The Christmas of the flying baklava

     We knew in advance it was going to be a different Christmas – Rick and I were traveling to northern Michigan, to the home of one of my sisters, instead of the usual downstate gathering at my brother’s house.

     But we didn’t know HOW different.

     My brother had gallantly offered to lend us one of his vehicles for the drive from southern to northern Michigan so we didn’t have to rent a car on top of our plane fare. Because he and his children were using his truck and SUV for the drive north, the only vehicle he had available was – oh, pity – his Mercedes. No eensy-weensy Ford Focus, like we usually rent. No air-freshener-smelling rental car at all. A sleek, sexy Mercedes coupe that we could drive in style.

     So we set off in our luxury car in the remnants of a mean snowstorm, drove four hours up interstates and ice-slicked side roads, got to my sister’s and parked the Mercedes at the bottom and to the side of her long driveway.

     The family celebration was going to be in a nearby unoccupied former restaurant my brother had just purchased and Annette, my sister, had made most of the food. We helped her pack the ham and vegetarian dishes and salads and desserts and – most important – the baklava her husband, Mike, had so lovingly created.

     Is it any coincidence that so many movies are made about families gathering for holidays and the mayhem that ensues?

     During the gathering, my brother’s 48-year-old girlfriend confided that I reminded her of her grandmother (though, in context, the comparison was actually quite sweet). One family member, whose name cannot be mentioned lest she ever need to job-hunt again, introduced too many glasses of cabarnet to her over-tired body and had to be borne from the place on the shoulders of her 23-year-old son. Mike caught his leg on the wires leading to the Christmas lights on the festooned archway to the dining area and brought down all the decorations.

     And when my sister, arrived – late because she was bringing the last of the desserts – she was shaking.

     “I’m used to pulling straight back out of the garage,” she said with an embarrassed expression. “It was so dark. I forgot where you were parked.”

     Pause.

     “I creamed the Mercedes.”

     Worst of all, she said, was that Mike’s baklava had gone flying throughout her Pontiac Vibe, never to be retrieved.

     And you? Any family drama over your holidays? Maybe we could start a whole new blog.