In the middle of the night, Kate had awakened from a sound slumber, eyes wide, face to face with the hairline crack that ran along her west wall. “Shit damn,” she thought to herself. She threw her mountain of winter covers aside and tiptoed down the stairs.
On Christmas morning, Kate found her mother in the kitchen, babysitting the coffee pot as it burbled away.
“Mama! Merry Christmas!” She threw her arms around Madeline and simultaneously said: “Don’t even think about touching that pot until it’s all done.”
“Oh for god’s sake, I do this every morning! Every morning I pour myself a cup. That’s why there is such a thing as stop-and-pour. So we don’t have to wait! So civilization can march forward!”
“It will totally ruin the rest of the pot. No touch.”
“On this of all days! It’s Christmas. Mama needs her coffee!”
Kate decided it was easier to simply place herself between her mother and the brewing pot.
“You’re a terrible human being,” Madeline said.
“Stockings first? Same as ever? Then breakfast?”
“Of course,” Madeline replied. “Same as ever. Oh, no!! Shit!!!!! I didn’t even think about a stocking for Savannah. Didn’t even enter my head! Assuming she comes out of her room. At all.”
“Of course Savannah has a stocking,” Kate said. “Santa would never forget Savannah.”
“Oh my God,” Madeline said. “Oh my god.”
“I forgot, too. Until the middle of the night.”
“What did you do?” her mother asked.
“Go look,” Kate said, while continuing: “I thought I was going to have to use one of those nasty ones you’ve kept all these years from your childhood – even though that creepy angel keeps losing more and more parts of her body like some pathetic leper – but anyway, there was a pretty new one in the box, too. Do you even remember why we got that one? I had to empty out all of the stockings, and rifle through everything, and take a little bit from everybody else’s stocking. Even my own. Sorry. Most of the stuff, though, I had to take from your stocking. Things I got for you. I think it will be OK. It’s not totally even, but I think it’ll be OK.”
“Oh my God, Kate, that’s amazing. You’re amazing.” Madeline teared up and hurtled towards Kate with outstretched arms, intending an enormous hug. But Kate took a step backwards.
“Not that I expect it will make any difference. But I thought I would try. I thought somebody should at least try.”
Hours later, when the herding of cats had at long last been accomplished, the group gathered to open their Christmas stockings. Looking around the stocking circle, Madeline began to feel as if she were in some sort of Twilight Zone improv class, a twisted parallel universe where each person had been given an exaggerated character trait that they’d been instructed to act out, and to hang onto that one trait for dear life, no matter what anyone else may be doing.
Savannah: I WILL sulk, pout, sigh, disappear at regular intervals, and broadcast dark depair.
Marie: I WILL stick with Savannah. This is blood. If she’s in despair, I’m in despair. Don’t fuck with me.
John: I WILL remain completely oblivious to anything out of the ordinary going on here. Completely. Oblivious.
Kate: I WILL HAVE A GOOD CHRISTMAS. I WILL. I WILL. I WILL.
Dan: I WILL act as if every single thing this family has created as part of their Christmas tradition is without question the most fucked up, lame assed, terrifyingly inauthentic piece of dysfunctional lunacy that I have ever witnessed in my life.
Madeline: I WILL do everything humanly possible to make sure that every one of these people is happy, happy, happy. I can do it! I can!
photos by Mary Ellen Mark