The Moth Radio Hour: Menorahs, Presents and Palm Trees - December Holiday Stories

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Whenever, wherever, however you shop celebrating, connecting with family and friends, and just wanting to be alone. Six stories that explore the mixed emotions that come with this last month in the year.
Our first storyteller is moth veteran Peter Aguero. Peter calls this story, Me and Mama vs.
Christmas. Lots of people go overboard at Christmas.
It's a time of excess. The decorations and the gifts and the food.
But what if money is tight? Peter told this story at a Moth Night we produced in partnership with West Virginia Public Radio. Here's Peter Aguero.
So I just finished my first semester of college and I have a big bag of laundry and I come through the door of the house and things aren't looking too good for me and my mom. The first thing I notice is that the piano is gone.
She had that ever since she was a little girl and took piano lessons. We always put the nativity on top of it around Christmas time.
I took piano lessons for two weeks, but I still took piano lessons on that piano, and that's gone. I go through the living room, and the only thing that's left is just one couch that's with broken springs sticking out of it.
There are two televisions, one on top of the other. One has picture that works, and one has sound that works.
Over in the corner are the impressions still from my dad's lazy boy uh that has been gone for four years now and that's the only furniture in the room i go upstairs the dining room's empty there used to be this big beautiful uh dining room set with uh carved uh chairs and a glass break front and a buffet table and that's gone in the kitchen there's the kitchen set the kitchen set. There's two chairs.
There used to be four, but I broke one of them. And the other chair, I also broke.
And there's only two left. And I go upstairs to the bedrooms.
And in my mom's room, there's nothing left but her mattress on the floor. And there's nothing quite as damning as a bedroom without furniture because you see all the dings and the scratches in the wallpaper,

like all the mistakes that can usually be covered up,

but you see them all now.

My sister's room is exactly the way it looked

when she moved out to go live with my dad.

It's Pepto-Bismol pink walls and a canopy bed

and this big toy box in the shape of a rubber strawberry as if she was going to move back in and be the little girl that she was before she moved out. My room looks exactly the way it was when I left.
There's posters all over the walls and it's ridiculous like me. So I start to do my laundry and my mom comes home from work and she immediately takes over.

