Bill’s Annual Christmas Column: Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men, and One Big Fight!

      My family is now scattered around the globe.  Literally.  My oldest son lives and teaches in Takasaki, Japan.        

      Son number 2 (as Charlie Chan used to say in the old movies) is a senior in college in Boston and is scheduled to go off the family payroll next May.      

      And my daughter, her Royal Highness the Princess, is still safely in the family nest, although her days in our home are numbered.  She has her learners permit, and she will be heading out our driveway, solo, on her 16th birthday next May.  We hope she comes back.      

      But this weekend, they’ll all be home for Christmas, just in time for the annual family Christmas fight.         

      It always happens.  We have big family hugs at the airport, and then we take the boys home where they return to their childhood bedrooms, even though those rooms have been converted into a study and guest room.        

      On Christmas Adam (the night of December 23), we have a family dinner featuring something our sons can’t find in either Japan or Boston—good ol’ Memphis barbeque.      

      On Christmas Eve we go to midnight mass at our church, and then Santa still comes for the Haltom children even though they are now ages 25, 22, and 15.        

      Santa used to bring the boys footballs or skateboards, and he would bring the Princess an American Girl doll.  But now Santa brings little contraptions called “Shuffles” or “Nanos” and money.  That’s what the kids really want from Santa, cold hard cash.      

      On Christmas Day my wife prepares a fabulous dinner of turkey and dressing, cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes, culminating in a dessert of coconut cake and boiled custard.        

      After dinner, I fall asleep in my lounge chair out of sheer Christmas exhaustion.        

      And then, some time during the week between Christmas and New Year’s, we have our annual family Christmas fight.  We’ve had it for years.  It’s a knock-down, drag-out, no-holds-barred, loser-leave-town bar room brawl.        

      One year we didn’t even wait until Christmas to have it.  We had it on Christmas Eve, and it was all my fault.  I wanted the entire family to go to church together for midnight mass.  But my grown sons were out gallivanting around with their old high school buddies, and my wife and daughter were doing whatever women do on Christmas Eve, and so there I was herding cats, trying to get the entire family back home and in my car so we could head to church to worship Baby Jesus.        

      It was not exactly “Silent Night”.  I was screaming and yelling at them to get their lazy butts out the door and into my car so that we could go to church and celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior.  But I was acting more like King Herrod than Joseph or the Three Wise Men.         

      We arrived at the church about a half hour into the service, and I was fit to be tied.  Ebenezer Daddy just sat there in the pew, steaming with anger as the choir sang “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem.”        

      But most years, we don’t have the annual family Christmas fight until a day or so after Christmas.  By that time, my eldest son is ready to return to his new home on the other side of the earth, my middle son is ready to go back to college, and the Princess just wants to constantly send out text messages on the new I-phone Santa has brought her for Christmas.        

      It’s not exactly like all those family Christmas specials you see on tv.  When I was a boy, my parents and I always watched “The Andy Williams Christmas Show” featuring Andy, his “wife”, Claudine Longet, their beautiful children, and their very special guests Donnie and Marie Osmond and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.         

      The funny thing about “The Andy Williams Christmas Show” was Andy and Claudine weren’t married.  They were divorced, and had been for years.  But they came back together that one night a year to wear red Christmas sweaters and sing with Donnie and Marie and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  “The Andy Williams Family Christmas Special” never featured a big fight between Andy and Claudine and their kids.  Apparently they had already had their fight in a divorce court years ago.          

      I also remember watching “A Very Brady Christmas” and “The Walton Family Christmas” where John Boy, Grandpa and Grandma and the other 47 Waltons spent all Christmas Eve saying goodnight to each other.         

      Once again, neither the Bradys nor the Waltons ever had big family fights at Christmas.      

      But the annual episode of “A Very Haltom Christmas” always features one good fight.  Yes, it’s that sacred season of peace on earth, good will toward men, and a whole lot of tension between people who love each other.       

      As someone once said, the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.  And when independent people who are used to living apart from their loved ones are forced to spend a few winter nights with their loved ones under the same roof, there is going to be some tension, and yes, at least one good fight.      

      But shortly after the beginning of the New Year, my wife and daughter and I will take our sons back to the airport.  Son number 1 will head back to Japan and son number 2 will head for his final semester in Boston.  There will be another family hug, Mama will cry, and I will fight back a few tears since, after all, I’m the Daddy, and I’m not supposed to cry.      

      And then, as my wife and daughter and I drive back to our too-quiet house, we will agree that it really was a very nice Christmas, and we can’t wait until next December and another big fight.