the midnight coin-throwing, gun-toting rituals they witnessed as children for the same reason we do—because it makes us feel closer to our own, long-dead loved ones. We don’t all go to church on Serbian Christmas, but that makes us no less Serbian (and for most you can’t be any less), and no less connected to our ancestors. There’s nothing new about a flock whose members aren’t always headed in the same direction. Sometimes they even bump into each other and fall down.

I guess it’s finally time to take down those decorations, but not before a final “Cesti ti Bozic” (Merry Christmas) and a song from the Serbs who know the words to the traditional Serbian song thanking the host of an open house party. My husband, who was there in spirit, caught up to us later when he got off work.

Merry Xmasochism

Every year, about this time, I get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Just hearing the words, “Christmas list” makes my skin crawl. With four kids to shop for, things can get a little dicey, and by dicey, I mean brimming with self-inflicted pain. The first hurdle is deciding on our per-kid budget; this number serves as both a shining beacon and a source of intense disagreement, not to mention a fair amount of makeup sex.

Once we have the per-kid budget set, we pencil in the budget of the relatives who prefer to give us money to do the shopping for them. This assures two things: The children get everything they want, and we get migraines. The internal conflict results from the double-edged sword nature of this arrangement. We’re very lucky to have generous relatives. So what if we do the shopping for them? Easy, right? After all, they do so much for us, all year long. At least, that’s what I say every year when they hand me the money. Then, on December 24, at around second-bottle o’clock, I change my tune. That’s the time when we pull out our tattered list of gifts and gift-givers, which by now looks like a Cowboys defense, littered with numbers and arrows and cross-outs, and begin our final tally of who is getting what from whom. This usually takes place in our custom-designed wrap room (closet), where I’m sitting on the floor, in my pajamas, sobbing. Just kidding. I don’t wear pajamas.

“This is the last year I’m going to do this! Why do I agree to this? Why can’t I just say NO!”

“Because the kids get lots of great stuff that they really want and doesn’t that feel good?”

“Right. I keep forgetting. But I’m going to need another glass of wine, STAT.”

So what happens between the time well-intentioned relatives hand me the money and my Xmess Eve meltdown? A number of things, starting with the timing of the envelope hand-off. If I receive it too soon in advance of the hellidays, I haven’t had any time to get really stressed out, which means I can’t be trusted to make any decisions, about anything. For example, here’s how it goes down on December 1:

Anonymous relative #1: “I’ve got the kids’ money for you.”

Me: “Cool.”

Here’s how it goes down on December 24, in my closet, I mean, custom wrap room:

Me: “F-word!” Hiccup.

Husband: “There, there. It’s going to be fine. Pass me your glass.”

The other thing that throws a monkey wrench into the theoretically perfect plan for child satisfaction is the logistics, which includes the math. We spend hours upon hours crunching the numbers.

“$20 for that?”

“But it’s 14.8%” I plead, showing my husband the fine print on the bottle of Zinfandel I’m holding in the wine aisle of the grocery store. “Please?”

“Fine. Put it in the basket.”

What causes the most stress is making not only the children happy, but the gift givers. We want them to feel good about the things we are buying with the money they gave us.  Who gets to give the big ticket item? Why is it never us? Then, we try to match up the importance of the giver’s gift to each child. After all, we can’t very well allow aunty to give one of them a new bedspread and another one a flat screen TV, can we? I don’t care if they cost about the same, that’s not fair to the kid or aunty! It’s either got to be all business or all fun, from the same person, for all four. Doesn’t it? And some years, I try to round down the tax, or suggest we absorb it.

 “Why would we do that?”

“Because they don’t have jobs and shouldn’t have to pay taxes?”

We all know what happens next: the head tilt, one eyebrow raised.

Speaking of numbers, I never understand them. This confuses my husband, which can make for a little tension. I start re-adding the totals on my original shopping list with the amounts and cross-outs and arithmetic and by now a little blood and probably some wine. For some reason, I always think we’ve missed something. Sometimes we have. I usually find that in the back of the closet in March.

In the final analysis, when the big morning rolls around, and the kids open their presents, relatives sitting nearby, it’s all worth it. That is, until this:

Relative: “Oh, wow! What’s that?”