It doesn't let me do it myself. And I end up helping her with it.
And she's happy to see me. She's happy that I'm home.
When we're done that, we go up to have dinner. My mom makes tomato casserole.
It was one of my favorite things. It was canned tomatoes with cubes of Wonder Bread and American cheese baked in the oven.
If you put enough shaky cheese on it, it's delicious, you know. sitting there in the two kitchen chairs and I'm telling her all about my first semester of college and how it finished up and she's so proud of me and she's telling me about work.
My mom's a nurse and she's been taking all of the shifts that she can but she had warned me that she was starting to have to sell stuff in the house to be able to catch up on the bills, because the house was too big for the two of us. Now that I was away at school, it was just her, so she was doing everything she could, and she warned me, but it was still shocking, you know.
She had just taken a second job, a part-time seasonal job at the mall behind the perfume counter. My mom didn't like people telling her what to do, so I knew that wasn't going to last very long, and while we're sitting there at dinner, she tells me that she says, Pete, we're not going to have a lot of money this year for Christmas.
So I don't think we're going to be able to give each other presents. And I said, that's okay, mom.
And I'm being completely honest. I'm just happy to be home with her.
I don't need anything. And that's the truth.
And we sit there eating quietly for a minute. And then she says, you know, it'd be funny.
What if we cut out pictures of things from magazines that we would give to each other if we could? And we laughed about it. And then we cried about it because it's really sad.
It's a really sad thing. But then we laughed again because, man, like no matter how hard things are, you just have to laugh, you know.
The next day, I decide I'm going to make the house look as Christmassy as possible. I go up to the attic and I get the boxes down at the lights.
I hang the lights in the bushes out front and around the gutters. I want to go get a Christmas tree.
I grew up in a little small town in New Jersey called Delanco. It was a small town with 2,500 people, mostly farms.
At that time, there wasn't Walmart or big stores or anything. So I went over to the local Christmas tree farm to get a Christmas tree.
I figured they'd give me a deal because I used to date their daughter. But it turns out they didn't give me a deal because I used to date their daughter.
And a Christmas tree was like 40 bucks, man. I couldn't afford that.
So I went back home and I got an old saw out of the garage and I cut out a tree from the side yard and I brought it in. It wasn't even like a pine tree.
It was like a stunted maple tree. And I put it in the tree holder, had like five branches.
I put 20 ornaments on each branch and just kind of put the lights on it and called it a day. And, uh, and that's, you know, my mom came over work and she just laughed about it, you know, uh, when I, when I was visiting my friends who are also home from college, I would steal their mom's fancy catalogs and bring them home and cut out pictures of stuff.
Like, you know, my mom always wanted a green Jaguar convertible. I found a picture of one of those.
I cut her out pictures of gold and diamonds and jewelry and island. Like all these things that I would love to be able to give my mom for Christmas.
And as I was doing it, I knew it was sad. It was like a sad thing to do, but I kept collecting them and folding them up and tying them up with ribbons and hiding them in my room, and I was waiting to put them under the tree.
And like I said, it was a sad thing, but I knew it was something that would bring us together. I knew it was something that we would always be able to hold on to, is something that we would be able to hold on to together, you know.
There was one night in mid, toward the end of December, close to Christmas, when we're sitting there in the living room watching the TVs, and the Charlie Brown Christmas special is on. One of the TVs hooked up the cable, and the other one gets the antenna, so the sound doesn't quite jibe up, you know.
And we're sitting there just right next to each other on the couch. We're worlds apart.
My mom's exhausted. I've been trying to get her to sell the house for years because I knew it was just too big for her to be in by herself.
It was too big for the two of us to be there. If I'm being honest, it was too big when all four of us were living there.
I don't know why they got it in the first place, but four years before that, my parents, who had been separated on and off the whole time that they were married, they were giving it one last try. And the plan was that they were gonna sell the house and take the money, and we were gonna move to Georgia from Jersey and have a fresh start.
And that was the big plan. And it went along okay for a couple of weeks.
And then somebody just came in and poured the eggshells all over the floor again. And they started the fight and things were back to normal.
And that fresh start never really happened. And it culminated with us, the four of us in the third pew at St.
Kazimierz Church in Riverside, New Jersey for Christmas Eve, midnight mass. And right before the priest started the mass and the packed church, my dad stood up and he walked out of the church.
And the only sound you could hear in the silent church was the hydraulic door just go shoo. And the four of us, the three of us left, stood up and we went outside past the priest and everyone we knew.
And we walked the two blocks to where the car was parked and my dad was nowhere to be found, but he left the keys of the car on the hood. And that year my parents were done.
That was it. I always, I got what I wanted for Christmas that year.
My parents never got back together. But so here we are now today, the two of us sitting on this couch and trying to watch this thing and let us be happy or something.

And she's a million miles away.

It's all killing her.

Trying to pay the bills,

trying to keep it together.

She did everything she could

to try to keep the house

so there would be some semblance of normalcy

to the outside world.

I know that she took a big hit on her pride.

She's a very prideful woman.

And I knew that when everyone that she knew in her life

saw our family disintegrate that

midnight mass, I knew that it was just ripping her apart. But she was trying to keep the house together, you know? And she was a million miles away.
My mom was my best friend. It was the two of us, man.
She was my partner. She was like my road dog, you know? It was like me and her against the world.
And like being there with her and having her be a million miles away was killing me. just like I knew this house was killing her too.

Well, you know, it got to be Christmas Eve, and my buddy Brian came over and picked me up, and we went to a different church for midnight mass. When you're under 21, you can't go to a bar, so you go see your friends at mass.
And we split a jug of wine in the parking lot, we went and the mass was awesome it was pretty great

and uh afterwards uh i come home and uh the next morning i wake up and it's christmas morning so i go and i gather up all the little uh pictures of the gifts that i want to give to my mother all wrapped up and tied in ribbon and i put them under the tree and i hear my mom stirring upstairs comes downstairs, and her hair's in corkscrews, and she's got this big flannel housecoat on, and her big red plastic Sally Jesse Raphael morning glasses with the broken ear thing on the side, taped up, you know. And I say, Merry Christmas, Mom.
And she goes, Oh, honey, oh, hold on. And she goes upstairs, and she's upstairs for a minute, and then she comes back down down and she has a few.
And I give her hers first. And there's, you know, there's the jaguar and the jewelry and the island and a picture of a baby grand piano and a picture of a new dining room set and a picture of a new mahogany bedroom set and all these things I wish I could replace for her.
And she's smiling and laughing the whole time. And then when it's all done, she gives me mine.
And there's three of them. There's a picture of a bag of Reese's peanut butter cups.
There's a picture of a pair of Homer Simpson slippers. And there's a picture of a karaoke machine.
and they were all from the same Rite Aid catalog that was up

