When I was little, we had a large loud insane Christmas Eve dinner with my mother’s extended family and though the numbers drop every year for one reason or another, we still do this. We show up and hang out and then my dad says a blessing before the meal, usually adding a silly story or two and then he says some Polish prayers and asks my mom to forgive him for any hurts he has caused her over the past year and then we sort of turn to each other and do the same.

Which, come on! WHO IS BETTER THAN MY DAD? What a tradition!

Anyway. On Christmas Day, we would go to church in the morning and then drive west to spend the day with my grandmother, my father’s mother, in Brooklyn. I have barely any recollection of this and only know it because I asked my sister recently how on earth we spent Christmas Day as small children and she reminded me. My dad’s mother died fourteen years ago which means I have been alive without her for exactly as long as I was alive with her. For many of those years I was a small child so I barely have much of a sense of her at all.

Anyway, this is not about my sweet grandma Agnes. (Though, come on, I kind of totally want to name one of my kids Agnes. POLISH CATHOLICS REPRESENT!) This is more about the fact that the lovely lady died (at almost 90! GET IT!) and it came to be that on Christmas Day, my family just…stayed home.

And it was just us.

And we sort of just sat around. And it was amazing.

So this year we more or less did that and I thought I would describe how it went this year as the years now sort of blend into one another and it’s hard to tell them apart for lo, I am old and also, a child was born in a manger in Bethlehem.

On Christmas morning, I made cinnamon rolls from scratch for the first time ever which took approximately four hours because the dough had to rise for about one thousand years and I did not check that in advance.



We ate breakfast around 11.

We ate cinnamon rolls around 4.

Everyone had one except for my father who apparently hates cinnamon rolls, another thing I didn’t research before making them. I must say this is possibly the one thing that leads me to doubt my father’s perfection. THE MAN HATES CINNAMON ROLLS? Who are you!? What!

Somewhere in between breakfast and cinnamon roll snacking, I went for a run and then we all opened presents which is why in every photo, everyone looks nice and showered except me.

So, there is that.

My family decided to stick to a one-gift-per-person rule this year as we had/have tentative plans to go on vacation together and decided we should save our money for that.

Naturally, my mother blatantly ignored that mandate and so instead of getting a few small gifts, I got a few small gifts and then a ton of gifts from Rita and even though I was like MOM YOU SUCK AND DIDN’T PLAY BY THE RULES, I was simultaneously all THANK GOD MY MOM SUCKS AND PLAYS BY THE RULES!

Also, Rita is adorable. She bought herself this blue lounge outfit or maybe she got it as a gift? It’s VELOUR. I don’t remember but I have NEVER seen my mother wear anything like it so she put it on Christmas morning and my sister and I high fived her and told her she looked like a smokin’ Westchester soccer mom.

At some point, I finally took a shower. (6 pm?!)

Then we decided it was high time to bust out Paul’s scotch for cocktail hour. I like to call it “Just In Case We’re Not WASPY enough!”

Scotch! How quaint! Now let’s put on our sweater vests and head out for some golf!

We…do not play golf.

BACK TO THE ACTION:

How cute is my older brother!? He ran his first marathon this year. No big deal, dudes.

Also: sorry, ladies. He’s taken.

Cheers!

My sister Debbie wears some variation on this outfit every year, pretty much ever since her boyfriend’s parents bought her this ridiculous apron. Which she wears as a dress? To be festive? Regardless, it is the best in the world. I love my brother Jem’s expression in the background like ARE YOU CHECKIN’ THIS OUT?

So, the seven of us sort of just sat around quietly in front of the fireplace and then decided we should order some takeout, as is our custom, Chinese or Indian. This year we chose the latter. Takeout can be tacky but we do eat it on the precious Christmas China which my dad bought while he was in Japan. So yes. On Christmas Day, my family ate Indian food on the Japanese China.

We are a diverse family, you understand.

After dinner, we decided to watch a movie, deciding on Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close which I announced would probably be depressing but not THAT depressing, having been the only one in the family who had read the book.

Welp. I was incorrect. It was actually more depressing than I thought.

My dad fell asleep halfway through and for the rest of Christmas vacation, he thought every movie we sat down to watch was about 9/11. Including Moneyball. And some British detective series on PBS.

My sister bought all of us these crazy flannel hunting hats and I vowed before the day was over, we would stand together in front of the fireplace, STAND UNITED AS A FAMILY OF DLUGS and have our picture taken while wearing them, care of my dad’s camera and its rockin’ automatic timer.

And so it was, that the Dlug family had a blissful Christmas Day.

Cinnamon rolls, a roaring fire, beating my dad on Words with Friends, taking a family portrait in fuzzy hats and watching a movie that may or not be as depressing as I thought it might be.

We wish you a merry Christmas (Rita reminds you that Catholics are very much still in the Christmas season! It lasts through the Epiphany! HEY YOU WHY ARE YOU TAKING DOWN YOUR TREE? GO TO CHURCH! I LEAVE MY LIGHTS UP UNTIL FEBRUARY!)

And a happy new YEAAAAAAR!!!