We have several traditions surrounding the holidays. There's the annual reading of each family member's top ten list, recounting remarkable events in the year. The cookie exchange. The white elephant game. Dinner, 15 adults and 2 children fit in sardine fashion around our dining room table. And of course, the gift giving.
One gift we didn't count on this year came from our aging pup, Chester. Early in the evening I announced that it's important not to feed him because of his health issues. He must have heard me and protested.
I was busy in the kitchen, minding the beef tenderloin, the mushroom risotto, the salad, the people filling their plates, when screams of 'Ewww" and 'Yuck' and 'Chester!' erupted from the dining room. I ran to see what was the matter only to find two of our adult sons, one with a shoe full of pooh dangling from his fingers, the other gingerly pulling off his mucked up sock.
I'd smelled something while I cleared the empty shrimp plate, but chocked it up to the fish tails or some other appetizer. When I looked around for other evidence of the smell I noticed my daughter-in-law changing our granddaughter's diaper in the living room.
Ah, I thought, That must be where the smell is from.
With half the group seated at the table while our sons dealt with pooh on foot and shoe, the helpers in the family sprung to action getting paper towels and Clorox cleanup. My husband, ever the manager, a few bourbons in, walked around with paper towels, subjected to my exasperated calls as I cleaned up puddles of pooh under the table.
Someone called from the other side of the room, "It's down the hallway."
Another, "How did he pooh on the chair leg?"
"Gimme the Clorox."
"You want to borrow a pair of my socks? "
"We're all dog people, it's fine."
Furiously finding the little turds around one end of the table, listening to all the others, I popped my head up from beneath the table at one point, only to see my stepson simultaneously pop his head up from the other end of the long table. My daughter had sprung into action with supplies to clean the pooh in the hallway. The ones with children seemed unfazed by the pooh. And still others took the job of comforting poor Chester, his hind quarters still quivering.
It's that moment. That moment when a person can decide that all is ruined or that this is just part of family life. I cracked up, laughing uncontrollably at the Christmas Vacation- style scene that played out before me.
The paper towel roll emptied. The Clorox bottle laid on the kitchen counter like a dead soldier. The barefoot son returned to the table. The dog barked at the back door. And we all gathered around, our plates full of food, lukewarm at best, mismatched glasses and china, and smiles. A Norman Rockwell painting, we aren't. And it's nice to know that we have done away with that sort of perfection-seeking behavior.
The last comment I heard before normalcy returned:
"Guess this won't make it on to your top ten list for next year."
Merry Christmas from us to you, and Chester too.
