The Relief Society Christmas Party
From "Phoenix Song"
There was food. Not just some treats, but dinner—down to the gluten-free lasagna made to let one sister’s mother-in-law know she was remembered and welcome as often as she came. There were games: including the one like musical chairs, but with questions instead: stand up and scramble for an open seat if your hair is brown, or if you’re birthday’s in the spring. Stand up and scramble for a chair if you’ve been listening to Christmas music since before Thanksgiving—and again if you’ve been listening since July. But most of all, and best for all, there was the annual crazy Christmas sweater contest. My wife’s entry was very meta: an ugly sweater she’d decorated with a half-dozen tiny ugly sweaters. But the competition was stiff. Alongside found pieces from the nearby DI and classics like “Fleece Navidad,” there were a few that challenged the very conventions of the genre: like the Christmas Special Sweater, complete with a slot to slide in a smartphone as if it were a TV screen and play clips from Charlie Brown or It’s A Wonderful Life— or the conjoined twin sweater two literal sisters wore. I wasn’t, of course, invited to attend, but still it’s fun to imagine those two girls, on opposite ends of the years we’ve come to call youth, laughing as they rush together to the open chair in the question game. And no one called out stand up if someone you should have been able to trust made choices that hurt you. No one said stand up if pain you might have wished to keep private became public when your father’s arrest made the evening news. No one said stand up if you’re reeling but determined to find joy in the midst of this world’s darkness. But they stood up, and they laughed as they stumbled toward the open place in a circle of women who loved them.
Originally published in Phoenix Song