Like the night before, all of us sat around the dining table. Only, this time, grandma had gone to bed earlier than expected, and the air was a little more somber. My dad and his siblings played Euchre while I watched my dad’s plays over his shoulder. My aunt Jess (uncle Wes’s wife) had the SteelDrivers’s song, “Ghosts of Mississippi” playing on a wireless speaker in the center of the dining table, which fit the tense mood quite well.
I’m not quite sure if it’s genetics or upbringing, but I couldn’t help but notice it. The similarities between myself and my paternal family were striking. Right down to the Blues-Grass we listened to, the focused scowls on our faces, and the manners in which we spoke. The perpetual chill of loneliness I’ve always felt was gone, so long as I was on the family farm, surrounded by nature, animals, and people just like me. Intelligent and educated, yet rural and bitch-faced. But great sadness still hung over the dining room table.
My aunt Stacy and younger cousin Kael came charging down the stairs with their arms full of boxes, which they slammed down on the dining table sending cards and bits of tinsel flying everywhere.
“We found the Christmas decor!” my aunt proudly declared.
“And like five Christmas trees!” Kael added.
Just like that, joy and excitement blew away the depressing tension like a Colorado cold front. Almost all of us got to our feet and began to dig through the boxes. I had a huge handful of red bows, which I took outside to decorate the porch banister with. My youngest cousin, Jake, followed me and wrapped the outside banisters with silver tinsel. Kael set up a small Christmas tree in the living room with aunt Stacy’s help, and uncle Wade put out a potted Christmas tree on the entryway porch. Once those boxes were emptied, my cousins and aunt led my nervous ass up the steep, creaky stairs to the musty, cold second floor of the farmhouse.
Honestly, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I prepared myself for the worst. After all, that farmhouse has been slowly decaying over the last several decades. God only knows when someone last paid any real attention to the cracks in the walls or the leaks in the roof. However, the farmhouse wasn’t in nearly as bad of shape as I thought it would be, though it was still in dire need of a major makeover.
In the hallway, blaze orange flower wallpaper from the 60’s mixed in perfectly horribly with the blaze orange shag carpet. The bedrooms were slightly easier to look at, since their colors were much milder compared to the migraine-inducing hallway (most of the rooms were papered in a cross-stitched design, though other layers of wallpaper showed where the most recent layer was peeling. But, they were still pretty terrible, with their peeling wallpaper and bowing ceilings where the lath and straw were exposed due to water damage. But, nothing had collapsed, and I couldn’t really smell anything too horrible.
I didn’t have too much time (or the will) to survey the area much farther. I had a festive job to do, and I didn’t want to be up there for long anyway. I carefully made my way down the steep, shaggy stairs with a Christmas tree in my arms that was almost as big as I was. The Blues-Grass that had been playing earlier was now changed to a country Christmas playlist, and aunt Jess guided me to a little space behind the cast iron stove where that Christmas tree could safely fit. Once the dusty Christmas tree was in place, I charged back upstairs to help bring down a giant box of ornaments, with Stacy just behind me with a box full of even more Christmas stuff.
“How many trees should we set up?” I asked as I put the ornaments in the middle of the living room floor.
“I think two’s enough.” Stacy replied.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”
“Ok.” I smiled as I opened up the box of ornaments, half-expecting some unholy creature to crawl out of it.
My cousin Kael insisted that we decorated the trees according to the color of their lights. The little tree in the living room was wrapped in white bulbs, so naturally silver, white, and gold would adorn it. The other tree would be much more festive and colorful, matching its colorful surroundings perfectly. With everyone helping, it didn’t take long for the trees to be dusted off and properly decorated. Little lace tree skirts were draped around their stumps, and a few small gifts were placed under both trees. And, the main room wouldn’t be complete without stockings hung on the wall behind the stove. As a joke, I nailed one of my own socks to the wall, though nobody really noticed. In fact, I bet it’s still there.
