``I'll bring an apple pie,'' she said, ``its my specialty.''
Embarrassed silence. ``Aunt Ada brings apple pies,'' someone said.
``Oh. I could bring a macaroni hot dish -''
``Uncle Fred brings that. Its the only thing he can do.''
``Mandarin orange salad with miniature marshmallows?''
In the end it was agreed that she should bring two big bottles each of Diet Pepsi, Mountain Dew and caffeine free Coke. Someone else got to bring the virtuous fruit juices.
``I wanted to cook something,'' she complained to her fiancee in the car going home. He laughed. ``That's the tradition. You start with soft drinks then work your way up. Aunt Ada won't be in the running next Christmas so my mom will make the apple pies. She's been waiting twenty years.'' His mother's apple pies were horrible. Crust that managed to be both tough and soggy and way too salty. Great glutinous lumps of corn starch that you thought were bits of apple until you bit into them. Hideously sweet. But she'd have to eat them, wouldn't she? Eat them and say delicious how do you do it. For twenty years. Longer. His mother was forty six.
``When our children are little could we do Christmas at home? Or at my brother's?''
His smile began to freeze at the edges. ``Let's not talk about that yet.'' He turned up the radio to drown her out with Emily Harris reporting from Washington.
They had two children right away. ``That's it,'' they agreed and took steps to make certain. For the first years she was glad to surrender Christmas to his family. The children exhausted her, reduced her to a quiet shadow, acquiescent to everything. When the youngest entered first grade she went back to work and started shouting at her husband. She had now graduated to fruit juices at the family Christmas. There was a strong possibility that she would upgrade to potato chips and perhaps dip as well next year.
When the youngest was in third grade her brother invited them for Christmas. ``Its our turn,'' he said. Her husband was adamant. ``Out of the question,'' he said. ``Its a tradition.''
On Christmas Day they bustled into the crowded old house and grandmother and poor old granpa were kissed and hugged and she went to the dining room and laid out on the table thin slices of proscuitto, wedges of Brie and Stilton, slivers of smoked salmon and a little mound each of capers and caviar. She arranged expensive little crackers concentrically on a platter. ``I brought these for snacks instead of chips,'' she said. No one ate any of it. An unsuspecting child put a piece of proscuitto in his mouth and spat it out on the carpet. She smiled serenely.
At dessert time she went out to the car and came in with an apple pie. She set it down in confrontation with her mother in law's pies. It certainly looked better. It certainly tasted better, with a light and flaky crust and a tangy sweet and firm filling. It was gone in a minute.
Uncle Fred was drunk by then. He picked up a slice of smoked salmon in his fingers ``Damn I like this stuff,'' he said. The Brie was gone by the time the presents were opened, and half the Stilton. Some teenagers were experimenting with the caviar. The older family members had retreated to the kitchen. Silence fell when she entered to wash dishes.
``Love that apple pie, Mom,'' she said to her mother in law.