Sometimes the best way to travel for the holidays is to go home for the last time

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Not long ago, someone said to me, “You know when you were a kid and you used to go out to play with the other neighborhood kids? At some point, you went out to play for the very last time, but you didn’t know it yet.”

That stupid comment wrecked me. How many times in my life had I moved on from special people and events, unaware that I was leaving them behind forever?

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This brings me to the fact that for more than 50 years, ever since I was five years old, I had Christmas Day dinner at the home of a woman named JoAnn.

JoAnn was one of my mother’s closest friends. She tells me that when she met me, I was four years old, holding a book and wearing a pair of my dad’s old horned-rimmed glasses without the lenses. When she asked what I was doing, I said, “I’m reading.”

Unfortunately, I was holding the book upside-down.

My handsome and popular older brother Craig got most of the attention in my family.

But JoAnn was drawn to the kid in the dorky glasses, pretending to read. And I was drawn to her. My parents were straight-laced and socially conservative, but they had two friends who weren’t like all the others: Lowell, a boisterous, chain-smoking gay alcoholic… and JoAnn. As I grew older, I realized she had an absolutely biting sense of humor. There was no bullshit she couldn’t cut right through.

“Oh, JoAnn,” my mom would say when JoAnn would mutter another one of her withering asides. But for all her prudery, my mom was also smart, and I could tell she appreciated JoAnn’s genuine wit.

JoAnn and her husband were younger than my parents, fit, attractive, and much larger-than-life. They would take our family birdwatching in the forest and snowshoeing in the mountains. When I was five, they invited us to Christmas dinner and made flaming Baked Alaska for dessert.

Hold on here, I remember thinking. Desserts can be flaming?

I was so in. This was exactly the kind of life I wanted to lead! And the conversation over that dinner was so lively. Even as a kid, I liked it.

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Eventually, JoAnn and her husband divorced — and then he was killed in a tragic car accident returning from one of his mountain adventures.

The last time I saw him, I didn’t know I’d never see him again.

But my family kept going to Christmas dinner at JoAnn’s, and the conversation was as lively as before. Soon, JoAnn had a new boyfriend, and I had one too, Michael, who complimented JoAnn on her beautiful Christmas tablecloth. Meanwhile, JoAnn’s children grew up, and her son got married.

Then, one Christmas in the mid-90s, the minute we’d finished eating, my mom said, “We should go now.”

I was confused — etiquette had always been so important to my mom, and this seemed rude. I was also annoyed. I wanted to talk more with JoAnn!

But later that year, my mom was officially diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease. We’ve since deduced that she knew she was becoming forgetful, so she had taken to excusing herself from social events early to keep from repeating herself — to hide her condition from her friends.

None of us knew it then, but that had been her last Christmas dinner at JoAnn’s. A few years later, she was dead.

But for the rest of us, life continued, including Christmas dinner at JoAnn’s. Every year, she rolled out the same Christmas tablecloth, and Michael would say how much he loved it — to the point that one year, JoAnn laughed and said to him, “I should leave the tablecloth to you in my will.”

JoAnn worked as a real estate agent, and she had a habit of inviting clients to her Christmas dinners — people who were new in town and didn’t yet have friends to share the holidays with.

One year, a new couple joined us, but the conversation was less lively during that dinner. The two of them seemed so hostile, muttering ugly comments about lazy, poor people and dirty immigrants.

Before long, the rest of us had had all we could take — including my sensitive, kind-hearted dad. That year, the minute we’d finished eating, he was the one who said, “We should go now.”

When we were making plans for the following year, JoAnn laughed and said, “Guess what couple won’t be joining us this year?”

But a few years later, the minute we’d finished eating, my dad again said, “I need to go home.” When we all looked to him for an explanation, he said, “I’m old now, and I can’t stay out as late as I used to.”

That time, I knew this would be my dad’s last Christmas dinner at JoAnn’s. And it was.

But Michael and I kept attending, even after we left America to become nomads. We always made a point to go home for the holidays — partly for Christmas dinner at JoAnn’s. By now, Michael’s affection for that old Christmas tablecloth was a running joke.

“You know, it’s literally in my will that I’m leaving it to you, right?” JoAnn said to Michael. For once, she wasn’t making a joke.

But then came Covid — and flight bans, and isolations, and Michael’s and my decision to stay outside America for the holidays. Some years, we’ve spent Christmas with new nomad friends. And some years, we spent it by ourselves.

JoAnn is also older, in her eighties, and she and her partner are no longer hosting their annual Christmas dinner. Now they drive to Portland to spend the day with her son and his family.

A year or two ago, I realized I’d gone to my last Christmas dinner at JoAnn’s after over 50 years. I hadn’t known it then — just like the last time I’d gone out to play with the neighborhood kids.

If I had known, would I have done anything differently? Would I have stopped to savor JoAnn’s delectable prime rib or her partner’s sublime buttercream cake? Would I have lingered over coffee just a bit longer? I know I probably would have been happy and sad throughout the meal.

And so, hmm, maybe it’s a good thing that we usually don’t know when it’s the last time we do something special.

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As for Christmas dinner at JoAnn’s, the story doesn’t end where you might expect. Recently, Michael and I decided to return home this year for the holidays, and I mentioned it to JoAnn.

And she said, “Well, why don’t you both come over for Christmas dinner?” JoAnn is rolling out the old Christmas tablecloth for at least one more year.

And what of next year? Will this year be the last Christmas dinner I’ll ever have at JoAnn’s?

Eh, who knows? I thought before I’d had my last Christmas dinner with this lifelong friend, and I was wrong — and it’s better not to think about things like that anyway.

That said, I would like to say to the former kids from my old neighborhood: I’m back in town for the holidays and available if you guys want to go out and play.

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