Nods to Xmas

Bringing the Christmas celebration back to its Pagan roots in a Vietnamese-American home.

My family and I are casual, secular celebrants of Christmas, which leaves a lot of flexibility to incorporate many traditions. 

Their first Christmas in the States, Mama Hen and Papa Rooster said they were surprised, and disappointed, by the lack of nighttime activity around Christmas in Syracuse, where we first landed. It was in contrast to the lively Christmas evenings in Saigon, where everyone went out on Christmas Eve, walked about, visited friends, stopped into cafes, whether Catholic or not - the legacy of imported French colonialist celebrations and priorities. I had queried whether the calm of Syracuse weren't due to its being a much smaller city than Saigon, and, well, wintry - those were years when there were frigid temperatures and yards of snow on the ground, typical of the mid-1970s (and making periodic comebacks in these extreme days). They shrugged off my rationale - if people wanted to party, they'd find a way to do it. Oh my sweet parents! Once young and carefree in their tropical stomping grounds, before global geopolitical forces upturned their lives and dumped them into waist deep snowdrifts.

We've all shifted into quieter Christmases - middle-aged children with their elderly parents, going through the rituals in a leisurely fashion, with no eager and anxious little ones demanding and exerting a pressure for the mass media magic of an early Christmas morning. So we didn't even start preparing until Christmas Eve evening, nor finish unwrapping gifts until after midnight on Christmas - so, Boxing Day, fittingly (and its corrollary, unboxing).

At the end of the day, it's just about spending time with family on a day when just about everyone else is also off, hopefully doing the same.

We set up the tree in a new spot, in the middle of the livingroom, before the television playing the WPIX "Yuletide Log," set beneath an entirely different mother and child than the ones the holiday was meant to celebrate (ours are a traditional Vietnamese motif of mother nursing her child in a hammock, done in mother of pearl on lacquer).

Before tackling the big tree, though, looking for small, manageable ways to jumpstart the rituals on Christmas Eve, we foisted some holiday spirit onto Lil' Bro. I had an extra mini tabletop tree (collected from Buy Nothing, out of obligation, when I was really after another item, which the gifter could not locate when I arrived); there were extra fairy lights from a set of multiples from last year; Sissy had had the idea to unload the tree at his place, and had gotten ornaments from Buy Nothing with that plan, so everything was free, essentially. He pretended to be Scroogey, but we know he liked it. Ironically, his place was better decorated for the holidays than either of our places - time got away from us this year. Maybe next year for us.

So that was one little accomplishment that evening.  And for a small reward, en route back to the Mothership, we got Mickey D's nuggets and fries to fuel us through the rest of Christmas Eve, including the big tree setup, and decorating, and wrapping. Consuming the epitome of fried food, in solidarity with my Jewish friends during Chanukah - because, despicably, a beautiful giant menorah carved from ice was vandalized in Yorkville on the fourth night. 

(This year, I was delighted to be invited, and was able to attend, a friend's Chanukah party preceding the first night. I used to adore another classmate's past "Latkes and Vodkas" party, before he and his wife divorced; back then, the holidays started with one friend's "Pie and Port" party after Thanksgiving, followed either by "Latkes and Vodkas" or another friend's annual  "Christmas Cookie Party" with heavy attendance by her then-fellow LDS members - my holiday social calendar was once quite full. That was a different season of life.)

Earlier this season, in this season of life, it was quieter activities - community tree lightings, small workplace office parties and gatherings, a children's concert at the Czech consulate ...

... with a tiny Christmas market that had Czech chocolates...

... sold with ornament hooks! (Presumably, Czech society is less litigious than American society.) Saved those to share with the family on Christmas - it became one of the gifts from Santa, wrapped in fabric and ribbons from prior years. So much faster, so much less waste.

And the gifts that Mama Hen gave us were Christmas Eve bun bo Hue - a warming, spicy, central Vietnamese pork and beef noodle dish.

And Christmas and Boxing Days' banh cuon - rice crepes with minced meat and mushroom filling.

All of which I happily devoured, clad in this year's holiday uniform of candy cane-reminiscent red and white striped shirt (a Mama Hen gifted castoff from the last year or so) and the gag reindeer antler headband from at least a decade, maybe two, ago, eagerly anticipated meals for which I awaited beneath new-to-us snuggly seasonal throws, patiently gathered by Sissy, our Buy Nothing expert.

We all bring our own giving to the family. Lil' Bro with his humor; Papa Rooster, who, at 85, is reverting to the enthusiasm of a child in opening gifts with little thought of how they got there... And I, taking it all in this year with so much less external stress and pressure from my day job. That was the whole point of changing in this season of life.

[Edited December 29, 2022 to finish entry.]