Holiday Feelings
Nov. 2024
“Do you think Christmas is going to be better this year?” I whisper to my mom, hoping the slouched figure in the next room doesn't hear. I doubt he will, but I lower my voice just in case.
“I don’t know,” she says back, shaking her head slightly without looking up from the cutting board. She heaps chunks of butternut squash into a metal mixing bowl, the reflective surface tarnished by vegetable blood. The yellow-orange squash cubes rumble into one another, bouncing with muted thuds. Stray skin peppers the marble countertop, thin shavings haphazardly collected in the rush to get dinner on the table.
I watch in silence for a while as she finishes the cuts and tosses the contents of the bowl into a pot on the stove. Mango-mac is our dinner tonight—a nickname given by a friend of mine who had never seen a butternut squash. Or maybe he wasn’t thinking when he spoke. Either way, the name stuck.
The meal was one of my favorites. My siblings and I all wanted mac and cheese and my mom wanted us to eat vegetables, so this was the compromise. The cheesy, gooey sauce mixed in with the macaroni hid the squash well.
As time went by the flavor of it grew less delicious. Perhaps it was because I’d tried more types of mac and cheese, or maybe it was because my taste buds had changed—I heard they could as I got older. But the tasty cheese now has an aftertaste that I know was there all along, a tangy, tart undertone that reminds me of soap.
A cheer erupts from the living room. It’s a quick bark, then a shallow laugh. I look over and see my grandpa sitting in the faded green armchair, his wrinkled fist raised in the air. The skin on his arm is purple and brown, but I know it’s not just liver spots. The effects of his recent fall didn’t want to heal.
“Let’s go, mister!” he cries to the television screen, pointing at a figure that the camera has chosen to follow. He’s watching the Kansas City Chiefs win the superbowl against the San Francisco 49ers for the millionth time, but he doesn’t mind. He thinks it's live. He doesn’t remember watching it on Sunday with me while we ate vanilla ice cream with too much chocolate syrup. He put peanuts in his bowl, trying to convince me to do the same.
He likes Patrick Mahomes, the quarterback for Kansas City, and he says his name every time the back of his jersey is close enough to read. I wonder sometimes why he likes Mahomes. He says he’s the new superstar, that he can throw the ball like nobody else. That’s true enough. I’ve watched every game from last season with him a dozen times.
But I think it’s more than that. Mahomes represents something that Grandpa doesn’t have. It’s not just youth or fame, it’s not money or a girlfriend. I don’t actually think my grandfather can recognize those words anymore, let alone understand the intricate cultural meanings bound within the American dream that seems to slip farther away from him every day.
Patrick Mahomes is passing on a legacy. His stats, his wins, the records he’s breaking. People will remember him for a generation or two. His name will be forever written in the NFL Hall of Fame book, until history decides football doesn’t matter anymore, or until the world ends.
In some twisted way, Grandpa believes that what Mahomes does really matters. It matters to him because in his elderly state, he can’t do the same. Every day, he sits in front of the television, reliving the excitement of a new football game, a faint memory tickling the back of his mind telling him that something is wrong, but he doesn’t know what.
I watch him for a while, then I sigh, turning away. I motion through my disc golf swing, pretending to throw a frisbee through the large window pane. I’m waiting for dinner, knowing that it’s still fifteen minutes away. It’s not enough time to do anything. My eyes drift into the backyard as the imaginary disc dodges between our two trees, an inch of white layered on the dead branches. The faint outline of the trampoline in the back corner of the fence is barely visible in the darkness.
I do the motion again, and I realize that I’m standing on the other end of life from my Grandpa. I still hold the imaginary disc in my hand, its path laid out before me in my mind. My hopes are high for what my life could become. College, trade school, freelance work. Maybe I’ll be a carpenter. I think I’d like that.
Sooner or later, my life will be on a course that I did not expect. Then I’ll land somewhere, just like my grandpa, looking back on what could have been.
“Can you set the table?” my mom asks, moving the pot to a trivet on the marble island. “Dinner is almost ready. And can you go get your father?”
I mumble an affirmative, shuffling behind Grandpa’s armchair. My socks slide on the hardwood floors as I skate past him, turning around the wall to the old-fashioned bureau. I take out four mismatched Peruvian placemats and gray cloth napkins. I lay them out on the tall dining table and fetch forks and knives, even though I know I won’t use the knife. Grandpa will need to.
I dash up the stairs and poke my head in my parents room, signaling to my dad that dinner is ready. He gives me a thumbs up and takes his headphones out, then I’m out the door and scrambling back to the kitchen.
“Grandpa, dinner is ready,” I say.
He chuckles, turning to me. “Did you see that?” he asks, pointing at the television.
“No,” I lie, deciding in a split second that it is better to let him explain it than to tell him I already know. “What is it?”
“Him, that man, the-the-the gumbleshog,” he says, fumbling with the words.
“The quarterback?”
“Yeah, he…” He acts out the throw with his hands, whistling as his finger trails a ball flying in the air. “Right on the guy.”
I smile, knowing he’s talking about Patrick Mahomes’s pass to Sammy Watkins in the fourth quarter. I know it without even looking.
“C’mon, Grandpa. Dinner is ready.”
He chuckles again, turning back to the game, my words not registering in what’s left of his mind. I tap his shoulder and motion for him to stand, repeating the words.
“Oh! Dinner is ready?” he asks, leaping to his feet. In his excitement, he shoves hard on the chair and it slides backward. He teeters, reaching for something to steady himself. Before he falls, I put a hand on his shoulder and push him upright.
I line up after him and he hands me a plate. Today is a good day for him. I hope it lasts through the holidays. I doubt it will. He doesn’t do well with lots of people, especially my grandma. He is like a child again, expecting more and more gifts, becoming less and less satisfied with them. That was what it was like last year when he still remembered our names.
“Ooh. It’s warm,” he comments, grinning at me. I nudge him forward, my stomach grumbling. I can’t wait to eat.
We serve the mango-mac and a honey glazed ham that my mom bought from Costco. We take our seats, and my mom calls out for my dad, who clomps down the stairs. His familiar footfalls are always a little late for dinner, matched by the surge of a flushing toilet. He rushes to the table to say grace before he serves his own food. He doesn’t want to make us wait.
After the prayer, I take a bite of the mango-mac. The flavor is faded, soured by the bitter aftertaste that I can’t help but notice. I shake salt and pepper onto the cheesy casserole, then I take the hot sauce proffered by my dad and dump it on too. It helps cover up the blandness. The meal has lost its shine, its luster. It’s a lesser version of what it used to be.
Just like my grandpa.
Just like how I will be one day.
