LETTERS FROM HOME: THE USUAL: PRETZEL JELL-O, A NORSEMAN IN BRAIDS

Dec. 26, 1996

Dear Carolyn,

Christmas this year was a reminder of how important rituals are to us, especially the ritual of the usual.

Mom had us over for the traditional Christmas Eve meal, but I don't recall the custom of serving roast beef. When dessert arrived, she announced she was trying something new on us. Something new? On Christmas Eve?

It looked like red Jell-O, but she said we'd have to dig deep into the bowl to get some of the other ingredients, especially the pretzels.

Who makes up these things?

DC and I looked at each other ever so inconspicuously and I noticed she suddenly stopped spooning dessert into her dish.

That's a beauty of Christmas, though. The surprises keep your rituals spontaneous. Jell-O with pretzels on the bottom and cream cheese in the middle tastes pretty good after all, though it's recommended here primarily as a tactile treat: quivery, creamy and crunch in one bite.

Expectations are the ruin of Christmas. Dad bought mom a purple silk nightshirt instead of the black silk pajamas she'd very pointedly admired in a store window. To him and many men, that probably was close enough.

We got them a black, high-tech coffeemaker I thought she was talking about over Thanksgiving. Turns out, Mom doesn't need a new coffeemaker and besides, her kitchen appliances are white.

Whatever the bugaboos in relationships -- miscommunication, for example -- they seem to stand up and shout at Christmas.

That's what everyone really wants for Christmas: to be understood.

Amid all the high-tech appliances and missteps, the knowing gifts will be remembered. Like the pillow my mother made DC from a piece she'd embroidered when I was a baby. DC's mother gave her husband a Norse helmet with blond braids, the kind worn by fat ladies in operas. Trust me, this was a knowing gift he may have to wear every Christmas.

But what people also want for Christmas are their traditions, no matter how untraditional they are. Years ago, my brother-in-law PB and some friends organized a small band to play on the downtown streets of Columbia on behalf of the Salvation Army. The band played but no one from the Salvation Army arrived to collect money. Now the phantom band returns every year to play and everybody thinks they were hired by the merchants.

It's good for free refreshments at the local bars.

Hank and Lucy even have a tradition now. They give us the gifts we don't want to claim, for various unspoken reasons. This year they gave DC a TV with a sleep timer and me a book about Ben Hogan's mystique.

DC likes bubble lights on the tree, church and spicy fragrances in the house. My primary tradition is to watch "It's A Wonderful Life" on Christmas Eve.

DC thinks it's awful, watching George Bailey's dreams of traveling and building things be thwarted year after year. Wanting her to be understood, I asked how she may have felt thwarted but she's having no psychoanalysis for Christmas.

Just cookies and rum balls and the usual.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.