in her bathroom, because she had completely forgotten

about this thing that I

thought was going to bring us together, because she was

working so hard. So we're

stuck in the middle of this O. Henry story that

he never should have written, and

I thank her

so much for the gifts, and we go upstairs,

and my mom makes the best pancakes in the world.

You might think your mom does, but I'm so sorry.

You're wrong.

My mom made the pancakes, but this morning

Thank you. so much for the gifts and we go upstairs and my mom makes the best pancakes in the world you might think your mom does but i'm so sorry you're wrong my mom made the pancakes and but this morning she burned them a little bit and uh i'm sitting in the kitchen uh eating these pancakes cutting around the burnt pieces and i'm looking out through our backyard at uh everybody else's houses and all the light in their houses looks like orange and colorful and friendly with all these people and our house just feels empty and stark and white and the fluorescent light eating these pancakes in silence together the two of us a couple months later she finally did send me my present I was back in college I had man I'd taken out all the tuition and loans and we couldn't afford it it otherwise, but it was important to her that I'd go.
And I had just finished a day of classes, and I was heading to the dining hall, and I stopped over to check my mail. Remember mail, when people used to send mail? And I open up the mailbox, and there's an envelope with my mother's postmark on it.
And I take it up, and I fill up my, into the dining hall, and I fill up my tray with too much food, uh, because that's what you do. And I go over to a table and I sit down and before I start eating, I open up that envelope and inside there's no note.
There's just one photograph. It's of her standing in front of the house with a for sale sign.
And the house sold pretty quickly. And, uh, if she got it, she offloaded it, and she took a little bit of a hit financially, and she took a bigger hit on her pride, and she moved into a much smaller

place that she could afford, and you know, it hurt her, I know it hurt her, and it took a big hit, but

the most important thing to me was, right then, we're looking at that picture, I got my girl back. Thank you.
That was Peter Aguero. Peter says at the moment, he's most likely to be found making pottery and listening to the Allman Brothers.
Peter makes his home in

Queens with his wife Sarah, and his mom is now happily married too. As for Christmas traditions, Peter and his mom now do breakfast with as many meats as possible.
Last year, Peter says, mom made a seven-meat breakfast, and it was pretty awesome. Tracy Seguera is our next storyteller.
She won an open mic moth story slam in New York, where we partner with public radio station WNYC. And that win earned her a spot in a grand slam, which is where this story was told.
The theme of the night was growing pains.

Here's Tracy live at the Moth. It's 1996 and I'm on an express bus from the Bronx heading into Manhattan to go wedding dress shopping with my future mother-in-law.
And I'm not looking forward to this because she and I are not exactly friends. Rita and I come from very different worlds.
She is this Sicilian from the Bronx Waitress and a secretary

And are not exactly friends. Rita and I come from very different worlds.
She is this Sicilian from the Bronx, a waitress and a secretary, and a Jehovah's Witness, devout Jehovah's Witness, this strange religion I know nothing about. And I'm this middle-class Jew from Long Island, so when I start dating her son, a lapsed Jehovah's Witness who she dearly would like to come back into the fold, she and I kind of circle each other warily.
And we are polite but cold. But when Fred and I decide to get married, I realize that I should make some effort to get to know this woman who's going to be part of my life.
So here we are. And the ride down is very uncomfortable.
She and I have never been alone in a room together, so it's very awkward. But when we get to the bridal salon and I start trying on all these gowns, she tells me I look beautiful in every single one, which is a complete lie, but the sweetest of lies.
And I feel myself starting to soften towards her. And then afterwards, when we get back to the Bronx and it's time to say goodbye, she suddenly grabs me and she gives me a hug.
And it's the kind of hug that tells me how much it must have meant to her that I invited her to do this with me. And it breaks open a place in my heart for her and we start to become friends.
And over the next two years, we bond over the two things that Rita loves the most, eating and shopping. Nobody can devour a lobster like Rita Romeo.
And she doesn't care where she shops. It could be a dollar store or a hardware store, although dollar stores are her favorites.
She just loves to shop. But then when my twin daughters are born in 2000, she is my savior.
I am so overwhelmed by these creatures. And every Friday she comes out from the Bronx, and she spends the weekend with us.
And when I hear that screen door open each Friday, it's like the cavalry has arrived, and I can finally breathe. And she absolutely adores her granddaughters, but she is not your typical cookie-baking grandma.
She's a Sicilian from the Bronx, you know? And one year, when the girl's about two or three, I hear her talking to them in the other room. And I hear her say, I love you so much.
I just want to punch you. But she also has her tender side.
And once when we go to visit them in the Bronx, I notice that she's been stealing things from the girls like little things like a stuffed animal or a barrette and I can't figure out why until it dawns on me that she literally wants something of theirs to hold on to when she can't be with them. When the girls are about four I send out holiday cards every year usually just seasons greetings cards but this year I decide to send out a Hanukkah card.
The girls are getting a little older, I'm starting to think about sending them