Kid: “It’s a PlayStation! It plays video games!”

Relative: “Who gave you that?”

Kid: “You did.”

And another Chrismuchtoorushed is on the books.

Happy Thanksgivememore

I’m thankful it’s over. Thanksgiving. I’m so bored with people who are thankful for the stuff that’s easy. It’s easy to sit around and dreamily think up universal, corny sounding things to be thankful for, like nature’s bounty or family. Even worse: giving someone else the credit for what you have (I’m thankful to [insert favorite deity here], for bringing [insert name of special person] into my life.) Those drive me crazy. Are those same people thanking their favorite deity for the first spouse he or she brought into their life? The one they divorced for blowing the rent money every month on strippers? This guy God gets the credit for the winning moments, but not the crushing defeats? Sorry, but I’m taking the credit for the wins and the losses, thank you very much. I’m thankful that I finally got myself together enough to attract the greatest husband in history. I did that. Thanks, Me.

But I digress.

I’m sure all of the “I’m thankful-for…” posts that people throw up (no pun intended) on Facebook are heartfelt, but are they honest and revealing? Are they representative of how we’re feeling on any given day when we’re in the weeds of life, amid the confusion, frustration, anger and resentment that knocks on our mental door when we’re out of beer? Sure, these feelings are fleeting, with a shelf-life of about two seconds, but that doesn’t make them any less exhausting, which makes them being lifted from our shoulders something we truly should feel gratitude for—right there in the moment, when it counts the most.

I had one of these real thankful moments just the other day, when the kids were all off from school for the holiday. I certainly was not thankful about that, but I was thankful for open floor plans, so that I could boss everyone around while working in my home office. As I was pointing out that I had gone shopping the day before and that there was plenty of soup in the cupboard and leftover breadsticks, and that they didn’t have to have the soup, because there was also ham in the fridge and pizza in the garage freezer and…my husband cut me off! At that moment, I checked myself and acknowledged my gratitude for having a husband who knows where the kitchen is and isn’t afraid to use it. Later, when I found out they had crackers and butter for lunch, I was thankful for duct tape, so I could finish reciting the entire contents of the cupboards and the fridge to him, without interruption, just like my mom taught me to do. Thanks, Mom.

Just a little while later, I was thankful that my husband cracked a beer because his brother told him via text that it’s ok to do so the day before a major holiday, thereby justifying the Irish I’d snuck into my coffee earlier that morning. Thanks, interfamilial co-dependency.

I’m thankful for the death penalty, because I’d have to spend the rest of my life in prison if I acted on impulse and offed one of my kids. Like, just yesterday, when my 16-year old son grumpily sat down to write thank-you notes for his birthday presents. Among the hard-hitting questions he asked me were, “How do you do this?” and “What’s Grandpa’s last name?” So thanks, penal system.

I am always thankful for solitude. On any given day, especially when I’m cooking dinner, I am thankful for long sports practices. No complaining here. Go ahead and keep them through dinner; just make sure practice starts before I start reading a recipe. Thanks, coaches.

I’m constantly thanking the unknown force in the universe that makes working from home a reality. In my pajamas recently, I was thankful that I could hit the sack during a conference call with my boss and not have any explaining to do. And that very same day, I was thankful that the co-worker I was instant messaging couldn’t see me rolling my eyes at her dumb idea. And almost every day I’m thankful for the ‘microphone mute’ button that allows me to pee during a company meeting. Thanks, Internet.

No doubt, being thankful is easy when you want to impress people with mindless gratitude platitudes. But it takes active participation to notice the truly deserving things you should be thankful for.

Try it today, even though the turkey carcass, not to be confused with the houseguests, are finally gone: Acknowledge your gratitude for the little moments of clarity that keep you in the moment and out of prison for another day. 

Working from Home: The Ultimate Oxymoron

Perhaps working from home isn’t the ultimate oxymoron, but on certain days, it’s close, right up there with “mom time” (if it’s about mom, there is no time) and “organized religion,” (in case you are wondering, I got 905,000 results when I Googled, “Is organized religion an oxymoron?”)

