Fraschgiving is my favorite holiday. We celebrate the annual festival with my dad’s family, the Frasches, by bringing out all the beloved family barbs — Uncle Jaime’s Easy Listening iPod playlists, Uncle Ron’s pink shirt, spacey old Aunt Edie acting more and more like Chrissie from “Three’s Company” every year, and Nan’s fretting that this will be her last-ever Fraschgiving. Nan’s a tough cookie. We call her the Nan-Man. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her caress any of us. The coolest thing about Nan is that during Hearts — because you can’t have Fraschgiving without post-turkey Hearts — is that she’ll sit across the table from her grandchildren, so she can see their cards reflected in the darkened windows behind us. Evil. But we love her for it.
Fraschgiving starts promptly at 9 a.m., involves the older male cousins marauding Ron’s wine cellar, and ends no earlier than midnight. There may or may not be emotional bloodshed (a few years ago, one of us made the mistake of passing out on the dinner table; the Facebook photos went up that night). If you can’t hack it, find a different family. When asking for a Frasch’s hand in marriage, suitors must vow they’ll never force us to their own family’s feast in lieu of Fraschgiving.
This year, I couldn’t wait to initiate my new son into Fraschgiving. Thanks to a rough first few years of his life, my darling little one has trouble understanding the concept of family. All family has meant to him, until now, are the people who give him presents when they visit. I knew he wouldn’t really understand the concept of family until he’d joined the pack of tiny wolves racing through Ron’s rambling old New England country home. Until he’d gone back for fifths of Laurie’s frozen pumpkin pie, and Nan had taught him to cheat at Hearts.
But this year our family came up against a cold hard reality. Until now, Fraschgiving had withstood the changing fortunes that often keep families from developing such deeply beloved rituals. But this year, we believed Nan, now 91, when she said it would be her last. We moved Fraschgiving to a restaurant near her home. There were no frozen pies, no over-the-top champagne, no music fights, no Hearts. The wolf -pack? They were shoehorned into a tiny makeshift play space behind our table for 20. Half the family was so dismayed they didn’t bother coming. And with Nan too frail to host an afterparty, we all just went home right after dinner.
I felt terrible for making our 4-year-old endure a six-hour round-trip drive for a quick, crappy buffet. Until I noticed Nan’s face. She was gazing at my son with a mixture of awe, adoration and wonderment. This was the first time she’d met him. While he ate his drab pumpkin pie, she ruffled his hair. “I think he’ll lose the blond,” she confided. She pulled him up onto her lap and he, momentarily still, leaned into her body. “You’re just so beautiful,” she whispered into his ear. I suddenly realized this wasn’t just her first time meeting my son; this was the first great-grandchild she’d ever held.
And just for a moment, I was grateful.
