On the first Christmas Eve that Crankenstein and I spent together, before she went to a midnight church service while I hung out with her cat, we stopped by my parents’ house for dinner. It was a casual, secular affair attended mostly by atheists and Jews — my parents, siblings and maternal grandma — and marked the first time Crankenstein met any of them.
In the days leading up to it, my dad repeatedly warned my brother to please behave himself. No matter how many times I told my parents that Crankenstein wasn’t intimidating or humorless, they’d built this mental image of her as a somber professional. Her devout Christianity also threw them for a loop, and my dad’s greatest fear — that Felix would say something religiously insensitive — was realized during dinner, when he cracked a Jesus joke.
“Why did women love Jesus?” Felix asked, and despite his jovial tone it was a serious moment. Our sisters practically gasped as he veered dangerously off-script, looking first at each other, then to me and our mom, and all of us glanced toward Dad, his telltale neck vein already bulging from his seat at the head of the table.
Crankenstein played along: “I don’t know, why?”
“Because he was hung like this,” Felix said, stretching his arms wide, as if crucified.
Our dad’s anger was palpable to everyone except Felix, but Crankenstein politely guffawed, as did my doddering grandma. The tension slowly eased as my sisters laughed in relief. Even Dad thinks it’s a little funny now, though he hastens to add, “I wanted to wring his neck.”
Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, and may your holiday get-togethers be less awkward than that one.
* Taken before I wrapped Crankenstein’s presents and filled her stocking. She got perfume (Windows Down by Henry Rose), a Serial Mom shirt, a notebook, and an assortment of ILNP bottles (not pictured) that she selected herself since I can’t keep track of her collection. For the uninitiated, that’s arty nail polish.