Having my mother around on Christmas isn't that big of a deal anymore. It took some getting used to but we've learned to just go with it. She likes to make everything about herself but we've managed to navigate around that pretty well. We listen to her stories of flirting with elderly boys and charming people into buying her booze with mild amusement. She's perpetually sixteen and stories highlighting the paradox of her actual age and her perceived age are entertaining. The first few times. But after a while her conversational loops get a little tedious and by the tenth or twelfth time she's telling the same story I notice my children's eyes glazing over or anxiously darting to locate an exit.
I watched it all unfold on Christmas Day, just a few weeks ago. Grandma's repeated topics were getting a bit stale so Steve asked if she'd like to watch a Christmas movie. Although I was fairly firm in my convictions that TV should not be a babysitter when my children were young, I admit I have no qualms at all about using TV as a babysitter for my mother. Steve checked the channels and saw that Love Actually was playing. Having watched the movie a few years ago he thought it would be a good way to keep Mommie Dearest occupied. A cute Christmas movie about love. What better way to stifle my mother's constant chatter? It was a good idea in theory, only Steve had forgotten a few key elements to the plot line.
I went upstairs, probably to escape my mother, but after she'd been watching the movie for a while she started to holler, "Susan!" "Susanne!" I couldn't imagine what she needed but I assumed it was a refill on her glass of wine so I didn't rush. Steve, who can only be described as a saint for the way he treats my mother, ran to find out the source of her excitement.
It was sex.
Steve had forgotten Love Actually includes a story about two 'body doubles' who simulate sex during the filming of a movie and casually chat about life while doing so. My mother hadn't been able to follow the numerous loosely woven story lines of Love Actually and didn't understand what was happening. All she saw was two people she thought were engaging in sex and started calling for me. Whether she wanted me to come and watch with her, change the channel, or grab a pen and paper so she could take notes was unclear.
In all honesty, without the context, the scene could be considered a little graphic. Well, even with context the scene is a little graphic so I understand Mommie Dearest's excitement. She said she was alarmed because she thought she was watching 'a porno,' but I'm not convinced.
Because that's all she talked about for the rest of the day. Over and over and over she exclaimed, "THEY WERE SCREWING!"
I was in the kitchen cooking dinner and she came shuffling in to announce, "I was watching a movie and THEY WERE SCREWING!"
We were enjoying a lovely Christmas dinner and then right in the middle of it, "THEY WERE SCREWING!"
Having dessert. "THEY WERE SCREWING!"
Driving her back to her retirement home, "THEY WERE SCREWING!"
Sometimes just out of the blue, "THEY WERE SCREWING!"
No delicate euphemisms or cute code words for my mother. Every time she exclaimed about it I tried to refocus the conversation. She'd have none of it. She insisted that we all hear the story. Over and over and over. "THEY WERE SCREWING!"
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that not all that many families spent the holidays with an 86-year old wild child who witnessed a momentary on-screen fake sex act depicting a momentary on-screen fake sex act and spent the rest of the day not only fixated on it but regularly blurting out the details. It's just a hunch.
So yeah, Christmas has been a little different since my mother moved to Colorado a few years ago.
Just a little.
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