It’s officially the holidays at my house and that can mean only one thing: a super nova explosion of Christmas craft projects. Epic. Extraordinary. The paint flies in such a frenzy that it tickles the ceiling. The glue gun is begging for mercy — “No, not another piece of construction paper!”
The colored markers have run as dry as a Texas desert and the glitter is falling like snow. (Question: Why in the world would you ever give glitter to a 3-1/2-year-old who has questionable motor skills and a penchant for saying things like, “Is this candy?”)
The biggest of the projects so far was the one we did on Thanksgiving. My wife devised it in order to amuse, entertain, and mostly preoccupy the time of the grandparents and my aunt.
She was concerned that a stocked liquor cabinet and my family’s genuine love of fighting like rabid badgers could negatively affect the holiday. So in order to head off the fireworks she saw coming, she put them all to work. Why not? Big kids are like little kids: Want to keep ‘em out of trouble? Give them something to do. It was either that or resort to muzzles and shock collars.
She concocted a project that would turn three white plastic pumpkins — bought at a Halloween clearance sale — into a Florida snowman complete with stove-top pipe, a plastic toy carrot for a nose and some black construction paper coal. It required knives, glue guns and patience, which I had tried to explain to her are highly combustible on my side of the family. But she insisted.
So two grandmothers, a grandfather, and an aunt went to work after we had thoroughly mauled a turkey and taught a bourbon pecan pie a lesson it would never forget.
It was mostly smooth sailing and fun. To be honest, the snowman outside my front door with his cozy red scarf ain’t bad looking. He’s dapper and handsome — the perfect result.
But getting a result wasn’t always assured. Steering this team in the right direction was like putting a leash on the wind.
First off, my family can’t do anything unless they’re topping the decibel level of a jumbo jet at full throttle. It sounds like the monkey house at the zoo. And no one waits for a turn to talk — when they feel the need, they just start talking right over the other person, only louder in order to emphasize that the original talker is full of beans and ought to go soak their head. The original talker then ups the ante — and the volume — before a third person jumps in to give his or her vocal chords a workout.
To a perfect stranger, it appears my shouting family is deaf. “Were they all in a heavy metal band?” they often, trying to figure out why they don’t seem to hear each other.
“No,” I say. “They just can’t stand the sound of any voices but their own.”
Not to pick on her, but my mother also couldn’t quite grasp the whole snowman concept. She’s too linear and literal, and she complained that since she’s a lifelong Floridian, the closest she’s ever come to snow is shaved ice at the fair.
When told to cut out some black cardboard in the shape of coal she declared, “We don’t know what coal looks like. We’re crackers!”
“Mom,” I gruffly reminded her. “You’ve got to get this through your head: You’re not Scarlett O’Hara and you’re not a cracker. You’re a Cuban-Sicilian from Tampa who bleeds black beans and rice.”
Doesn’t know what a lump of coal looks like! Everyone who has ever watched a holiday cartoon knows what a lump of coal looks like!
“It looks like a charcoal briquette,” my father shouted above the din, but nobody heard him.
Miraculously — by which I really do believe startled angels came down and delivered all the pieces we needed — we assembled the snowman and carried him out to the front porch where all were wowed and thoroughly impressed. Like everything else she has ever come into contact with, my daughter proudly named him, “Pepper.” Smiles broke out, and it got quiet, except for the slaps on the backs and the high fives that went around.
I think the genuine joy we were all feeling was about much more than just completing a snowman. It was the realization that under the right circumstances, when there was a fun and meaningful craft project and a little girl’s holiday happiness at stake, this family could really pull together and make it happen.
And standing there with them was my wife, who wore the biggest, most satisfied smile of them all.