"It's Not You It's Me... Focus on the Lamb."
Essay - 00005
Rack of Lamb. That’s my distraction this year. Four racks to be specific, with my own original recipe Beet Mashed Potatoes. Fresh mint and dill, a mediocre Cab, and my tenderizer pulverizing a Beef Carpaccio into a paper thin metaphor of my excitement for the season. Or lack thereof. Is 7pm too early for bed? Can I sleep in long enough for it to be next year? Is it fair to turn my phone off for the next 7 nights, reemerging once the ball drops and the the Christmas trees hit the dumpsters?
Don’t get distracted. Focus on the Lamb.
I mask my seasonal discomfort with a good deed. The annual Degenerate Xmas Eve Party. A night I open my doors to the lost and bored, the ones I call friends that find themselves alone on this particular evening in December. We’ll drink too much, we’ll close down the dive bar, and we’ll all pretend that it doesn’t really suck. It’s more for me than it is for them. I need the distraction. My good deed balances the mental irritation of Christmas. My gift is hospitality. Hospitality is my repreve from my own mind. Mint Butter. Focus on the Lamb.
But I do foster a massive sense of joy from cooking, and hosting. Many of my friends have come to rely on my annual middle finger to the manufactured “Christmas Spirit”. Hell, I like to believe some of them even look forward to it. The traditions change with generations. I remember loving Christmas as kid, my divorced parents spoiling us rotten in a sick competition of who-loves-you-more. Maybe that wasn’t the case, but my brother and I played the game well like two ungrateful little assholes. As we grew up and the traditions of childhood shifted to the Xmas Eve bar shift in a tourist town and a 6am alarm clock to herd 100 tourist into ski boots far too small at the rental shop, the magic evaporated startlingly fast. Not only was Santa the behavioral manipulation I always suspected, but the cost of doing family business became a true hemorrhoid. Flash fry the green beans, add a dash of lemon and some shallot. Focus on the Lamb.
When you grow in a split family home, schedule becomes a bidding war. I’m one of the lucky ones, my parents managed to navigate the rigors of divorce for the most part with ease. At least in the peripheral of my brothers and I. Christmas alway had a way of narrating the reality though. I remember being told “it’s the most wonderful time of the year!!!”, yet my mother would cry everyday. This is wonderful? There’s just something so dishonest I can’t get past when the tears are clearly not of joy. But they did their best, in fact they did more than their best for us, we grew up so much more fortunate than any of my various parents ever could have ever imagined. So where did I derail from the Xmas Spirit? Was it the horrible taste of eggnog, another falsehood of decadence…. Focus on the Lamb.
It’s not all doom and gloom though. I believe in accountability and my shit attitude tonight has nothing to do with anyone but myself and my own choices. I have three amazing nephews who are ready to tear into some wrapping paper. I’ll eat well for the next two days. For me the only way I know how to find the Christmas Spirit is to host. It’s my distraction from the fact I’ve fallen a decade behind in the arenas of love and parenthood of my own. A Christmas Tree in the living room of a bachelor sparkles with more a sad reflection on the front windows than it does like the heartwarming Hallmark image we’d all like our homes to emulate. At least I’m honest about it. So I host. Degenerate Xmas Eve is upon once again, and holy fuck, way too quick. Experience is the gift, and I’ve been one of the richest men on the planet when it comes to experiences. Nothing to be a scrooge about here…
Just focus on the fucking Lamb.