I slide open the front door, shed my hat, mittens, and coat. I stamp off my boots, trying to maintain my balance while wrestling with the laces. I can still see my breath in the pantry. The dog door, which no longer has a dog to traipse through it, is leaking air. My father can't get to it because it is hidden behind my mother's student's projects which have been collecting since 1982. Neither one of my parents can move the stack because of arthritic joints, it should be my older brother's duty, but the truth is I'm stronger. I make a mental note to get to it later. Once my layers have been shed, I slip through the door and plop my bum into a cozy seat at the table, joining my brother. He gives me a shove, his long arms extending to give me the same greeting that I have received since I was in my mother's womb, but no longer tattle on.

My father is listening to Bob Dylan, bobbing his bald head while, dancing around the kitchen. "Gonna have to serve somebody." That same bobbing bald head reprimanded me, cussing me out, without using swears, so many times for my teen mistakes, when my name appearing next to his clients in the local paper, or when I came stumbling up the stoop, puking and mumbling, "my parents are going to kill me." They never did but it would have felt better than watching his jolly eyes, edge closed and the smile vanish from his face. But he never said anything besides, "explain." My mom sat close by whispering, "I'm so disappointed." With just hurt penetrating her child like checks.

"Got everything we need?" he manages to squeeze in between lyrics.

"Yep."

"You maybe rich or poor, you maybe blind or lame, you be liven' in an other country under another name." The kitchen exudes smells of sopa de calabaza (squash soup with carrots and celery so thick you have too chew it), enchiladas, tamales, empanadas, and my favorite, chocolate orgasm pie.

My dad, glides his potbelly across the stained white tiles to the fridge, flips the bottle of Pinot Grigio from the shelf to his right hand then over to his left. My brother is fiddling with the Merlot. My mom's voice sings in harmony with the music, "It may be the devil, it maybe the law but your gonna have to serve somebody." The lyrics slightly off but on key. The kitchen is our family's living room. We convene as a unit in there and don't normally leave until the evening is long lost to wine, politics, and food. It makes no difference that it is Christmas Eve. Our Mexican feast hits the table, Bob takes a break, and the four of us put the hysteria of Christmas aside.

Bush's interpretation of Reagan's trickle down theory of economics and its lack of effect begins to dominate table talk. All of my Christmas presents were hand made. I'm not an artist and I'm sure as hell not rich. I do however hold the key, the family's joint Christmas present, the one holding tradition. As the debate about rebuilding Baghdad dies down I flip the top to my Winston pack, pull out the neatly pre-rolled present (the only one I could afford this year), and lay it on the table just to put the idea out there before we ventured into dessert. Why not save the sweets for when our taste buds feel the orgasm of the pie? My mom lets out a tiny giggle. The tip of my dad's tongue sticks out as he runs it along his top lip, his lost Peruvian accent leaks out, "I guess it's that time of year." My brother grabs the ashtray and lays it on the table next to the lone soldier that's going to free our minds, the spice that will enhance our tree decorating, the cherry on our Christmas Sunday. The tradition that is upheld once a year.

As the end burns down, my mom's giggle turns into a chuckle, which in turn changes to a full belly laugh. We all take her queue. I'm laughing but I don't know at what. She wedges out, "We have some… much… clutter, what do we do with all this shit?" My brother jumps up, and starts pulling down everything from the top of the fridge, old egg cartons, yogurt containers, and paper plates reading "Happy Graduation," (I was the last to graduate two years ago). It just keeps coming. Stuff. A clown car worth of stuff pours off the top of the fridge. I lose the details through the fog of laughter, tears, and chaos. Who can find the most clutter becomes the game. We explore every nook of the kitchen and they all reveal the same thing: old, empty spice jars, candy that is no longer edible, and containers with pennies stuck to the sides by my mother's dripping during years of pie making. My stomach muscles hurt from all the laughter. We have forgotten that this mess is our kitchen. "Out of the kitchen, free from clutter," stammers my brother.

Together we enter the living room where our Christmas tree proudly stands. Every year my father puts on his galoshes and rubbing his bald head declares, "I shall return with the best tree the forest has to offer." And every year he returns with just that. If it's a tall year, it reaches my waste perfectly and has the width of a small Romanian child. Each branch has the chance to stand out gloriously on its own, and holds a prize-winning number of 25 needles. Each of the six branches droop heavily with ornaments, making for a competitive elimination process. If not properly aligned the star makes the top tip to mid tree. The star, of course, is the last touch. My bum once again plops, this time hitting the floor in front of the tattered boxes holding generations of beat up ceramic and glass bulbs. We have learned from past mistakes. We now pre-set our trinkets for the evening, having wasted hours in the past (which turned out to be fifteen minutes of total paranoia on the mission of finding the decorations). We now head off anxiety creating events such as looking for small boxes in the dark, spider-ridden basement.

I flip the top of the first box, pulling out the petite globe that is suffocating Santa inside. It's the first to dangle. Next comes the red blob. We guess that it is a humming bird that my brother created when we still believed there was an artist inside of him. I hand it to my mother and she places it gently on the third branch up, the middle. The tree barely holds on to it, suspending the bird four inches from the ground.

I make eye contact with my mother for the first time since we left the chaotic kitchen, or at least I make contact with the small portion of her eye that I can see. Her check bones are pushed up so high from her huge grin that her eye balls are not in any ones line of vision. My stomach muscles contract and a small laugh tumbles off my lips. My dad stammers out sound. I'm able to look up just long enough to notice that all four of us have taken laughing to be a whole body event, exhaling on the bend forward and when your body can't take it any more, it snaps up to replenish the air supply.

Enough with the tree. I scup up last years tinsel from the second box. Doing the tinsel dance, I drape red over my mother and gold over my brother. I run out when I reach my father, but no worries. There are candles to balance, bows to tie, lights to plug in, and candy canes to dangle.

Our family photo is set to shoot. One, two, three, snap. A moment, a single moment in time, where the phone goes unanswered. We spend minutes or maybe hours dressing each other up as trees. Chocolates are eaten by the dozen or simply sampled. The lights sit in a conglomeration at the top of the tree replacing the typical star. Laughter is sprinkled over and for one evening each year we are the only four people that exist.