Tis the season
The Christmas season brings back so many memories, most great, but some involving family, too.
This morning I recalled a shopping trip my dad and I took to the mall when I was seven. With the blissfulness of my only-child childhood still intact, I needed to get presents only for my parents and grandparents. I called my mom’s parents Oma and Opa, which was German for grandma and grandpa (you try pronouncing “Grossmutter” and “Grossvater”). My Oma was an angel walking amongst mortals and she deserved the greatest Christmas presents possible. To that end, I planned to give her the project I’d been working on in second grade art class: a “jewelry box,” aka wooden monstrosity only a grandmother could love. But even at that young age I was savvy with the ladies, aware that you can’t give a woman an empty jewelry box. Accordingly, I needed my dad to buy a “gold” chain for me to put in there. Which, historians have determined, was the origin of Namegate, the scandal from which The Reidy’s never recovered.
We stopped at the Bamberger’s (old school Macy’s type of store) jewelry counter. One glass case, in particular, caught my eye. It contained many necklaces, each of which had one of the letters of the alphabet. Sold.
“That one,” I said to the woman behind the counter, pointing to the letter O. She complimented me on my taste – probably gave my dad a big wink, too, the condescending bitch – and reached into the case. “Hold on, miss,” my dad interrupted.
“Jamie, why do you want to get O?” I explained that O stood for Oma. Rich Reidy smiled a silly boy smile and shook his head. “But that’s not Oma’s name.” He could have told me Oma had once played noseguard for the Pittsburgh Steelers and I would not have been as surprised as I was by this revelation. “You should get her an H.” My blank stare served as evidence that further explanation was required. “Her real name is Herta.” This was real news to me. I might have given him some leeway if he said her real name was “Mom,” since that’s what my parents called her, or “Momma,” which is what Opa called her. But, this “Hair-ta” thing…I wasn’t down with that.
“But I call her Oma. So I want to buy her an O.” We went back and forth for a few minutes until The Grinch, I mean, Rich decided he wanted to make his son cry in public. We got the H.
At Christmas, Oma raved about her new jewelry box – which she actually put on her dresser and used. God bless grandmothers! – and then opened the necklace. She put on a happy face, but I could tell she was disappointed. I did not hesitate. “I WANTED TO GET YOU AN ‘O’ BUT DADDY SAID NO AND MADE ME GET THE ‘H’!”
The room fell silent as Oma turned to my dad. “The O would have been fine, Richard.” Enjoy your dinner out in the garage, Dad.
But at least that episode didn’t nearly result in a holiday homicide, like a Christmas years later.
In the mid-80s, Ted Turner bought the rights to hundreds of old black and white movies with the intention of colorizing them. Legendary directors such as Orson Welles and Woody Allen promptly pilloried this idea. Almost as quickly, Rich Reidy ran out to buy a colorized version of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE. Dad announced that the movie premiere would take place on Christmas night in “the Reidy Family Theater,” which looked an awful lot like our rec room with the lights turned off. The undeniable highlight of the RFT was dad’s popcorn, the recipe to which he could have sold for millions if not for dire protests by the American Academy of Cardiology. Apparently, a 1:1 kernel to butter ratio was not considered “healthy.” It was, however, “yummy.” Years later, I figured out that RFT was simply a clever excuse for dad to make popcorn without mom nagging him. But, honey, it’s for the kids.
Dad was hyping this as the greatest RFT ever: not only was it Christmas (we were practically Jews, going to the movies on Dec 25th!) and not only was it the colorized version of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, but it would be the first time Oma and Opa had experienced RFT! (It also may have been the first time Oma had ever been downstairs, which was a no-man’s land of toys, PB&J bread crusts and moldy carpet that deeply offended her German sense of order.) With all the elements of a fabled night in place, Dad turned off the “theater’s” lights.
Looking back, the first indication that something was amiss should have been the fact that the tape was already in the VCR. Sometimes, even the shrewdest of criminals make mistakes.
Dad pressed “play” on the remote and the full color credits started rolling. I looked over at my father, his chin shiny with buttery joy, and it occurred to me that I had never seen him so happy. And then it struck. The smooth picture was jumbled and then the 1940’s holiday music was replaced by dialogue that didn’t fit and then the IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE credits were replaced by a cartoon of…bears?
“What the…” Dad’s voice trailed off as he somehow remembered not to curse in front of Oma. In the chaos it was impossible for me to tell exactly how The Berenstein Bears Christmas special had begun playing on our TV. Not for Rich Reidy, though. Leaping to his feet as though a guy had pulled up in front of the house selling gyros two for a dollar, Dad flipped the lights on and lasered his sights on my surprisingly quiet eight-year old brother. “Patrick!” Dad spat.
In the history of the world, no person has ever done a poorer job of hiding his guilt than Patrick Joseph Reidy, II. Dad describes the scene: “There was your brother with his beady little eyes flitting furiously from side to side.” Investigators would determine that earlier on Christmas Day, the accused had been watching television when the aforementioned Ursus arctos syriacus family’s show aired unexpectedly. This excitement, combined with an overdose of sugar cookies, led the defendant to irrationally grab the nearest VCR tape in his haste to record this masterpiece of film. The prosecution didn’t buy the “crime of passion” defense, however, pointing out that Patrick had to rip off the plastic encasing the brand new IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE TAPE, thus giving him the time to recognize that the act he was about to commit was wrong.
Of course, the sweet irony in all this was the fact that Patrick was the only family member who knew how to work the “record” function on the VCR.
Patrick was sentenced to two Christmases of coal. Oma never ventured downstairs again. The sight of bears on TV still forces my dad to immediately push aside popcorn…and switch to ice cream.
Why do we even bother with the holidays? The horror, the horror.
