Well we did it. We collectively made it through the holidays, blizzards and all.
Some of us are spent and happy, content with how perfectly the events passed, and pleased with the way our pie crusts turned out.
But others of us are left scratching our heads, wondering what just happened. With the decorations now down and the champagne drunk, we sit, alone among the half-empty glasses and crumpled wrapping paper, wondering how, and why, everything devolved into a scene that felt more like the first few blood-soaked minutes of “Saving Private Ryan” than the final moments of “It’s A Wonderful Life.”
What is it with holiday dinners?
No matter how much effort, or hope, that you invest in the once- yearly feast of turkey or roast beef or lasagna, they just never seem to pan out in quite the Hallmark-Rockwell way you wanted them to.
Ask around: Everyone has a holiday dinner-disaster story to tell. You’ve probably lived your fair share, maybe even as recently as last week.
Someone insulted the green beans. Someone insulted the hostess’ new party dress. Someone offended poor Aunt Sally, who was lucky to make it to the table in the first place, as old as she’s become. Someone threw up.
In other words, once you got the people you love the most around a festively decorated table overladen with food they wouldn’t even think of eating any other night of the year (Yorkshire pudding at the height of summer, anyone?), the gloves came off, the filters fell away, and people said things to each other that wouldn’t even be appropriate on just another Tuesday, let alone on the highest of holidays.
I say, cherchez the food. I think that because holiday food is so evocative, and so not quotidian, it’s dangerous. It gives people license to behave in ways they wouldn’t consider on any other night.
I think you know what I mean. (See aforementioned insults and offenses.)
Here’s what I mean: Holiday food (baked sweet potatoes! gingerbread! jelly rolls!) is usually the stuff of our youth, not the stuff of our present. Tasting the morsels of holidays past transports us back to our childhoods when the holidays were full of magical possibilities, when we still believed in charming stories of flying reindeer.
But it was also the time in our lives when we could get away with stuff. We could misbehave, without any greater recrimination than a few minutes in time-out. We could stay up late, claim toys selfishly as our own, overstuff ourselves with cookies and punch – and because it was the holidays, punishments would be light-handed and only sort-of enforced.
So when we, as adults, tuck into those once-yearly treats (glazed ham! potatoes au gratin! iced cookies!), the inner child comes forth, and we begin to believe, deep down, that we can misbehave without recrimination. When we’ve reawakened our pasts with that extra macaroon or slice of walnut tart, we can say what’s on our minds, and it’ll be forgiven.
And it should be forgiven. Because as appalling and damaging as holiday party behavior can feel, it must always be forgivable, just like that less-than-perfect batch of peanut brittle. If it isn’t, all you end up with is a grudge, and the holidays are just plain ruined forever.
Now that would truly be unforgiveable.
Dining critic Tucker Shaw can be reached at 303-954-1958 or dining@denverpost.com.
