We began our Christmas Day tradition with Brother Bear (2003) when our two oldest, Flicka and Ricka, were so little that wearing pajamas to the movie theater didn’t seem weird to them. Dicka—only half-done at the time—listened to that first cinematic story through amniotic fluid, so one could say she celebrated in her own way.
The years flowed by—and so did our holiday movies. For whatever reason, Flicka didn’t care to see The Tale of Despereaux (2008), but the household majority ruled that year. We donned 3D glasses for Hugo (2011), and in the scene where the Doberman lunged at us, teeth bared, I jumped. Daddy’s Home (2015), Passengers (2016), Holmes & Watson (2018), probably one in the Pitch Perfect trilogy, and the in-between years’ titles I’m now forgetting were all delightful romps, but only the film we saw in 2013 scarred our hearts. And to this day, I’m not so sure I’ve recovered.
After watching The Book Thief (2013), silence—except for all the sniffling in the car—marked the drive to the sledding hill.
“Hudy! Hudy!” one of the girls said in quiet reverence, imitating the accent of Liesel calling out to her friend Rudy in the World War II story we had just watched. The other two girls repeated his name too.
Rummaging through my purse for tissues, I relived the young Rudy’s passing with each mention of him. “Girls, please stop.”
We made a somber exit from the vehicle at Theodore Wirth Parkway. Even though it was dark, the groomed hills bustled with kids ripping down the slopes on sleds in true holiday spirit. Shrieks and laughter, hallmarks of the winter activity, brought me hollow cheer as we trekked to the top. I tried to wrangle a joyful disposition. We might’ve been corporately heartsick from the Christmas Day movie, but at least we had brand-new sleds—aerodynamic beauties—from one of the big-box stores to try out for the first time.
“Let’s do this,” Husband hollered, apparently already healed from the 1940s on-screen tragedy we had just lived through together.
We followed his lead, flopping onto our plastic rides too, and whooshed down that Minnesota “mountain” with impressive speed and lack of maneuverability. I clipped one kid on my path and swerved another at the very last second before my snowy landing.
“My sled just broke,” Ricka yelled from the bottom of the hill.
“Mine too,” Flicka said, brushing herself off.
Husband assessed his new entertainment. “Same here.”
Dicka and I managed to keep our gifts intact—until the second trip down.
We all barreled through the disappointment of our inferior snow gadgets' performance and kept on. Pieces splintered off us with each pass until at last we called it. After picking up the bits of Christmas, we headed home.
Broken hearts, broken toys.
But was the ending of our 2013 story really so bad? I later returned the sleds for a full refund so we could buy sturdier models, and we purchased the DVD of The Book Thief so we could cry over “Hudy” forever.
Aaahh, Christmas Day! You really know how to show us a good time.
*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.