Every year Christmas seems to get a bit less, well, climactic. I think it’s because we don’t have children. It’s gotten to the point where I can feel us casting around for ways to make it mean something. We have to blow ever harder on the tiny embers of Christmas spirit to get even the smallest flame.
We’ve tried to implement a few new traditions to help impart a sense of specialness to a holiday that for me, anyway, is increasingly unbearable. I make a (local, organic) roast instead of a turkey. I make Yorkshire pudding popovers, which we all call pucks, because they never rise. This year we tried decorating our biggest houseplant instead of a Christmas tree. We donate to local charities. But still the excitement withers.
One thing we tried this year that may have some potential was a Christmas Eve walk. We took Frank out for his constitutional on the waterfront at around 9:30 p.m. The idea was that all the lights and so forth would make us merry and joyous.
The evening was weirdly balmy. Thirteen or fourteen degrees, down from a high of sixteen earlier in the day. (I should point out that at this time of year the average is more like zero.) We had the waterfront mostly to ourselves. Other families were probably eating Christmas dinners, preparing for midnight mass, or drinking heavily, as is the tradition in many homes at the holiday season.
The only other people in evidence were a smattering of young men. In big pants.
What were they doing down there? Good question. Some were walking very slowly, bobbing their heads gently to whatever was playing on their IPods. Some sat languidly on benches. A few leaned against walls.
We really became aware of them when we had to go through a section of the board walk that was under construction. Pedestrians who wish to pass have to detour through an underground parking garage that is, itself, under construction or, more likely, abandoned. As we made our way toward the parking garage I noticed one of the big pant amblers in front of us. He looked back as us out two or three times before he reached the black maw of the concrete building. Just as he entered the building he slowed and then stopped, just inside the shadows.
I tugged on James’ sleeve.
“Jimmy, stop here a second.”
“What?”
“That guy up there. He doesn’t seem right.”
“Seriously?”
That got his attention. James has taken a lot of martial arts and instead of instilling him with false confidence, it seems to have made him aware that danger is everywhere. He’s constantly warning me not to get abducted when we go to the movies or when I walk the dog. Apparently in the self-defense world, every third person is an abductor and you simply can’t be too careful.
“Yeah. He was ahead and he just stopped. I think he’s waiting for us in there.”
We were nearly at the entrance to the parking garage.
Frank, festive in his holiday bandanna, continued trotting toward the building.
“Stop!” we both yelled. What if the skulker was after our dog!
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s turn around.”
“But the lights are all on that side,” James pointed out.
“I think that guy was waiting in there to mug us. Maybe abduct us.”
“Really?”
“Totally. He was behaving VERY STRANGELY.”
“Okay then.”
We turned and walked quickly back the way we’d come. And I felt this little surge of happiness that we hadn’t been attacked on a freakishly warm Christmas eve night and left for dead in a parking garage. Soon we broke into a run.
“Is he following?” I asked when we finally slowed down.
James turned and looked.
“I don’t know. I think I see someone back there.”
That was our cue to sprint back to the car as though the hounds of hell were on our heels.
When we finally got home, I was extremely relieved and grateful. I realize that the skulker was probably just trying to score some drugs or make a (most likely ill-advised) love connection. Or maybe he was scared of us and our dog. But it was still damned exciting. So next year I’m going to investigate other potentially dangerous Christmas eve strolls in trouble spots around the world. We might even expand the time frame and get really adventurous and try to attend a WalMart Boxing Day Sales Event. Something death defying like that. When you think about it, feeling grateful is what Christmas is all about.