Come All Ye Faithful

Christmas holiday is my favorite family time of year. Truth be told, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are my very favorite days of the entire year. Every December, when I return home to celebrate the birth of the Jewish baby boy born in a manger to a woman and a man who've supposedly never consummated their marriage, I encounter equal amounts of piety and frivolity. My trips home are laden with belly laughs and bewilderment, most of which stem from interactions with my father.

At 11:39 PM on December 19, I landed at MCI Airport full of joy, ready to begin an extended Christmas and New Year holiday, splitting time between my hometown of Kansas City, where I spent the first 18 years of my life, and Austin, Texas, a place I called home for another 18 post-college years.

Greeted by Mom as I make my way to baggage claim, I am told that Dad is circling the airport curbside. I imagine him behind the wheel, grinning from ear to ear at the arrival of his prodigal daughter. It's no secret that the man finds the sight of all four of his children deeply gratifying. I smile, thinking how lucky I am to have a dad who loves his kids so much. Then I pray he isn't wearing those camouflage cargo pants.

Once I retrieve my suitcase and head out into the balmy upper-40-degree Midwest weather, I see Dad driving toward Mom and me with that grin I imagined only moments ago. I giggle as I see his huge, excited smile, and anticipate his leaping from the car, yelling, "Née Née! Hi, baby girl!" When he does precisely that, I smile and shake my head as I wheel my suitcase toward the back of the car.

I hug my overly enthusiastic father, and when he makes no motion toward my bag, I bend to heave my 47 lb. suitcase into the back of Mom's car, thinking I will surely be met with Dad's customary chivalry and boisterous, "No, Née, let me get that for you." To no avail.

I look at Dad with an "Are you just going to stand there while I get a hiatal hernia?" look on my face, but he smiles and mutters something about his bad shoulder. I roll my eyes as I steady myself in my heeled boots and simulate an Olympic deadlift to get my bag into Mom's SUV. After my great and grunt-filled effort, Dad's follow-up declaration of "Way to go, Née. That thing looks so heavy!" makes me want to punch him. Instead, I just shake my head, smile and say, "It's good to be home, Daddy."

I climb into the backseat, first moving a stuffed teddy bear that is actually strapped into a seatbelt.

"Oh my God, do I even want to ask why you have a stuffed animal passenger buckled up for safety?!"

Mom says nonchalantly, "That's your Grandma Rellihan's stuffed bear."

"Oh, well then, of course. That explains why it's seatbelted into the back seat of your car. Is it stuffed with large unmarked bills as part of your inheritance or something? 

Neither my mother nor my father hears me, and I'm reminded that speaking to the two of them from the backseat is futile. I buckle up, grab Grandma's bear, and place it onto my lap to embrace it with a "you and me against the world" solidarity.

As we drive down the highway on the way to our home, I'm reminded that my sister graduated cum laude this afternoon, having gone back to school 30 years after dropping out to get married and have four babies. I've always thought Julie's IQ was Mensa level, so the graduating with honors is no surprise to me. What is surprising is how few people witnessed her graduation. Apparently, she didn't tell anyone in the family except our parents and her own kids that she was walking graduation. Both our brothers were highly offended, though I know Julie only kept it under wraps so no one would feel like they had to sit through yet another long-ass graduation ceremony.

One of my brothers used motherf*#er in a text to scold my sister for not telling him about her graduation. Dad and I think that is super funny and spent the next several minutes randomly repeating my brother's chosen expletive aloud just to make Mom cringe and reprimand us. Sometimes, Dad's 5-year-old sensibility rubs off on me, and I just go with it.

As we approach the NE Cookingham exit, Mom blurts out, "Gene, if you exit here, we can go put something on Joe's grave."

Dad looks at me wide-eyed in the rearview mirror. I give him a look that says, "You married her."

"Joycie, it's after midnight," Dad responds.

Mom says simply, "I know. I'm just saying," as she stares out the window into the dead of night.

Dad looks again at me in the rearview mirror, and I silently mouth, "Just saying'" and smile at him. He winks, and we drive past that goddam Smuggler's Inn that occupied so much of last year's drive-from-the-airport conversation. A hundred cars are in the parking lot this time–at midnight.