This morning I recalled a shopping trip my dad and I took to the mall when I was seven. With the blissfulness of my only-child childhood still intact, I needed to get presents only for my parents and grandparents. I called my mom’s parents Oma and Opa, which was German for grandma and grandpa (you try pronouncing “Grossmutter” and “Grossvater”). My Oma was an angel walking amongst mortals and she deserved the greatest Christmas presents possible. To that end, I planned to give her the project I’d been working on in second grade art class: a “jewelry box,” aka wooden monstrosity only a grandmother could love. But even at that young age I was savvy with the ladies, aware that you can’t give a woman an empty jewelry box. Accordingly, I needed my dad to buy a “gold” chain for me to put in there. Which, historians have determined, was the origin of Namegate, the scandal from which The Reidy’s never recovered.
We stopped at the Bamberger’s (old school Macy’s type of store) jewelry counter. One glass case, in particular, caught my eye. It contained many necklaces, each of which had one of the letters of the alphabet. Sold.
“That one,” I said to the woman behind the counter, pointing to the letter O. She complimented me on my taste – probably gave my dad a big wink, too, the condescending bitch – and reached into the case. “Hold on, miss,” my dad interrupted.
“Jamie, why do you want to get O?” I explained that O stood for Oma. Rich Reidy smiled a silly boy smile and shook his head. “But that’s not Oma’s name.” He could have told me Oma had once played noseguard for the Pittsburgh Steelers and I would not have been as surprised as I was by this revelation. “You should get her an H.” My blank stare served as evidence that further explanation was required. “Her real name is Herta.” This was real news to me. I might have given him some leeway if he said her real name was “Mom,” since that’s what my parents called her, or “Momma,” which is what Opa called her. But, this “Hair-ta” thing…I wasn’t down with that.
“But I call her Oma. So I want to buy her an O.” We went back and forth for a few minutes until The Grinch, I mean, Rich decided he wanted to make his son cry in public. We got the H.
At Christmas, Oma raved about her new jewelry box – which she actually put on her dresser and used. God bless grandmothers! – and then opened the necklace. She put on a happy face, but I could tell she was disappointed. I did not hesitate. “I WANTED TO GET YOU AN ‘O’ BUT DADDY SAID NO AND MADE ME GET THE ‘H’!”
The room fell silent as Oma turned to my dad. “The O would have been fine, Richard.” Enjoy your dinner out in the garage, Dad.
But at least that episode didn’t nearly result in a holiday homicide, like a Christmas years later.
In the mid-80s, Ted Turner bought the rights to hundreds of old black and white movies with the intention of colorizing them. Legendary directors such as Orson Welles and Woody Allen promptly pilloried this idea. Almost as quickly, Rich Reidy ran out to buy a colorized version of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE. Dad announced that the movie premiere would take place on Christmas night in “the Reidy Family Theater,” which looked an awful lot like our rec room with the lights turned off. The undeniable highlight of the RFT was dad’s popcorn, the recipe to which he could have sold for millions if not for dire protests by the American Academy of Cardiology. Apparently, a 1:1 kernel to butter ratio was not considered “healthy.” It was, however, “yummy.” Years later, I figured out that RFT was simply a clever excuse for dad to make popcorn without mom nagging him. But, honey, it’s for the kids.
Dad was hyping this as the greatest RFT ever: not only was it Christmas (we were practically Jews, going to the movies on Dec 25th!) and not only was it the colorized version of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, but it would be the first time Oma and Opa had experienced RFT! (It also may have been the first time Oma had ever been downstairs, which was a no-man’s land of toys, PB&J bread crusts and moldy carpet that deeply offended her German sense of order.) With all the elements of a fabled night in place, Dad turned off the “theater’s” lights.
Looking back, the first indication that something was amiss should have been the fact that the tape was already in the VCR. Sometimes, even the shrewdest of criminals make mistakes.
Dad pressed “play” on the remote and the full color credits started rolling. I looked over at my father, his chin shiny with buttery joy, and it occurred to me that I had never seen him so happy. And then it struck. The smooth picture was jumbled and then the 1940’s holiday music was replaced by dialogue that didn’t fit and then the IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE credits were replaced by a cartoon of…bears?
“What the…” Dad’s voice trailed off as he somehow remembered not to curse in front of Oma. In the chaos it was impossible for me to tell exactly how The Berenstein Bears Christmas special had begun playing on our TV. Not for Rich Reidy, though. Leaping to his feet as though a guy had pulled up in front of the house selling gyros two for a dollar, Dad flipped the lights on and lasered his sights on my surprisingly quiet eight-year old brother. “Patrick!” Dad spat.
In the history of the world, no person has ever done a poorer job of hiding his guilt than Patrick Joseph Reidy, II. Dad describes the scene: “There was your brother with his beady little eyes flitting furiously from side to side.” Investigators would determine that earlier on Christmas Day, the accused had been watching television when the aforementioned Ursus arctos syriacus family’s show aired unexpectedly. This excitement, combined with an overdose of sugar cookies, led the defendant to irrationally grab the nearest VCR tape in his haste to record this masterpiece of film. The prosecution didn’t buy the “crime of passion” defense, however, pointing out that Patrick had to rip off the plastic encasing the brand new IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE TAPE, thus giving him the time to recognize that the act he was about to commit was wrong.
Of course, the sweet irony in all this was the fact that Patrick was the only family member who knew how to work the “record” function on the VCR.
Patrick was sentenced to two Christmases of coal. Oma never ventured downstairs again. The sight of bears on TV still forces my dad to immediately push aside popcorn…and switch to ice cream.
Why do we even bother with the holidays? The horror, the horror.
posted by Jamo at 11:53 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home