As oxymoronic as it may seem at times, working from home has far more benefits than drawbacks. Give or take a handful of days a month when I’m on deadline, I can come and go as people need me to, take care of sick kids, and go to appointments without having to ask for time off. As a disclaimer, I’d like to point out that I wouldn’t trade working outside the home for a paycheck for any of what you are about to read. I prefer things just the way they are. But there are a few things I need to get off my chest, starting with my bra.

One of the major advantages of working from home is the time saved by not getting dressed in the morning. Jammies? Check. Robe and slippers? Check. Underwear? Not so much. Why bother?  When I’m occasionally roped into driving the girls the 200 yards to the jr. high school, it’s like a game of white trash chicken: in what type of wardrobe disarray am I willing to leave the house? Sweatshirt over the jammies, or do I go for it in my robe? Fuzzy slippers or flip-flops? Just in case I’m pulled over and the cop takes one look at my attire and decides a field sobriety test is warranted, I always take my cell phone. He’d let me phone a friend for some real clothes, right?

The downside of staying in my nightwear while working from home all day: the rest of humanity. Some part of it occasionally shows up on my doorstep: Knock-knock. I usually do a quick scan of what I’m wearing and then tip-toe to the window to see if it’s friend or foe (those who would assume, upon seeing my attire, that I’m an aging, unemployed lingerie model.) Either way, I never open the door. Sometimes I don’t even bother looking. After all, I’m working!

Another downside: distractions. With no boss lurking, it happens now and then that I can be up against a deadline with the clock tick-tocking, when I hear a sound that compels me away from my machine. It happened just the other day. As I toiled, editing an article while co-workers all over the country waited for me to finish, I heard something. After fifteen minutes of trying to tune it out, I realized it was a pathetic “Meooooow, meooooow,” from behind a bedroom door. I opened it and out ran the cat, which reminded me that there was a fishbowl in the room, so I had to walk over and examine that. I noticed the murky state of the water; it was a no-brainer that the fish was wallowing in his own watery grave, so I of course had to take it downstairs and clean it. But I couldn’t find the anti-chlorine drops. I decided to call my husband to see if he knew where they were. (We call him The Finder. I’m just The Looker.) While I’m looking for the phone, I decided that I might as well load the dishwasher, which naturally led me to making applesauce. Once I got the apples stewing, I remembered the fish! And then the phone! I raced upstairs to find my cell. Entering my bedroom, I noticed the unmade bed. This typically wouldn’t bother me. But because I was working, and on deadline, that bed had to be made! I finished that and glanced in the mirror, which was a mistake. Into the shower I went. A few minutes later, I exited the shower, and noticed an odd smell in the air. The applesauce! I grabbed my robe, raced down the stairs and turned off the stove. Turning around, I saw the fish! It was barely hanging on. The drops! The phone!

I had come full circle: I was looking for the phone that I had started searching for almost an hour ago, when I got distracted by everything within a five foot radius. Finally locating an extension, I called my husband—at work—in a building with people who aren’t wearing robes. That’s when I noticed I was back in mine.

“Have you seen the fish stuff?”

“What?”

“The fish drops for the fish’s water!”

“No. What are you doing?”

“I’m working!”

I found the drops and changed the water and sprinkled some food into the fish bowl. I put away the applesauce and started the dishwasher.

I ask you: How many people can claim such a productive day at home while they’re at work?

The Ex Factor

Sometimes things catch my eye, or my ear, and in an instant, a blog moment is born. For example, I was just thinking about the events of a recent evening, when my husband and I joined my husband’s ex-wife and her boyfriend for a beer at the local pub. That’s not the interesting part, though to some it might be. To others, it should be a lesson, which I’ll get to in a moment. The interesting part was the look, and what it meant.

The look was on the face of the bartender when the four of us walked through the door together. It being a small town we live in, and the fact that we’ve been in that bar once before, our bartender knew all the players. She’s also an ex-wife herself, and at the time, was engaged to a guy who has both children and an ex-wife, so it’s a topic she knows a little bit about. (She’s since married him, and for purely selfish reasons that have to do with the world’s best Margarita, she better not get knocked-up and quit her night job.)