Dad sees me staring out the window in confusion and says, "Look at that, Née. The Smuggler's Inn has reopened," as if he were Cousin Eddie explaining to Margaret that Ruby Sue's eyes had once gone crossed from being kicked by a mule, and then uncrossed from falling in a well. This comparison makes me laugh out loud and I respond, "Yep, it's a Christmas miracle, Dad. Thank God that mystery has been solved," hoping to God we don't have to revisit that conversation.

When we get home, Dad informs me that he has a prayer he has to say every day for the next 12 years. As he discloses this information, he is holding a multi-page booklet like a Jehovah's Witness getting ready to offer me the key to heaven. I respond quickly.

"That's nice, Dad. Seems like you need a little more prayer in your life since you're such a slacker, only saying 4 to 6 rosaries and the Divine Mercy Chaplet every single day, not to mention having been praying for a litany of people for decades. Please tell me my high school boyfriend isn't still on that list."

Dad chuckles and tells me that he would be happy to share the prayer with me if I am interested. I wink with a deflective nod and say, "Thanks, Daddio. I'll be sure to find you later so you can tell me all about it."

When I do find him later, he's standing over the stove rubbing the bottom of a skillet and applying its contents onto his cheeks in circular motions, like my grandmother used to apply her cold cream.

"Dad. Really? What are you doing?"

"My nightly moisturizer, Née Née."

With a blank stare, I look at his shiny cheeks and the glistening crow's feet around his eyes. Reading my mind, Dad smiles and blurts, "It's coconut oil. You have to warm it because it solidifies when it cools."

I continue staring at him in disbelief.

"It's true, Née. Get a bottle of coconut oil, it's white because it's solid..." he begins to instruct, as if I'm 2 years old just learning about the world around me.

I interrupt him, "Dad, you're standing over a stove caressing the bottom of a skillet."

He doesn't feel like defending his nightly ritual, so he changes the subject by asking me to please sit down at the dining room table and tell him and Mom all about the woman I've fallen in love with and with whom I'm spending the second half of my holiday vacation.

We are up until almost 2 AM as I share with my parents the full love story unfolding in my life. I have to admit that it is pretty precious to see Dad hanging on my every word as I tell them how this new love entered my life. The divinely ordained signature of her and my (our) connection– and the supernatural way in which it came to be– is compelling to most people who hear about it, but my father, whose main desire is to see his children happy and fulfilled, listens as though he is a small boy and I am telling him a fairytale. In a way, I am; it's just that this fairytale is not made of magical make-believe but is instead very real. It's so real that my father's interest in it is palpable to me, and for the first time in my life I feel an unspoken affirmation from my parents that their oldest kid might just be getting this beloved relationship thing right at last. I smile inside, and continue describing the love I feel in my heart for this beautiful woman. Dad's last comment before retiring to bed is, "When do we get to meet her?" My heart expands like the once shriveled heart of the Grinch as my daddy hugs me goodnight, his excited anticipation evident. Mom then hugs me and states matter-of-factly, "She better not hurt you."

Yep, even though I've said absolutely nothing that would indicate that this precious woman would hurt me, my mother rears her Mama Bear head. Everyone kind of loves this aspect of Joyce Arthur, including me. I just smile and hug my mama tighter, knowing that Mom will one day adore the beautiful woman I've just introduced into her life.

Needless to say, I am sleepy-eyed the following day as I wake to the cup of hot Americano that my precious Mama has ventured out into the Midwest cold to purchase for me. Mom knows that my Seattle-informed taste buds won't go for Folgers drip, and if you know my mother, you know that hospitality, especially for her visiting children, is high on her list of important standards. I smile and hug the petite 5'2" frame on the receiving end of so many thank-you hugs over the years. She hugs me back, then bites her tongue in that Rellihan fashion and pinches me while instructing me to go get dressed for my little cousin's baptismal Mass. I suddenly feel 12 years old again.

As we all get ready, Dad begins speaking pig Latin to Mom as if he imagines what he's saying is indecipherable to me. When I point out that I can, in fact, understand every word (the same way that I and my three siblings could even when we were little), he begins to talk to me in this childish jargon. When he realizes that his conversation is destined to be only a monologue, he turns the conversation back to my mom, who just looks at me and laughs.

