Merry Christmas from the Family

My Good Wife and I like to watch classic Christmas movies. Among our favorites are It’s a Wonderful Life, White Christmas, A Christmas Story, Elf, and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

We have a broad definition of “classic.”

The other night we turned our attention to an under-appreciated admittedly non-classic made-for-television film: A Very Brady Christmas (1988). That’s Brady as in The Brady Bunch.

As the film opens, we learn that Mike and Carol are now empty nesters. They’ve been saving money for a special vacation, but decide to spend it on plane tickets for all six of their children (and, where applicable, their children’s families) to come home for Christmas. Naturally, they anticipate a fun and joyous time of family harmony.

But every child is dealing with a crisis. Marcia’s husband just lost his job. Jan and her husband are separated. Greg’s wife wants to spend Christmas with her family. Peter is in love but hesitates to propose because his girlfriend is his boss. Bobby has dropped out of graduate school to drive stock cars. And college student Cindy is tired of being treated like “the youngest one in curls”—she hasn’t even worn her hair in curls for years!

On top of all that, Alice the housekeeper moves back in because her husband, Sam the Butcher, has left her for another woman.

Half an hour in, the tension was almost unbearable.

But after ninety minutes of drama and comedy (dramedy, to use a modern term), every crisis has been resolved and everybody is happy and at peace.

Oh wait, I forgot to mention the cave-in. Mike survives a cave-in. On Christmas Day. At a work site on 34^th Street. It’s a miracle!

It really is a wonderful life.

Oh, if things could be that simple in real life.

A lot of us will gather with our families during this holiday season. In many cases, the experience will be challenging. That’s because relationships are complicated. People get hurt. Families have drama. Some of our conflicts are over significant things, but some are over trivial stuff.

I won’t try to sugarcoat it: some of us will have a very difficult Christmas, and it will be because of problems with those we love best. But I hope we’ll work things out as best we can. I hope we’ll embrace each other with all our flaws. I hope we’ll try to understand each other.

Mostly, I hope we’ll try to love each other.

It’s not a Christmas episode, but I think a lot about the Modern Family season one episode “Family Portrait.” An effort to take a perfect family portrait has gone awry as a mud fight breaks out among the white-clad family members.

In a voiceover at the episode’s conclusion, Jay (played by Ed O’Neill) says, “Back in '68…I had this mental picture of the family that, if I was lucky enough, I would end up with. Perfect wife, perfect kids... Well guess what? I didn't get any of that. I wound up with this sorry bunch. And I'm thankful for that every day. Well, most days.”

May it ever be so for all of us.

Merry Christmas from my family to yours!

My Christmas List

I remember when I wanted lots of things for Christmas. “How many things?” you might ask. Well, let’s just say that had I sent a letter to Santa, it would have required extra postage.

Somewhere there’s an 8mm film of nine-year-old me monopolizing Santa’s time as I tick off the items on my list while adults in the background laugh. But I wasn’t one to take chances.

There were just so many toys to choose from. How was a boy supposed to decide what he had to have and what he could live without? Besides, how many chances did you get to say “I want all of this” and know you had a decent chance of getting a lot of it?

I figured it was best to tell Santa I wanted everything and to trust him to decide what was best.

Now, I lived under special circumstances. I was the only child of middle-class parents. They spoiled me a little bit, by which I mean a lot. I got more for Christmas than I should have. It sure was fun.

As I approach my sixtieth Christmas, I think I may have finally reached peak maturity. I realized this the other day when my Good Wife said, “You haven’t told me anything you want for Christmas” and I answered, “That’s because I don’t want anything.”

I wasn’t kidding. And I wasn’t trying to be noble.

In previous years I’ve said that I didn’t need anything, but I think this is the first one when I’ve said I didn’t want anything. I can’t quite get my head around the fact that I really don’t. But I really don’t.

Oh, that doesn’t mean that I won’t enjoy opening any presents I might get. And I will get a few, because despite my failure to produce a wish list, my wife and children will give me things, and I’ll be happy to receive them because I know the love that stands behind them. Besides, I like surprises.

Here’s the thing though: I have everything I want, mainly because I have everybody I want. I have a good wife, good children, good children-in-law, a good grandson, and a soon-to-be-born good granddaughter. While they are all good in the sense of being opposite from bad, that’s not what I mean. I mean that they are good gifts of God. I have them not because I deserve them, but rather by the grace of God.

Now that I think about it, there is one thing I want for Christmas: I want everybody to have people in their lives that they love and that love them. I want everybody to experience that grace.

Maybe it’s a mark of real maturity when we realize that the joy we find in our closest relationships is incomplete until everybody knows such joy.

This Christmas, I wish it for you.