I decided to take a vacation day today, after spending yesterday driving back to Austin from greater New Orleans. It was one of my smarter ideas. I have done damn near nothing today except lounge around the house and listen to KGSR and reread Betsy and the Great World and snack on this and that and drink lots of hot tea. Oh, and I had a shower. Very productive of me.
Driving back home was more difficult than driving to New Orleans. I felt less well rested, and more bored, and I kept having to deal with glare from the sun in my eyes. I didn’t get home until 8:45 pm because I stopped in Baton Rouge to visit with Toni for a bit. I got to see the tree that killed Christmas, and the red-nosed cat, and I sat in the time machine, and Toni gave me some shrimp-and-corn soup, which we may have for dinner if I can figure out where to get some decent French bread in this town.
I had a very good trip. It was one of the better family Christmases in recent years. Nothing particularly eventful happened, but then nothing distressing happened either. There were a couple of minor difficulties with various relatives, but that wasn’t surprising. None of the food was particularly notable, which is unusual for a trip to the New Orleans area, but we mostly ate holiday meals or leftovers at people’s houses. Christmas dinner was very nice, and it was pleasant to have all the traditional family stuff that I like: my great-aunt’s shrimp-stuffed mirlitons, my mom’s kickass cornbread dressing, some not-bad oyster dressing she bought from the local grocery store, a turkey my dad smoked (his smoked turkeys are possibly better than fried ones), and a cranberry-apple pie I brought from Whole Foods. The only thing I missed was rice and gravy, but you can’t have it all.
Oh, and vegetables. Somehow I always get back to Austin after Christmas realizing that I never did get enough vegetables. My mom offered to make green bean casserole with canned green beans, but no one particularly wanted it. (I am still picky about canned vegetables.) We had a salad one night to accompany some pizza, and the pizza had spinach and artichokes on it. And I had some cole slaw with lunch one day. I think that was about it for vegetables. We may have to go somewhere tonight for a big-ass salad, or maybe to Threadgills. I am very tired of starchy foods right now.
I met my sister’s film-geek boyfriend. I don’t care about how much he knows about film, or even that he is brave enough to argue about liberal politics at one of my family’s gatherings. But I noticed that he was extremely considerate of my sister, and spent time playing with all the children, and talking to all the relatives, and helping clean things up after the Christmas Eve party. He even made a yummy lemon chess pie that we enjoyed at my mom’s birthday party. I hope he sticks around for awhile.
I played Barbies with my four-year-old niece and taught her and my nephew a new game that involved putting all the toys they’d dumped out on the floor back into the storage container for them. Heh. Tricking little kids into cleaning up after themselves is fun. I carried my other niece, who is trying very hard to learn to walk, and played airplane with her.
I took dozens of pictures with my digital camera, both at the Christmas Eve party and on Christmas Day when it snowed. I brought my laptop with me to various relatives’ houses on the day after Christmas, and set up a slide show on the computer so they could see all the photos of the kids opening presents and so forth. My grandparents, who decided at the last minute to skip all the Christmas festivities and seemed low in spirits about being alone during the holidays, seemed to really enjoy the pictures.
I was so pleased this year that I could wrap the presents while I was still in Austin (when you fly, you can’t bring wrapped presents) that I bought fancy ribbon and wrapped everything as prettily and elaborately as I could manage. I tried to buy people presents that I knew they would like, but that they hadn’t specifically asked for. Everyone seemed pleased.
I received some especially nice presents this year. I was most impressed with the present from my brother and sister-in-law, which was a pretty handmade card that held gift certificates for Kerbey Lane and Alamo Drafthouse. They live in the New Orleans area, so it couldn’t have been easy to obtain those things. I was most surprised by my sister’s present, a copy of Harold Lloyd’s Hollywood Nudes in 3D, which she said she hadn’t realized actually contained, well, nude photos when she got it for me. My baby brother bought me a copy of Ed Wood on DVD, which was fitting since I’ve waited forever for that movie to appear on DVD. My parents gave me many lovely things, but most surprising was a boxed set of the first season of The Simpsons, which my mom disapproves of, but she knew my boyfriend would like it a lot and she wanted to give me something we’d both enjoy.
I wish I’d had more time to spend with my baby brother, maybe seeing a movie together. I should have been less wimpy about the icy roads on Christmas Day and persuaded him to see The Life Aquatic or even the movie he was dying to see, Meet the Fockers. I wish I’d spent some time looking in my dad’s workshop to see his latest projects, but the one time he was in there, I had to run errands with my mom, so I didn’t get the chance. I wish I’d been able to go to the Prytania to see the Lemony Snicket movie, because I haven’t been to the Prytania since 1991 or thereabouts and it would have been a nice nostalgia trip. In retrospect, it would have been a good idea to stay one more day and go off on my own during the day into New Orleans. But then I wouldn’t have had this nice quiet time today.
Despite the drive being tiring and a little dull, I preferred it over flying to New Orleans for the holidays. I am extremely glad I took the car, even though I had a small twinge of guilt about its being environmentally wasteful to make such a drive by myself. It did wonders for my state of mental health, so I feel like it was worthwhile. Also, I realized that I can drive myself around just fine in the New Orleans area, much better than I navigate other people.
And now I am very happy to be back in my own little house, with a proper external keyboard and mouse attached to my laptop so I can write twice as quickly, to sleep in my own comfy bed … and most happy to see my boyfriend again, whom I missed terribly. I arrived at home last night to find flowers on the dinner table, and cinnamon rolls on the counter for this morning’s breakfast, and a little present for me under the pink and sparkly tree. It was difficult for me to leave town to celebrate a “holiday” that involved being apart from my boyfriend. Although I did celebrate it very successfully, I am ready for some holiday time with my boyfriend.
I always love the holiday entries, Jette. I bought some du Monde coffee at Cost Plus the other day, and thought of you. What are “miriltons”?
Mirlitons are a kind of squash. I think they are also known as chayote, outside of Louisiana. Little green squash. My great-aunt cooks them with shrimp and lots of garlic and I don’t know what else, but it’s pretty yummy (and I usually don’t like squash).
MirLItons, not “miriltons.” Got it.
I don’t know if I’m more jealous of Toni because she saw you, or of you because you were at Toni’s. You are both such wonderful writers.
The lack-of-holiday vegetable thing must be universal – we came in the door from Chicago feeling ravenous for fresh produce; the green bean & mushroom soup stuff was the vegetable up there, too. Chayote with shrimp & garlic would be a big improvement!
Oh – one of my gifts was the new edition of “Meet Me In St. Louis” which has a ton of extras and looks like fun.