"Etslay o-gay, Née!" he finally exclaims as he holds the front door open with his big monkey grin (the man gets as excited about going to Mass as toddlers do about waking on Christmas morning). Mom laughs harder. I look at her with that same "Stop encouraging him" look I've thrown her way a million times in my life, and I begin counting down the days left for me to be holiday-hostage with the Griswolds.

As we drive through Kansas City, I'm jolted onto nostalgia lane when Dad, catching sight of St. Pius High School, begins to reminisce about my baby brother's achievement as the first quarterback to take the St. Mary's Trojans to a winning season since our Uncle Steve played for St. Mary's 22 years earlier. Dad is deeply excited about this triumph, and I sit in the backseat amazed at the things that inspire fatherly pride. As I wonder how much weight this accomplishment actually holds for my little brother, Dad looks to the St. Pius football field, raises his fist to the sky, and yells, "My son beat your ass on your own home turf 20 years ago. Take that, Pius!"

Mom laughs. I roll my eyes and mutter, "Oh, brother," and Dad exclaims, "Remember that, Née Née?!" as if I'm going to shout an affirming "Yes!" inside an already exaggeratedly loud car.

I remind Dad that I am 10 years older than my youngest brother, and that I was living in Austin, Texas where the Friday Night Lights sensibility is on steroids when it comes to high school and college football. "But I'm sure it was an unforgettable moment, Dad." Obviously.

We are early to Mass (by 30 damn minutes), so we sit in the car remembering nearly every game that both my brothers and all my uncles played–play-by-play, mind you, like the boys in my family are state Hall-of-Famers. Eventually I join the sentimental trip down memory lane, recalling fondly that I chose my basketball number (#15) after my legendarily athletic uncle, Steve Rellihan. Truthfully, I chose his number not for his athletic accomplishments but for the beauty of his spirit and my admiration of his character. I smile as I recall all the ways Uncle Steve influenced my high school athletic career and my life.

Then I laugh to myself as I replay in my mind the track meet in Harrisonville when Uncle Steve's boisterously booming voice rose above everyone else's cheers and screams from the stands (even over Sister Mary Vincent DePaul's), encouraging me into a come-from-behind second-place finish in the 800-meter run. I hear his voice yell my name, and as if my internal engine shifts into turbo,  I begin to blow past my competition with bionic speed. From sixth place to fifth, to fourth…struggling to breathe, I hear him yell again, I dig deeper, and my body moves faster. When I hear Uncle Steve yell yet again in astonishment and affirmation, I understand that I am in fact leaving my competition in the dust (because to me, everything is a blur). I strain to kick around the closing curve into a full final straightaway sprint and cross the line in second place.

Uncle Steve gauges whether a runner has given a race everything they have in part by whether their butt muscles ache like hell. My ass muscles sting worse than hell, and after I walk onto the field after shaking the hand of the winner, I lean hands-on-knees in an attempt to catch my breath and slow my heart rate. I begin to come back into my body and become painfully aware of the ache in my glute muscles. This barometer of effort fills me with a sense of pride. I smile, knowing my uncle will be proud to hear that my ass burns like hell.

Just as I revel in the joy of pushing myself to my limit, I feel the awkward pounding of two fists madly kidney-punching me. Before I can figure out what is happening, I hear the all-too-familiar voice of Sister Mary Vincent DePaul yelling, "Second place?! You're a Rellihan! Why didn't you kick harder and take that girl?!"

Once I stand and turn toward her to get my arms up to deflect her punches, she grabs my earlobe and looks me directly in the eye. This maneuver would be a death sentence if I were a football player. I can't count the endless number of grown boys she has brought to tears by almost ripping their earlobes from their big ol' noggins, but I know this isn't her style with the girls. She simply holds my ear as her way of keeping me focused on her every word and says she hopes I do better next time., She finally resigned herself to my second-place finish, even grudgingly allowing that I "ran a good race at the end."

I squeak out a pathetic, "Thank you, Sister."