Now that the house was festive and warm again, our growling stomachs signaled that it was now time for dinner. We didn’t really have any leftovers, and the food we did have would take a long time to prepare. After some discussion, we decided to order some food from Buck Wild Bar and Grill in Zumbro Falls. That food being three pizzas, two huge orders of fish and chips, a few dozen hot wings, a pound of Wisconsin cheese curds, and enough Busch Lite to last the night. I was sick of being cooped up inside, so I opted to go with my uncle Wade, Andy, and Andy’s girlfriend to grab the food. Along the way, we’d drop off Kael, Jake, and the puppy at their house just up the road.
I wasn't sure about cramming all six of us and a rambunctious puppy in a two-door shitbox sedan, especially since everyone was so damn tall. But, we managed, somehow. I had a puppy and someone's leg on my lap, and I felt like I was going to suffocate to death in that cramped car, though I kept my cool for the longest drive to my uncle Wes' I've ever embarked on. Once there, I burst out of the car before Andy even stopped it, with a puppy and three other people behind me. It was fucking freezing outside, so we didn't say much more than a "Love ya, bye!" as we watched our cousins and their puppy scamper into the warm house.
Back inside the car, with uncle Wade, Andy, and Andy's girlfriend, Andy glanced in the rearview at me and asked, "You can drive, right?"
"Uhhh, yeah?" I answered, squinting my eyes.
"We forgot to order our food in advance, so we're gonna be at the bar for at least 45 minutes." Andy grinned, "Just wanted to make sure you can get us all home in one piece."
"Great..." I growled, rolling my eyes.
"Oh, it won't be too bad. Zumbro's not even ten minutes away." Wade assured me.
"I guess..." I trailed off.
Buck Wild was pretty quiet for a Saturday night. Only a few other people were there playing pool. Me and my crew sat up at the bar, where every North American wild animal stared down at us from their places on the rustic log walls. While everyone else ordered interestingly-named alcoholic drinks such as "Crack Pipe" and "Rattlesnake Bite", I just asked for a can of soda, which I sipped while keeping a very close eye on the number of drinks my relatives were chugging. As time wore on, it became glaringly obvious that I'd be driving everyone home that night.
Luckily for me, the food was ready before anyone had the chance to get too wasted, but it was clear everyone (except for me, the goody-two-shoes of the family) was feeling the alcohol. Wade tossed me the keys, and I also grabbed a couple pizzas. My cousin carried out four packs of beer, each pack containing three-dozen beers, which he predicted wouldn't last the whole night. I believed him.
The drive back wasn't nearly as harrowing as I envisioned it. Sure, I was driving a two-door sedan with the smell of alcohol and pizza permeating the air. But, I knew what I was doing, where I was going, and I was glad there wasn't another soul on the road the whole ride home. I did, however, drive well under the speed limit on Highway 63, just because I was afraid of hitting ice and/or a whitetail deer. If I'd been driving my Xterra, I would've been going over the speed limit. But, in a shitbox sedan, a collision with a deer at highway speeds in the middle of nowhere would be very, very bad.
Back at the farm, I helped to unload the food and beer, then set it up in the kitchen like we'd set up dinner the night before.
I avoided the pizza and went for some fish and chips instead, along with a hearty helping of coleslaw and carrots. Everyone else took care of the three pizzas. Nothing was left of the pizza after the first serving. Just before I could take my first bite of fish, one more family member let herself into the farmhouse.
I hadn't seen my cousin Misty in ages. She was the oldest Nibbe grand-daughter, having been adopted by my uncle Wade shortly after my cousin Troy was born (Wade's eldest son). Misty lived and worked in the city. But, she made sure to come down that Saturday night for some Euchre, food, and of course, drinks. My cousin, Kellen, had also come down to visit. Kellen is Stacy's son, and flew down to Minnesota from his home in Las Vegas to visit with us and grandma for a few days.
I sat quietly with my plate of food, listening to my family swap even more stories from the years. I'm not sure if it was the alcohol, or the fact that only adults were in the house, or both, but I heard many R-rated stories that I never heard before. In a way, I felt like I was in a sacred space. Like I'd passed some sort of rite-of-passage into adulthood and I was now allowed to listen in on my family's more graphic stories. Most were hilarious, some were disturbing, and some where downright disgusting. But, even the most gruesome stories ended on a lighter, much more hilarious note. We howled like hyenas the whole night and into the early morning.
