Senior reflects on last real holiday with family

Last month marked the second holiday season since the Towers fell and the Pentagon quaked. Just as we did on Turkey Day, Americans bore a great burden as we considered those things for which to be extraordinarily thankful. Our still wobbling economy, the bereaved families shattered by the Sept. 11 tragedy and our troops struggling, suffering and ultimately succeeding abroad were all weighty concerns we endured over our holiday break. But pessimism can never stand — and never has stood — straight against the overpowering winds of holiday commercialism. This year was no different as our attitudes were on the cusp of being "merry and bright." For me, it was all these things and more, for it marked the last time I will be guaranteed a Christmas home with my family in the "son-home-from-college" role. I will graduate this May, and, like many other seniors, I have resigned myself to the soft, chilling knowledge that come next year, I will have to make an attempt to be home for the holidays. So, like a great number of seniors intent on seeing the world, this last holiday break was bittersweet — a relaxing vacation away from the stresses of academia, while at the same time the last vacation as "one of the kids." As such, I was very conscious of the little things, the quirks and abnormalities that color Maurer family get-togethers, and made this Christmas so undeniably memorable.

That week before Christmas will forever be called the Holiday Pentathlon in our family lore. Five visits, four states, three kids, two days ... and a partridge in a pear tree. Stick five semi- and full-grown human beings into a minivan decked out with luggage and presents and it won't matter how closely related to one another you are. Suddenly the seats are too cramped, there isn't ever enough leg room, it's either too hot or too cold, the music is either crap or it's on too loud and every 10 minutes necessitates a potty-break or a "how close are we?" Imagine for a moment what a seven-seat Ford minivan, loaded with three adults and two teenage boys (all of which are sick to some degree) will smell like after five hours of stop-and-go road travel on Interstate 95.

Those five visits, with an intermission stop-over/water break at the grandparents' house, were together an Olympic event in the sense of the grit, determination and mental fortitude it took to survive that two-day excursion into New Jersey to see relatives and old friends. My parents, hopped up on the idea of joint "those were the days" trips down nostalgia lane with their friends, were less concerned about packing than they were about having the right gifts. About a third of the way — somewhere in Delaware — my dad concluded that he forgot to pack his black dress shoes and would therefore have to either wear my younger brother's pair (since he didn't want to dress up anyway) or stop again and buy new ones. Without a recent fix of caffeine, he was not altogether amicable to that particular idea.

By the end of day one, after three visits, three sandwiches and as many "pit-stops" to accommodate a certain member of our clan, we were obviously out of our element and prone to fits of dementia. We eventually made our way to the sleeping bag-littered campground that would occupy my grandparents' living room that night. Meanwhile, the Maurer Five was singing "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston in five different keys.

Weeks of unmitigated exposure to blinking lights will drive a person crazy or permit a person to notice the insanity of all those around him. The eccentricities of my family are legion, as I'm sure others can to attest to about their own families. There was my grandmother, serving nine of us a feast of sliced turkey, carrots, green beans and mashed potatoes, who would not — ever — sit down to feed herself. Not until she was fully satisfied that the eight of us had every helping of every food we wanted and were nearly finished with our meals, did she finally sit down with her own cold plate. No amount of pleading — or yelling — by my grandfather, aunt and parents could relieve her from this decades-old neurosis. Then there were the Knights of Columbus. After getting back home, we settled in for a day and trucked it back up North for a Christmas Eve service at the National Basilica in Washington, D.C., across the street from Catholic University. Seating 4,000 comfortably and quickly can sometimes be a problem, but fortunately all hazards were cleanly nipped in the bud by the expertise of the Knights of Columbus volunteers. The mostly middle-aged or retired men, wearing gray slacks and blue blazers, emboldened by their nugget of authority and Secret Service-type earpieces, flawlessly executed the proper and timely seating of a great many agitated parishioners, and it was a wonder to witness.

Further adding to my amusement that night was seeing Newt Gingrich, esteemed Republican Congressman and one of five seated in the first two or three pews of the church, conveniently roped off from the rest of humanity that was — apparently — a potential threat to his person on Christmas Eve. Oddly enough, he had no security attachment, and looked awfully lonely as he departed the Church after mass had ended, so my dad and I went up and gleefully shook his hand. Good man, strong grip ... that's as close as I've ever been to sheer power, celebrity and a $2,000 suit.

The rest of the holiday was memorable too — the family tradition of opening one present after church Christmas Eve, scrambled egg and kielbasa breakfast (the one meal my dad cooks a year), "dancing" with my mom to Polish accordion music, swing-style, and being very grateful that our Christmas dinner would not consist of the fried crocodile, frog, rattlesnake and elk that we had consumed a few days before at my uncle's.

When I think about it, I wish I had spent many more Christmases entranced by the quirks of the holiday season, but I know that this one will forever live in my memory as the last of my youth, the one that tried its hardest to lift all our spirits. It reminded me that the most precious thing we will take with us after college is our collage of sacred memories.

Dan Maurer is a contributing staff writer and senior Political Science major.