She mumbles, "Uh-huh," releases my earlobe, and walks away from me in her thick-soled black shoes and full nun habit.

I relax and watch this paradoxically confusing nun turn to make her way back into the stands. I smile (and slightly cringe) as I watch her walk past athletes sprawled out in stretch mode, looking down on them as if she is planning to either pounce on them or kick their gangly legs out of her path. I watch runners from the other teams part like the Red Sea to let her pass since they have just witnessed her public berating of a girl who actually medaled in the 800-meter run. I laugh at what must be going through their minds.

Sister's body is in full stride as her habit sways like Darth Vader's cape and her curly red hair protrudes from underneath her coif and wimple. She scares the shit out of everyone, but all of us Trojans know deep down that she loves us. The harder the punch, the more she believes in you; unless, of course, you forget to exclaim "Guten Morgen" when she addresses you in the hallway on any given morning. You'll not make that mistake again after a single strong sweep of her arm slams you up against metal lockers. And don't you dare try to argue ignorance due to taking French with Madame Hudson instead of German with Sister Mary Vincent DePaul because that excuse gets you a solid and breath-robbing fist punch to your breastplate.

I should know. I took French.

While my ass burns like it is on fire, I get beat up by Sr. Mary Vincent DePaul for giving my race my all. That, my friends, is the epitome of a good day as a young Catholic high-school girl.

My attention is jarred back by the escalating volume of Mom and Dad reminiscing in the front seat. Mom is getting visibly mad remembering when (East Jackson County Examiner sports writer) Dick Puhr characterized the St. Mary's High School basketball coach's move to another school as going "from the outhouse to the penthouse." She wrote Mr. Puhr a scathing letter excoriating him for single-handedly upending the joy and crushing the spirit of a team of athletes who go out every week and give it everything they have. I crack up inside, remembering how she used to wield a pen or typewriter to set a grievance right.

Oh boy– Mom and her letters! If that woman had a dime for every angry protest letter she has written, she could have retired from her place at the helm of St. Mark's School of Religion decades ago.

Though I don't recall ever reading the letter to Dick Puhr, I do remember two equally scornful letters, one directed at an entire television station and the other going for the jugular of the billing department of a pedophile dentist. It is also alleged that Mom wrote to Hershey and Nabisco for infringements of some group's liberties or other overt wrongdoings.

I remember the first two letters because she paced around the living room, talking out loud as she drafted them. They were also about incidents that directly and indirectly involved me. Mom would check with me as her narrative developed to ensure that she was recounting events accurately or that she wasn't making a mountain out of a molehill. My mom is accountable like that, but she is also tenacious. She follows through with her threats to right a wrong, especially when writing letters.

She wrote the letter to the television station after my little brother almost hanged himself on the slide attached to our swing set. On a hot summer day, Mom and I, chatting in the basement laundry room, hear a troubling gagging-and-grunting noise from the backyard. We finally realize that someone is in trouble and dash up the stairs and out the back door. To our horror, we see my little brother hanging from a rope around his tiny neck, flailing in a frantic struggle to free himself. We later find out that he put a noose around his neck and stepped from the landing at the top of the slide in an attempt to reenact a scene from a Wiley Coyote and the Roadrunner cartoon.

As you can imagine, after hearing this explanation from my frightened and rope-burned little brother, my mother is furious–not with my brother, but with the cartoon that placed this masochistic idea into his head. She has successfully made her case and banned my sister and me from "Three's Company" and "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" because she deems them unhealthy for her teenage daughters, but she has no reason to think that she needs to monitor Saturday morning cartoons. Well, that changes.

After a call to my dad, and lots of choice words about unruly coyotes and "who the hell writes this violent crap anyway," Mom puts pen to paper and writes the local television station about her intent to boycott, along with rallying all her friends to do the same, all of their programming if they do not pull the harmful cartoon from their network.

I'm not sure Mom ever received a response from the station, even after graphically recounting the miracle of arriving to rescue her son just in the nick of time before a fatal mishap took him forever from her. She cried a lot while drafting that letter. I could see even then that she suffered the pain of what could have transpired if she and I had been even a minute delayed from finding my brother. She felt that pain more than anger, but the letter helped her place her emotions somewhere.

