A Dailey Family Christmas

There’s no doubt about it: Christmas is for kids.

Growing up as the only child in an Irish-Catholic-French-Canadian-Dutch-Episcopalian family had its perks, certainly. I raked in the prezzies like nobody’s business. Spoiled? You bet. But my parents were smart enough to keep the presents at an acceptable level; there were no battery-operated Mercedes under the tree for little Erin. Oh, no. But were there Barbies? With little tennis outfits? And matching Kens? Also with tennis outfits? Yes. Yes, there were. Was there a big Barbie head that I could put makeup on and style her wiry blonde hair into knotty bouffants until I got tired of doing that and so I took my mom’s curling iron and tried to curl the wiry blonde Barbie hair into little ringlets only to discover that Barbie’s wiry blonde hair was actually made from wax and my mom tanned my hide for ruining her forty-dollar Toni hair iron? Yes. Yes, there was. Was there a little black Lab puppy out on the porch one year and I named her Samantha after the main character on Bewitched? Yes. Yes, there was. Did I have to share any of these awesome presents with any brothers and sisters? No. HELL NO.

So, Christmas as a kid is awesome and it’s even awesomer when you’re an only child, but as you get older, the presents get more problematic because first you’re a kid who likes toys, and that’s easy, but then you’re a pre-teen and you want things like Casio keyboards and Vans and a skateboard or a bike, and then you’re a teenager and you want everything that your parents don’t want you to have and nothing that your parents actually GIVE you because GOD, your parents know NOTHING about you or what it’s like to be SIXTEEN, like, AT ALL, and then you’re going to college and all your gifts are things you can put in your dorm room or your first apartment or it’s clothing that you can’t afford to buy for yourself because, well, you’re in college and you can only afford to buy beer, and then finally, FINALLY, you’re an adult and you can buy things for yourself and Christmas, well, Christmas just becomes another excuse to hang with your ‘rents while you drink too much wine and talk about life and smoke cigarettes in the kitchen and eat so much your belly hangs out over your Levis.

And that’s when Christmas actually becomes fun on a whole other level.

At least, in the Dailey family it does.

In the Dailey family, Thanksgiving was reserved for bringing college and post-college friends home for food and drink and general hilarity. Christmas was reserved just for us. Jim and Karen would invite me home and, unlike several of my classmates, I would not bring home laundry for my mother to do. Mainly because it meant me hauling an extra twenty pounds onto the Metra that I really didn’t need to. I’d show up at the Lake Forest train station and Mom would pick me up and we’d head home and I’d dump my stuff in the guest room, because, obviously, my mother had turned my bedroom into her art room, and I’d head downstairs for either wine or coffee, depending on the hour. And, depending on the hour, we’d launch into "The Dailey Family Confessional Hour."

One year, I learned that my father lost his virginity at the age of fourteen to a girl of sixteen beneath the bleachers during a football game. One year, I learned that my mother had once had an IUD and her husband (the man she was married to before my father) didn’t want children. One year, I told my mother all the drugs I’d done in college. We were in her Toyota Tercel, driving toward home from the train station, and somehow we got on the subject of pot. My mother said something like, "Oh, I can’t believe people smoke pot." And I said something like, "I’ve smoked pot, Mom!" She said something like, "But…pot! It leads to PCP and Angel Dust!" We were stopped at an intersection. I turned to my mother and said, "Pot leads to PCP and Angel Dust? What, have you been watching old Dragnet reruns? PCP IS Angel Dust, Karen! And I’ve done hash and ‘shrooms and coke." I honestly hadn’t intended to say that. Especially at that moment. My mother almost had difficulty putting the old Tercel into drive after that admission. "You…what? WHAAAAT?" "Mom? I’ve done drugs. Most of them weren’t fun. Some of them were. That doesn’t mean I am a drug addict or anything." "Oh. Oh. Okay. Um. Should we stop and get wine before we go home? Or are you an alcoholic now too?" "I am not an alcoholic, mom. But, yes, we should stop and get wine." "Oh. Okay."

