my first christmas dinner at bubba's
Yesterday, I answered a series of 16 questions from a holiday meme that my friend Dottie tagged me with. But I left one question unanswered because it deserved a longer post. And this is it.
Christmas of 1989, my first after having moved to New York City, would have been fairly lonely had my then brand-new-beau Bob not invited me home to Beaver Falls outside of Pittsburgh PA to celebrate the holidays with his family, or should I say at "Bubba's." Bob's father's side of the family was Serbian, and even though his mother is a lean, wise-cracking, back-woods Kentucky woman of no particular ethnic background, as soon as her first grandchild was born she was given the nickname "Bubba," a Serbian term of endearment for grandmothers.
Now Bob's family is one of the wildest, most disorganized groups of people that this little son of a lockstep German woman has ever spent the holidays with, but that first Christmas at Bubba's sits in my memory as the wildest. The whole family was there, running from room to room, jabbering and worrying: grandkids with toys, cousins with casseroles, brothers-in-law in front of the football game, and his dad, a good-natured first-generation laborer, recovering from a car accident and a DWI, which of course, had everyone a little more on edge than usual that year. Bob was most nervous of all because, on top of everything else, he hadn't told anyone in the family about "us," and wasn't sure if anyone would figure it out. To me, they were all so distracted, I figured that I was the least of the things they would have trouble figuring out that day. And they seemed to be doing their best to stir up one of their wild, crazy-as-wet-hens celebrations, despite any of their own worries or me, the little redheaded stranger in the forest of giant Serbians.
At one point his three high-strung sisters were cackling in the kitchen, and one of them smelled their Kentucky mamma's dinner rolls cooking. Bubba is a great down-home-Southern-style cook, who makes biscuits and gravy, and hams, and dinner rolls flawlessly without a recipe or a timer.
"Yumm, don't Bubba's rolls smell good," Bob's sister Suzie cooed.
"She'd better watch 'em or she'll burn 'em," his sister Debra Ann remarked.
"Oh, make sure their not burning!" his sister Joy gasped.
"BUBBA YOU'RE BURNING THE ROLLS!" they all screamed as they ran for the stove and threw it open, only to find that the rolls were cooking just fine on their own, no problem at all, a few more minutes of browning still to go. They shut the oven door with another chorus of cackles, the rest of the family, including Bubba, paying no attention at all to the uproar.
Then with dinner still a little while off, his sister Joy clapped her hands together and asked Bob to play some Christmas music. He's the baby of the family, and being the baby and the piano player, he is asked excitedly every year, as if the whirlwind will draw to stillness for a few minutes to allow everyone to enjoy a sing-along. Yet, no matter how cooperative Bob was that year or any year since, no matter how willing he was to pull out the piano bench and find their favorite songs, the crowd was so scattered and disorganized that no one, not even Bubba or Joy who requested it, stopped to sing. It ended up that year and every year since just Bob, me and his one quiet step niece singing softly through the incessant ruckus.
Finally, as Bob, the step-niece and I grew tired of trying to hear each other sing, as the turkey and the ham came out of the oven and started getting carved, as the last of the teenage grandchildren pulled into the driveway and the youngest of them ran a toy truck up Bubba's leg, Bob's older brother Butch called the room not so much to silence, but to a low enough din for Bob's sister Debra Ann to lead us in a very Evangelical-style grace.
"We just wanna' praise you and thank you loving Father God for bringing us together safely again this year...."
I heard "amens" come up softly from above the roaring stadium on the TV and the grandchild who was still "vroom-vrooming" his truck.
"And we just wanna' thank you for the food we're about to eat and for Bubba and Daddy...."
There was another round of more insistent "amens" as the group began to get restless, fanning themselves with their empty paper plates. Aware of the group restlessness, Debra Ann finished off the prayer quickly to one big "amen" and the cacophony took back up where it left off.
Dinner was served buffet style and it was everyone-for-oneself. They all piled in, filled plates, and found a seat wherever they could around the big table or in front of the football game or on the steps or under the tree, all the while jabbering away. The whole group was never seated at the same time throughout the dinner. One person jumped up for seconds as another sat down with firsts. The restless children never asked to be excused as they would not have been heard and there was really nothing to be excuse from anyway. And the babbling continued, no one ever really hearing the other, until desert.
About a half-hour into the meal, all of a sudden, unexpectedly, a hush came over the room as the chocolate cake parted its way through the crowd to the table. The dining room suddenly filled with every single one of the family members. Children left their toys by the tree. Brothers-in-law walked away from the game. And his sisters, who otherwise would have been worrying about the oven or the children's plates, stopped fussing for a moment. They all quietly found their way into the room and gathered around the table, whispering reverently, "The chocolate cake." "Looks like good chocolate cake." "It's from Kretchmar's." "Oh, Kretchmar's." "Kretchmar's chocolate cake."
I half expected Debra Ann to break into "We just wanna' praise you and thank you, Chocolate Cake, for your chocolaty goodness, and for Kretchmar's from whence you came.... Bobby, go out there to the piano and play us one of those songs about the chocolate cake!"
But instead the knife slid into the dense dark frosting and a cheer went up as if it were midnight on New Year's. And the whirlwind continued as before, as everyone grabbed a fresh plate and a fork.
