flipflop_diva

The noise starts long before the first car pulls into the driveway. Usually thanks to my sister and me. Our excitement can’t be contained in quiet indoor voices, but instead bursts out in enthusiastic chattering and loud singing.

We dance to the music on the radio as we carefully pick our party outfits and curl our hair and make sure the presents are wrapped.

In the kitchen more noise is emanating — the sound of the blender and the mixer and the television on in the background. All of it sometimes accompanied by the sounds of occasional curses or yells between our parents about things that still need to be done.

Our dad adds his own noise too. Mowing the lawn and moving around furniture and hefting the nice China dishes out of the cabinet from which they live the other 364 days of the year.

Even the dog gets in on the action, running back and forth between people, barking at everyone as she does.

Slowly, the clock hanging above the fireplace ticks toward its destination, and my sister and I find ourselves standing by the front windows, waiting, trying to see who will be first to arrive. Will they be a few minutes early or a few minutes late? We hope early. Our mom, not quite done with the food preparation, hopes late.

It’s the same ritual we have done every year for as long as we can remember, and every year, it’s one of my very favorite days.

For a few minutes, as we all wait, the noise dies down, broken only by scrapes of a spoon against a bowl or the noise of a football game playing on the television.

And then a car pulls up, parks, and our excitement overflows once more.

It’s never the same order to the arrivals, but it’s always the same people. The Hietikko family (our mom and their mom went to nursing school together), the Boggs family (our parents and their parents were neighbors in their first apartments after they each got married), the Walters family (our dad and their dad grew up together, went to college together, went out drinking together) and the Melvin family, who used to be our neighbors before they moved an hour away.

Five families, most of whom have been connected long before any children were ever born. Friends so close they might as well be family. Most Fourth of Julys spent together. A majority of New Year’s Eves and New Year’s Days spent together. Many special occasions spent together. But always, always, always, a Christmas party a week or two before Christmas spent together.

Liz and I yank open the door before the first family is even out of the car, and we’re practically jumping with excitement. Hellos and hugs are exchanged and the loud excited voices of friends who have been apart too long.

The parents end up in the dining room, sitting around the table, eating appetizers and drinking beverages that the kids aren’t allowed to have. When we’re young, the kids end up in my room or my sister’s. When we get older, we’re in the renovated basement where we keep the Nintendo and the board games and a TV that is ours. When we get even older, it’s the family room where we sit around and eat and catch up on each other’s lives.

Sometimes an adult comes over to visit with us. When we’re younger it’s questions about school and favorite teachers. When we’re older it’s about drivers’ licenses and where we’re going to college and what we’re going to do with our lives.

The adults get to keep the dining room table when it’s time for dinner. The kids crowd around the table in the kitchen, too small to comfortably fit everyone but it doesn’t stop us from trying. Usually drinks get spilled or food ends up on the floor, but no one is that upset. We eat and chat and laugh, getting louder and louder to make sure we can hear ourselves over the voices of the adults in the room next door.

We exchange presents after dinner is cleared and leftovers are packed up. Each family gets one other family and buys presents for all of them. We open our presents one at a time, kids first and then adults, screeching and laughing and shouting in happiness.

Then it’s time for one of my favorite things. The annual staircase photo, as we call it. All the kids clamoring on to the staircase, so the parents can take photos of us. So easy to fit when we are small and growing a bit more difficult each year as kids turn into teenagers and then into young adults.

We make the parents sit on the stairs after the kids are done, and they groan and complain and mutter good-naturedly as they do, but they smile and let us take their photos and shake their heads as we tell them to “Say cheese!”.

At the very end of the night, my mom will bring out the triple chocolate bundt cake and the peppermint ice cream she makes each year, and everyone will eat more than they should while we talk and laugh just a little bit longer.

It’s almost magical, the nights of the Christmas parties, and not just because of the twinkling holiday lights and the carols playing in the background. It’s the feeling of joy that permeates the air. It’s being surrounded by people you love and who love you and who know you. It’s friendship and laughter and memories being made.

The house is almost silent after everyone leaves, everything feeling so empty. We pick up the toys and the last of the dishes, just the four of us, happy to have had the night but sad it’s come to an end.

It’s been a really long time now since we had one of those Christmas parties. I can’t remember when the last one was. Maybe when I was in college, before my mom got sick. Definitely before she died and my dad sold the house we’d grown up in. Maybe it was before that though, before the kids grew up and went away to college, before our friendships had to learn to survive through Facebook posts and emails instead of in-person get togethers.

I think about those parties sometimes and the other moments we all spent together. All those families and all those kids, growing up together, year after year. Until we all went off to college and off to jobs and off to separate lives in all different parts of the country.

My kids don’t have something like that, not yet. We do holidays with my sister and her husband and their kids, and occasionally we spend time with my husband’s family, but it’s not the same.

It’s hard to make friends when you’re an adult. At least it seems for me. At least in-person. I have a lot of friends I’ve made online and a lot of friends from other times in my life, but none of them live here, none of them are coming over for Christmas parties and New Year’s celebrations.

I’m working on it. Trying to become friends with some of the moms I’ve met through the kids’ daycare. Trying to get to know some of our neighbors. But it’s hard. And it’s slow. And sometimes it’s lonely.

My parents were lucky — they found these amazing friends who then became friends with each other too and who were happy to spend so much of their lives together. And we were lucky that we got those moments with them.

Maybe someday my kids will look back and think they are lucky too. Maybe some new friends are waiting just around the corner. Or maybe being near to their cousins will be enough.

Only time will tell. But I will do my best to give them those magical moments. Those are still some of my most treasured childhood memories, and those other kids are still some of my favorite people in the world. The parties might be over, but the friendships are still there, the memories are still there — forever loud and crazy and full of love.




Non-fiction.
I tried to find one of the staircase photos, but most of those were taken before digital cameras and are tucked away somewhere in a photo album that I need to dig out.



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