Red Ribbon Eggnog

At my grandparent’s house, Christmas was as elegant as a Harrod’s storefront window.

Everyone wore their best clothes. The formal dining room and the family dining room were both completely decked with Christmas china, crystal, napkin rings, Christmas crackers, salt cellars, and silver serving pieces.

The tree was a coordinated masterpiece of tasteful holiday cheer that would rival any in the White House. We would sit on an overstuffed red Kurdish kilim pillow placed over the marble of the fireplace hearth to open elaborate presents.

But before we could enjoy any of that, there was the eggnog.

There was a regular pitcher of eggnog set beside little glass cups, with which we children had to be very careful. However, there was also the pitcher of eggnog with a red ribbon attached to the handle that smelled a little fruity, like my uncle’s Hawaiian shirts when he would interrupt the formality with his “Mele Kalikimaka!” twist, baby boomer style.

The red ribbon meant different things to different people.

To me, though I was the oldest of the children, I was still in the children category, and it meant “Do not drink.”

To my grandfather, it meant, “Celebration.”

To my uncle, it was an invitation: “Add more rum here.”

To my grandmother, it meant, “Varied hospitality to impress.”

To my parents, it meant, “Exercise moderation.”

Christmas is a pitcher of eggnog with a red ribbon.

For some, mourning loss, fighting wars, living alone, or suffering makes them look at Christmas like, “Do not drink.”

To others, Christmas means, “Celebration” or “Add more rum here” or “Varied hospitality to impress” or “Exercise moderation.”

It is the way we usher in the coming year, the way we bid adieu to the previous one. Perhaps it is even the way we drown our sorrows, throw off inhibitions, and make ourselves more jolly to fit the season and the day.

My Christmases now no longer contain the formality, my grandparents, that house, silver serving pieces, or spiked eggnog. I have the overstuffed red Kurdish kilim pillow on my bed, and everyday, as I make the bed, it reminds me that the red ribbon eggnog and all of its feelings and effects are gone. They were temporary, only for a time, fleeting and so temporal.

Christmas, like the red ribbon eggnog, and like the law in the Old Testament, are “but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities.”

Christmas, as the Grinch discovered, means so much more because of Christ.

He isn’t a tradition to be kept or a list of rules observed.

Instead, He is written on our hearts and minds.

“This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put My laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds…I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”

That’s a gift for everyone.