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Now Bob's family is one of the wildest, most disorganized groups of people that this little son of a lockstep German woman has ever spent the holidays with, but that first Christmas at Bubba's sits in my memory as the wildest. The whole family was there, running from room to room, jabbering and worrying: grandkids with toys, cousins with casseroles, brothers-in-law in front of the football game, and his dad, a good-natured first-generation laborer, recovering from a car accident and a DWI, which of course, had everyone a little more on edge than usual that year. Bob was most nervous of all because, on top of everything else, he hadn't told anyone in the family about "us," and wasn't sure if anyone would figure it out. To me, they were all so distracted, I figured that I was the least of the things they would have trouble figuring out that day. And they seemed to be doing their best to stir up one of their wild, crazy-as-wet-hens celebrations, despite any of their own worries or me, the little redheaded stranger in the forest of giant Serbians.
At one point his three high-strung sisters were cackling in the kitchen, and one of them smelled their Kentucky mamma's dinner rolls cooking. Bubba is a great down-home-Southern-style cook, who makes biscuits and gravy, and hams, and dinner rolls flawlessly without a recipe or a timer.
"Yumm, don't Bubba's rolls smell good," Bob's sister Suzie cooed.
"She'd better watch 'em or she'll burn 'em," his sister Debra Ann remarked.
"Oh, make sure their not burning!" his sister Joy gasped.
"BUBBA YOU'RE BURNING THE ROLLS!" they all screamed as they ran for the stove and threw it open, only to find that the rolls were cooking just fine on their own, no problem at all, a few more minutes of browning still to go. They shut the oven door with another chorus of cackles, the rest of the family, including Bubba, paying no attention at all to the uproar.
Then with dinner still a little while off, his sister Joy clapped her hands together and asked Bob to play some Christmas music. He's the baby of the family, and being the baby and the piano player, he is asked excitedly every year, as if the whirlwind will draw to stillness for a few minutes to allow everyone to enjoy a sing-along. Yet, no matter how cooperative Bob was that year or any year since, no matter how willing he was to pull out the piano bench and find their favorite songs, the crowd was so scattered and disorganized that no one, not even Bubba or Joy who requested it, stopped to sing. It ended up that year and every year since just Bob, me and his one quiet step niece singing softly through the incessant ruckus.
Finally, as Bob, the step-niece and I grew tired of trying to hear each other sing, as the turkey and the ham came out of the oven and started getting carved, as the last of the teenage grandchildren pulled into the driveway and the youngest of them ran a toy truck up Bubba's leg, Bob's older brother Butch called the room not so much to silence, but to a low enough din for Bob's sister Debra Ann to lead us in a very Evangelical-style grace.
"We just wanna' praise you and thank you loving Father God for bringing us together safely again this year...."
I heard "amens" come up softly from above the roaring stadium on the TV and the grandchild who was still "vroom-vrooming" his truck.
"And we just wanna' thank you for the food we're about to eat and for Bubba and Daddy...."
There was another round of more insistent "amens" as the group began to get restless, fanning themselves with their empty paper plates. Aware of the group restlessness, Debra Ann finished off the prayer quickly to one big "amen" and the cacophony took back up where it left off.
Dinner was served buffet style and it was everyone-for-oneself. They all piled in, filled plates, and found a seat wherever they could around the big table or in front of the football game or on the steps or under the tree, all the while jabbering away. The whole group was never seated at the same time throughout the dinner. One person jumped up for seconds as another sat down with firsts. The restless children never asked to be excused as they would not have been heard and there was really nothing to be excuse from anyway. And the babbling continued, no one ever really hearing the other, until desert.
About a half-hour into the meal, all of a sudden, unexpectedly, a hush came over the room as the chocolate cake parted its way through the crowd to the table. The dining room suddenly filled with every single one of the family members. Children left their toys by the tree. Brothers-in-law walked away from the game. And his sisters, who otherwise would have been worrying about the oven or the children's plates, stopped fussing for a moment. They all quietly found their way into the room and gathered around the table, whispering reverently, "The chocolate cake." "Looks like good chocolate cake." "It's from Kretchmar's." "Oh, Kretchmar's." "Kretchmar's chocolate cake."
I half expected Debra Ann to break into "We just wanna' praise you and thank you, Chocolate Cake, for your chocolaty goodness, and for Kretchmar's from whence you came.... Bobby, go out there to the piano and play us one of those songs about the chocolate cake!"
But instead the knife slid into the dense dark frosting and a cheer went up as if it were midnight on New Year's. And the whirlwind continued as before, as everyone grabbed a fresh plate and a fork.
5 Comments:
fantastic! fun! what a scene... I know those Kentucky rolls! this entry is a joy, Jay...way to go!
I love those kind of holiday gatherings.. the chaos, the noise, the laughter.
My family is now quite small and our family gatherings usually have no more than perhaps one additional person than the usual dinner table in them.
I really miss those big, loud dinners.
Actually, I love these big loud holidays too, and for the record I should say that my family can be almost as crazy as Bob's. This year, being here in New York packing, packing, making last minute paint color choices, and more packing, we took our contractor out to dinner and that was that. It was appropriate to this year, but I REALLY missed being in a home, Bob’s or my own.
And I love chocolate cake. Thanks for the great story.
This was great. And funny, too.
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