There was this one time when I was being a total toolbox and didn’t deserve any Christmas presents whatsoever. I have no idea why I was being such a total cooze, but I was, and, honestly, looking back on it, I wouldn’t blame my parents for shoving several lumps of coal right down my bitchy little throat. I think I was about 18 or so, and I think I told my mother I hated her and my mother slapped me right across the face and my father walked up and was like, "Uh, what in the FUCK is going on here?" And I was like, "Uh, FACE SLAPPED." And my mom was like, "I JUST SLAPPED HER FACE." And my dad was like, "Okay, you two bitches need to calm the fuck down." Yes, of COURSE he said that. Only, it was more like, "Okay, honey? What’s happening here? What’s…Erin? What did you DO to your MOTHER? Karen? What did you SAY to ERIN?" My dad. Always clueless when it came to the women in his life. But we loved him anyway.

Then my parents and I went to Ireland together. And we went from being parents and child to friends. Just friends. And it was weird. My parents saw me wicked drunk in Westport and I saw them wicked drunk in Kinsale. And our Christmases were never ever the same.

I’d show up with a bottle of wine, Karen and Jim would be like, "You brought WINE!" and we’d engage in a lovely little event we call "What’s Your Worst Truth." No, honestly. I’d throw my gargantuan arse up onto the kitchen counter and grab my stein of wine and we’d talk about our pasts and how hilarious they might be if ever put into print. Hell, my own mother had a previous husband. That was fodder for discussion. My father had been a lingerie salesman. HELLO? We had the best Christmases between the time I was 23 and 29. We were all grown-ups and we all enjoyed each other. We gave each other gifts off our lists; I gave Mom several potholders she’d been eyeing; Dad gave me several earrings I’d never buy from the head shop underneath the paint store; Mom gave me fingerless gloves and a handmade scarf that was approximately forty feet long; and Dad gave Mom a watercolor paint set that she would never buy for herself. When I grew up, my parents did too; and, as a result, we enjoyed Christmas in a way we never knew we could.

After Dad died, Mom and I really didn’t know what to do with ourselves. We didn’t want to join other families in their Christmas celebrations; ours were so…particular. Mom and I really dug the way we spent Christmas; what with the drinking too much and the eating too much and the watching of too many movies. But everyone and their brother wanted us to spend Christmas with them. And their family. And we appreciated it, really, we did, but…all we wanted to do was have a traditional Dailey Christmas. We wanted to be left alone to do what we Daileys apparently…do. That is, lie around, eat tons of food, drink too much, smoke cigarettes, and talk about truths.

Our first Christmas after Dad died, my mother and I got wicked drunk in her apartment and smoked cigarettes and watched The Ref, because Dad LOVED that movie after I showed it to him two Christmas’s past. The Ref had become our Christmas tradition movie, It’s A Wonderful Life being too saccharine and irritating. Oh, and it didn’t have any "fuck" words running through it. Dad was a lover of the "fuck" word. As were we all.

And now, six years after my father died, our Christmas is very much the same. Mom and I hang out for a bit, annoy each other for several seconds a day, and come to realize that, while we appreciate each other, we are very different from one another, and, we think, that’s okay. I am bitter, jaded, rude, honest, and kind of jarring. She is accomodating, sweet, loving, accepting, and kind of chatty. She wears big earrings. I wear big hats. We still drink too much and smoke too many cigarettes (me, more than Mom), and we still tell each other truths. Just tonight I learned about Billy Connolly and how much my mother dug his chilli, courtesy of some photos I’d been smart enough to lift from one of my mom’s storage bins. She picked up the picture of him, in the center of about nine girls, and she said, "Oh, Billy Connolly. I loved him so much. But he was dating Barbara, the girl on the right. So I couldn’t go after him, you know? She was my friend."

Oh, Billy Connolly. You have NO idea what you missed out on.