Being an ex-wife myself, as is my husband’s ex, I guess it was a little like a bloody ex-wife convention, which I think is what prompted the look, because those are two groups that (unfortunately) do not go out drinking together nearly enough.

So anyway, as we sat down at one of the high bar tables, I looked across the room and caught the bartender’s eye. She was facing me, about to set down a couple pitchers of beer. I saw the almost undetectable smile slither across the lower half of her face. At the same time, one eyebrow lifted just a fraction of a millimeter, and her left boob twitched. Just kidding. Her eyebrow didn’t move. Regardless, there was no mistaking the non-verbal message shooting across the room to me: “Well, well, well, what do we have here?”

Which brings me to my main point: What did we have here?

Well, we had four people. That we know. We had exes. We had a new spouse. We had a boyfriend. We had loving parents and step-parents. We also had what is missing in so many ex-relationship situations around our little town, and the world: trust. I need most of the fingers on both hands to count the number of local families that I know personally who are embroiled in nasty push-pull wars in which the children are losing ground rapidly. Yes, we could have stayed married, say all of you divorce-phobes. To that I say nothing. I take that back. I say this: I know plenty of fucked up, “intact” families with miserable children. Regardless of the marital status or flavor of a family’s dysfunction, if everyone concentrates on what the children need (loving, happy, supportive adults regardless of configuration) the room for nonsense diminishes to nothing. We are all stronger together than we are separate.

I know the bartender loves her step-children, because I see them engaged in loving, happy conversation and interactions; I see her rooting them on at sporting events, picking them up and dropping them off at school, attending back-to-school night and parent-teacher conferences. I see her sheltering and defending them, wiping tears, taking them shopping, showing them how to eat right and helping them to become better athletes. I see a mom. Why is it so hard for the ex to see that?

Conversely, many of us mothers and stepmothers, me included, don’t know the anxiety of knowing another woman will tuck our babies in at night. Will she be there in the middle of the night for them if they have a nightmare, or a tummy ache? Will they be comforted the way we would comfort them? Even a weekend is a long time for moms or dads and kids to be apart. If they feel sad, will she be responsive? I’ve never been put in the position to feel this anxiety because my ex has never remarried. It’s got to be very difficult.

My interaction with my step-daughters’ mom started when I came into her children’s lives, nearly ten years ago, so our history begins there. But our relationship began when we both stopped pushing the other one away and raised the white flag. Of course, it didn’t happen overnight, but my husband’s ex and I can call, e-mail or text when we need to share information so that the kids have what they need. We also help each other out as human beings, too, just because. Being supportive of one another makes the kids healthier.

In my opinion, our story stayed in the “mild zone” compared to some of the craziness I’ve been hearing about that’s going on in the lives of my children’s friends, among their divorced parents, but craziness is relative. A little bit can go a long way. All I know is that we can walk into a bar and have a beer together. Turns out, exes go great with beer.

My point is this: Go get some beer. Wait, that’s not it. Divorce is painful. Yes, that’s it. Divorce is painful for everyone—especially the children. Whether you are a new spouse dealing with an ex, or an ex-spouse dealing with a new wife or husband, (and this goes for you ex-husbands out there, too; check the ego and be happy that there is a man who wants to help), your job is to lessen the sting of divorce for your children and/or step-children. If you want less pain for your children, embrace the ex. Encourage your spouse to embrace the ex. Trust the new wife or husband, unless he or she is a dangerous criminal, or watches Fox News. Just kidding. Criminals can often be rehabilitated.

If you think your child could not benefit from having one more loving presence in his or her life, regardless of title, please let me know. If you can honestly say that your child or children love hearing you bitch about the ex, or the new spouse, do me a favor: Sit down, look them in the eye and ask them how it feels in the pit of their stomach when you fight with or criticize their parent, someone they love unconditionally, or the people their parent chooses to love.

When you bash the person a child loves, you are bashing the child. You are bashing their feelings for another human being. You are bashing love.

Today’s a perfect day to drop all the instruments of destruction, whether it’s your words or facial expressions at a weekend soccer game, Facebook posts, or nasty text messages. Wipe the slate clean, for your children. If you know someone who might benefit from this, share it with her (or him).

Someday, maybe you’ll be having a beer with the exes, who don’t all live in Texas.