She also likely had some residual angst and ire from her exchange a few years ago with the billing department of our childhood dentist, who had been arrested on child molestation charges. When she received a bill after he was convicted and extradited to the state of Florida for trial, she scoffed and wrote a letter saying she wasn't paying that pedophile's bill ever, or at least not until hell freezes over.

When the billing department responded with no interest in hell nor its weather but instead with a threat to send my mother's account to collections, Mom decided her excellent credit was important, so she agreed to pay them. She agreed to pay them one dollar, as in a single dollar bill, every month until her account balance was zero. For years, my mother wrote a check for $1 every month until her bill was paid in full. My mother also uses the memo portion of checks, and I was often tempted to open the envelopes to see what she wrote on that single line. My mom is protective of her kids, and the thought of a pedophile being anywhere near her innocent and vulnerable children infuriated her. I wouldn't be surprised if my very Catholic and compassionate mother wrote, "F*#k you!" on that memo line. Well, I might be a little surprised.

In case you've forgotten, we arrived early for a baptismal Mass and have been waiting in the car outside the church until it was time to go in (you see how the memories flood back when I'm with my parents)  The time has come so we join the rest of our family in the church pews. My sister Julie is the godmother of our new little cousin, Sam, but Julie is nowhere to be found halfway through the mass.

When I text her to see if she is okay, she responds, "I'm fucking lost!" I show the text to my Uncle Dominic and we both snicker. There's something about eyeballing the mother of all cuss words in a church sanctuary; you can't help but laugh involuntarily. Uncle Dom and I laugh together like two little kids until it becomes noticeable, and we have to compose ourselves.

Julie finally shows up in time for the actual baptism, and Uncle Dom, though serious and reverent as he witnesses his grandson Sam's cleansing of original sin, glances over at me, points to my sister, and gives a thumbs up. He adores my little sister (the godmother of his new grandson).  

I smile at Dom and silently mouth, "I love you."

Uncle Domenic winks and blows me a kiss.  

I look around at all the people gathered for this baptism, wondering, incidentally, why in the hell baptismal fonts have evolved from small bird feeder-like vessels to ornate dunk tanks that can fit entire adult bodies. It feels strangely evangelical protestant to me, and I'm not sure that I'm in favor of us Catholics joining the immersion baptism craze. Then I remember how absolutely not in favor of the latest liturgical missal changes I am, and I decide that Church doctrine is confounding. This leads to a series of thoughts about the actual meaning and differences between doctrine and dogma.

Before I know it, Sam is a baptized Catholic, and I'm suddenly starving.  

###

Christmas Eve choir is booming this year (believe it or not). Aunt Becky doesn't bring her hat-box percussion, but we do have a section of us banging triangles in various rhythms during our version of Little Drummer Boy because, you know, metal triangles just make sense when singing about the humble little drummer who played his heart out for baby Jesus while the ox and lamb kept time.

This Christmas Eve, my solo verse of "O Holy Night" is played (and sung) in the correct key; I'm thrilled to report so there's that Christmas blessing. As a matter of fact, my relationship with organist Mike a corner this year, most likely due to a surge of Christmas joy that inspired me to hug him and thank him for playing with unrelenting passion, despite accompanying a choir of typically off-key or off-tempo amateurs. He might also have sensed that for once I wasn't energetically restraining an urge to knock his toupee from his scatter-brained head. 

"O Holy Night" was additionally interesting this year because I got to share verses with the renowned Tom Dolci's older brother, Frank. Tom Dolci used to sing this same song to a standing-room-only Midnight Mass congregation at St. Mark's Parish every Christmas when I was a little girl. In his operatic baritone, it was so incredibly beautiful that I would sit in the pew and simply cry. Every year. Spine-tingling energy washed over me from when Tom Dolci sang the first breath of "O" until the final organ notes faded. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard

Frank's and my rendition of "O Holy Night" is not quite as memorable or as moving, but do manage to pull off something beautiful in honor of the birth of the most precious infant Jesus.

