16. Nick
NICK
Afew minutes later, we hop into Hank’s car. Brody lets me ride in front. We drive through quiet, peaceful Sourwood for about ten minutes before turning into a development of newer houses.
“You see that house over there?” Hank points out his window. “Derek caught his boyfriend falling out the bathroom window naked. Cary wanted to surprise him, but didn’t know another real estate agent was showing the house that day.”
The men in Sourwood sure are…interesting. Then again, I’ve never bought real estate, and never in America, so perhaps this is par for the course? This sounds like it could’ve happened in an episode of Friends. Americans are very curious creatures.
We drive through the suburban street, then turn right. A glow of light illuminates the sky and beckons us. At first, I think there’s a stadium in the middle of this development. Maybe a skating rink. As Hank rolls slowly down the road, the source of light becomes clearer.
Someone, for some reason, has decided to decorate every inch (and I do mean every inch) of their house’s exterior with Christmas lights.
Strands of twinkling lights are laid across the brick front, strung along the gutters, wrapped around the columns in front of the door, stretched across the garage doors.
On the roof is a replica of Santa’s sleigh and his eight reindeers, each of them a different glowing color.
(Oddly, Rudolph isn’t red. He’s turquoise.) Sticking out of the chimney is a replica of Santa Claus himself—or more accurately, Santa’s ass and legs as he makes his way inside.The lights blink to a coordinated rhythm.
Speakers are set up playing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”
The whole thing is incredibly tacky, yet the confidence of such garishness gives it an undeniable charm, too. Kind of like Hank, the setup is loud, proud, unashamed, and oddly lovable.
The house to the left is pitch black. No lights except for a sign on the front lawn illuminated with a spotlight. It has an arrow pointing to the D’Angelos’ house and says, “We helped.”
“What do you think?” Hank asks.
“It’s very…joyous.”
“They won the decorating contest in the development for years, to the point that all their neighbors stopped trying.”
“American—I mean, Sourwood residents love to go all-out.”
“These people are nuts, don’t get me wrong. This is not normal. But it’s fun to look at.” Hank leans over me to get a better view. I get a whiff of his spicy natural scent.
“Have you met them?” I ask, suddenly very curious about the D’Angelos.
“Never. I’m not sure if I’d want to hang out with them. They seem like showoffs.”
“What makes you say that?” I ask deadpan.
Hank leans back, our faces close, and he flashes me this sexy smile that makes me light up like the house out my window.
“It’s pretty to look at,” he says.
“I’m glad I don’t live on this cul-de-sac,” I say as I stare out the window.
“I wonder what their energy bills are. How much do you think they’re running on an independent generator versus the town’s power grid?” Hank wonders.
“Dad, we should show Nick the Rosengartens’ next!”
“Good call!” Hank rubs his hands together.
I don’t know how anything could top this house, but I’m eager to find out.
“Wow,” I say. Wow is the only acceptable response as I stare at a house strung with blue and white lights. In every window is a lit menorah. On the lawn are three giant inflatable dreidels, an inflatable donut broken open to reveal a jelly center, and an inflatable menorah.
“The Rosengartens are Jewish,” Hank explains.
“I picked up on that.”
“They’re nice people. The husband put in Brody’s braces in seventh grade. He started doing this because he wanted to show that Christmas wasn’t the only holiday celebrated in December. He wanted his kids to be excited about Hanukkah because all they saw around them was Christmas.”
I admire the man’s spirit. We light a menorah every Hanukkah in the town square of Ardenia’s capital, but it doesn’t hold a candle (or eight) to this display.
“The daughter’s in my grade. She finds this so embarrassing,” Brody says.
“You’re probably wondering…” Hank points out my window. “Jelly donuts are an official dessert of Hanukkah. I forget why.”
“Because of the oil in fried donuts. It symbolizes the oil that lasted eight nights,” Brody says. Hank turns around and pats his son’s knee.
“I love having a son in quiz bowl.” He turns back in his seat and lets his hand rest against my leg. “Did your family ever do this? Drive around and look at different houses?”
“I can’t say we did.” Over-the-top decorating is something unique to America.
Ardenians prefer simplicity. “Christmas caroling was the big thing where I grew up. Families and caroling groups would go around and sing for people, and there was a competition for the best singers. But it meant that you could drive down any street and listen to beautiful Christmas music being sung.”
For the first time, I feel a bit of homesickness for Ardenia. I miss the cacophony of singing, the lights and garland tastefully strung around the castle, providing a special holiday warmth.
“Baltimore sounds really lovely,” Hank says.
Another lie, another chip at my resolve.
“You miss it?”
“Parts of it. I’m not used to being away from my home over the holidays.”
Hank rubs my leg, in a friendly way that my body chooses to interpret differently. A comforting twinkle sparkles in his eye.
“Don’t worry, Nick. We’re going to make sure you have a great time in Sourwood. You want to see some more houses?”
“There’s more?”
Hank and Brody look at each other and nod aggressively.
The next ninety minutes fly by as we crisscross Sourwood, taking in the sights and the lights. Who knew driving around looking at holiday decorations could be a form of entertainment?
The lights are cool, but for me, it’s the company.
Hank, Brody, and I talk and laugh as we gawk over each house.
We come up with a rating scale to judge houses.
Some are beautiful and elegant. Some are gloriously tacky.
Some could do better. As we stop at each house, we have to give our rating, like Olympic judges holding up their marks. Ten is tasteful, one is gaudy.
Hank blasts Christmas carols on the stereo from the local radio station, and we rate those songs in our tasteful-gaudy scale.
Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song”? A ten.
Kelly Clarkson’s “Underneath the Tree”? We give it a seven, mostly tasteful with some fun gaudiness.
“Grandma got run over by a reindeer”? A one: all gaudy.
Halfway through, Hank runs into Caroline’s, a local diner, and grabs us hot chocolates to go. We go to a grocery store and pick up a box of sugar cookies from their bakery. I have never tasted such deliciousness.
There’s magic in the air tonight as time blurs in the black sky. It could be eight o’clock or three in the morning. The world feels elastic.
“Do you have time for one more house?” Hank asks as we pull away from an estate that put up a neon display of the Jesus nativity scene in their front yard. (That’s a three on the scale. Mostly gaudy, yet the figures are nice enough looking to be a tad tasteful.)
“Let’s do it.” I cram the bottom half of my Christmas tree sugar cookie into my mouth and finish the last bits of hot chocolate.
“We’re saving the best for last.” Hank looks down at my feet. “Good. You’re wearing sneakers.”
“You have a chocolate mustache,” I tell Hank before wiping it off myself. I feel somewhat drunk on chocolate and Christmas and the endless expanse of the night. He steadies me with a look, a bit of seriousness amid all our joking, that thrums within me.
A few minutes later, he parks in front of the biggest inflatable display I’ve seen tonight.
The house is in a more rural part of town, with a large expanse of land.
A family’s entire front and side lawns are decked out with Christmas inflatables, creating an obstacle course.
Adults frolic through the display. Kids race each other through the bobs and weaves of the inflatables.
“This is like a Christmas haunted house, except not haunted,” Hank says as we walk up to the entrance. We pass through a Christmas tunnel, then into a field of oversized inflatable ornaments. Elements of an obstacle course are mixed into the display.
“They just have this here? And they’re okay with people coming on their lawn?” I ask, bowled over by the generosity of these neighbors.
“Been doing it for over a decade,” Hank says.
“Why?”
Hank shrugs. “It’s fun.”
Brody runs up ahead and crawls over an inflatable climbing wall that’s decorated like a roof. Hank and I meander in between massive reindeer inflatables. The real world has gone away. I’m in a holiday cocoon; I hope Hank knows the way out of here.
“What about you guys? Why doesn’t your house look like these?” I ask Hank.
“It’s a Christmas arms race. Most of the houses we saw? They hire people to design and install their Christmas lights. Where’s the holiday spirit in that? I’m happy with my setup. Some strings of lights. A Christmas doormat. It’s a proud five on the scale.”
“I like it, too.” It’s simple but charming.
“You having fun tonight?” he asks.
I nod yes. “I love my family’s Christmas traditions, but they’re very staid and formal.
There’s nothing like this. But I do have one memory…
my mother and I tried baking Christmas cookies one year, and it was a disaster.
We burned them. We didn’t wait long enough for them to cool, so when we went to decorate, all the icing melted. ”
I remember my mother’s bright red face as she couldn’t stop laughing. She made us clean up our mess, not the staff.
“For one night, we weren’t pretending to be all proper and dignified. We could be silly.”
“When did she pass?” Hank asks.
“How did you know…”
“I can tell.” Hank shrugs. “I’m a member in that club.”
“Just over twenty years ago.” It doesn’t feel real when I say it. I’ve been alive longer without her than with her in my life. That doesn’t compute. “You?”
“Fourteen for my mom, sixteen for my dad. I miss ‘em like crazy.”
“Same. I have pictures and videos of her. Even an oil portrait. But I wish I could still hear her laugh. I can’t remember what it sounds like anymore. That piece of her is…gone.”
There are archival videos of her speeches and interviews, but none where she’s being her relaxed, natural self. The mother who sang into her hairbrush or made a silly face for my eyes only during a ceremony.
“It isn’t. It’s in there, somewhere.” Hank presses his finger against my chest, over my heart. “There are memories we can’t remember, but that doesn’t mean they’re forgotten. I like to think they exist in an in-between place, like that place in your mind right before you wake up from a dream.”
“That’s beautiful, Hank.” Tears bead at my eyes, touched by his unexpected soulfulness. I cling to the hope this is true, that the things I don’t remember about her aren’t forgotten. I wipe away my tears. “I’m the only person crying next to an inflatable Prancer.”
“Christmas isn’t just for joy. It’s for sadness, too. Some of the best Christmas movies are kinda sad.”
I glance at Hank, grateful for my time with him. He reminds me of the joy and warmth I felt while I was baking those disastrous cookies.
We stop behind a giant inflatable red Christmas ornament. Hank holds my hands in his to warm them up. The quiet between us rumbles in my chest.
“I think there’s mistletoe above us,” he says.
I look up at a plastic Christmas tree. “I don’t see it.”
“Can I still kiss you?”
He waits for me to nod yes, then steps forward and closes the space between us with a kiss just as glorious as the previous ones.
His mouth is soft and tender. For all his playfulness, Hank seems to take kissing seriously.
I love all of it. The feel of his body against me, the sounds of our lips smacking together, the awkwardness of him breathing through his nose.
“I’ve had a really good time tonight,” he says.
“I really love Christmas decorations,” I respond, a bit dazed from the power of his lips.