Julie Ann and I sit in separate rows of the choir this year. She claims it's because I hog the mic, but I know that she lip-syncs, so I'm not sure how that excuse holds water. I think it's because she wants to maintain a sense of reverence for Christmas Eve Mass this year. Our last year's frequent outbursts of laughter at the awkward Vietnamese readings and the swaggering choir director's processional rendition of the painfully awful "Mary Did You Know?" might have been more irreverence than my precious sister cares to repeat. I get it. I miss her, though. Admittedly, I feel a bit abandoned, like I felt the first time she didn't want us to sleep together anymore (in a twin bed) on the eve of Christmas when we were wee little lasses. Not that I can blame her. I peed the bed on more than one Christmas Eve. I bet that got old.

Our meat pie tradition remains fully intact, even though our matriarch left us last October. I miss her, but I feel her presence amidst all of the crazy 70 of us she left behind.

The Rellihan Clan made 379 meat pies this year (a record, I'm told, even though I've been saying for about 7 years now that we make 380 ct. per year). I learn that these pies are not a national Irish tradition, but one that originated in County Kerry, from whence Mom's family comes. Listowel in County Kerry is a big horse racing community, and many of my kin were habitués of the Listowel racetrack. The meat pies were invented to nourish the families that made a career out of spectating horse races.

Frankly, this concept of meat pies as a quick and easy source of sustenance on a long day is a bit head-scratching since the pies are warmed by being boiled in the jus of their meat innards, but who am I to question tradition? Leave it to the Irish to create a way to "make their pie and eat it too." On my bucket list is now a trip to my family's county for a day of horse races meat pies, in the spirit of my forefathers and mothers of the Motherland. I think this aspiration would make my Grandma and Grandpa Rellihan proud.

On the last day of my Home for the Holidays, Dad asks Mom where she's moved the kitchen pots and pans. Mom casually responds, "They are under Jenée's bed."

I look up from thumbing through my purse for a hair tie, sure I have misheard this exchange, looking side-to-side in disbelief at both of these people who've supposedly created me, then look full-on at Dad, who's looking back at my mother, hoping he too has mistaken her words and actual pots and pans don't currently reside beneath the guest bed.

Mom recognizes that we are awaiting a correction or explanation, so she casually utters, "We ran out of room in the kitchen, so I put them under the bed."

Dad says, "Good grief," turns from us, and beelines ive occupied for the past several days as I look at M’ as I look at Mom with whatever look is on my face that inspires her to ask, "You're going to put that in your blog, aren't you?"

"You better believe it, woman," I reply.

I drop the contents of my purse to go see with my own eyes a grown man hunched over on his knees, pulling a mixture assortment of copper-bottomed and Teflon pots from underneath a bed. Dad finally stands with an armful of metal, shakes his head, and walks past me.

"Um, yes! Now you know how I feel every waking moment that I'm with the two of you!" I humorously carp as he walks away from me.

Dad chuckles as he walks down the hall. I turn to my already overstuffed suitcase and wonder how in the hell I'm going to shove one more thing into its already bulging sections. I wonder for a moment whether Pope Francis will be offended if I leave behind his book of daily reflections until, like a lightning bolt, I recall that I once flipped off a tabernacle containing Christ's consecrated sacramental body. I feel a rush of familiar guilt wash over me.

"Damnit," I whispered, shoving the Pope book's spine behind my supplement bottles in the front compartment of my bag.

I hear Mom and Dad laugh in the living room about something unrelated to my packing dilemma. I smile. The joy they bring each other is inspiring, and it makes me even more excited about heading to Austin to connect with the woman who has stolen my heart.

"Née Née, you want me to make you a meat pie before you go?" Dad shouts stove side.

"Fuck, yeah, Dad! Woohoo!" I exclaim with immense joy.

Mom yells an exclamatory "Jenéeeee!" from the living room (she only uses my real name when she is mad at me).

I laugh and close my eyes and whisper "Thank you, God. I am the luckiest girl on the planet. Please let these two live for a very, very long time.

With that, I look up at the popcorn-textured ceiling of my youngest brother's room, now my childhood home's guestroom, and, like Christmas Vacation's Clark Griswold, after days of unbelievable holiday shenanigans, I whisper, "I did it."

Merry Christmas and Happy 2016 to all of you, from all of us!