to Hebrew school, but I don't send it to Rita because witnesses don't celebrate holidays,

but I do send it to Fred's aunt who lives near them in the Bronx and likes to display the cards.

And about a week later, Fred gets a call from his mother and she tells him that since we've

decided to raise our daughters as Jews, that she can no longer be part of our lives and I'm shocked because she and I have never discussed religion so I had no idea she might feel this way and then I'm hurt because this is me you know like how could she do this to me and then I get angry because this has to be the most anti-semitic that's ever happened to me and this is my family. But then I get angry because this has to be the most anti-Semitic thing that's ever happened to me and this is my family But then I think oh, you know, she's just in shock.
She'll get over it. She'll call me She'll apologize and everything will be fine.
And so I wait But after four weeks of waiting, it's clear. She's not calling And so then I dig in and I say you know what if she cannot accept us

and how we're going to raise our daughters then I don't want her in my life and I'm done and months pass but about nine months later a new dollar store opens up in my neighborhood and I think of Rita and I want to call her and the urge to call her is just so strong that I pick up the phone. I have no idea what I'm going to say, and she answers on the first ring.
Hi, I say. It's Tracy.
Hi, she says. I miss you, I say.
I miss you too, she says. And just like that, it's over.
We never discuss it. We just step over that time in our lives as if it never happened.
And over the next seven years, she becomes my second mother. In 2011, Rita passes away.
And I miss her. I miss her every day.
But I think about what we almost missed.

Like that time when the girls were five and they had their first and only ballet recital

where they proved that they were much more adept at pratfalls

than graceful pirouettes.

Or the time when they were eight

and we told ghost stories around the fireplace.

And you know, I know I would have been justified

all those years ago in keeping Rita out of my life.

What she did was hurtful and cruel, and it was wrong. But in the end, I decided I didn't want to stand on my principles if it meant I had to stand there all alone.
At the end of her life, I go to visit Rita because I need to tell her how much she meant to me and what an impact she had on my life And she tries to say something back, but she's wearing an oxygen mask and it's really difficult to understand her and

Then the moments just gone

So I don't know what she wanted to tell me

But I'd like to think that it was some variation of I

Love you so much. I just want to punch you.
That was Tracy Seguera at Amoth Grand Slam. Tracy is a former wire service reporter turned marketer.
In her free time, she hosts and produces her own Long Island-based storytelling show, Now You're Talking. Tracy said, Rita was a hell of a woman.
I wish she had lived

to see her granddaughters grow up. Tracy and her daughters celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas.
They

light candles every night of Hanukkah, and every Christmas they exchange gifts and have a

traditional dinner. They also like to bake unique holiday treats.
To see a photo of one of their

I'm going to go back. every night of Hanukkah, and every Christmas they exchange gifts and have a traditional dinner.
They also like to bake unique holiday treats. To see a photo of one of their creations,

reindeer pretzel cupcakes, and a photo of Rita with her granddaughters, go to themoth.org.

When we come back, we try to escape the holidays with a trip to Puerto Vallarta. Stay tuned.
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the Public Radio Exchange, PRX.org. I am single, and I spend some time each year traveling with the moth, helping people craft and share stories, and there are times my friends and family get a little worried about me.
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This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin Janess, and I'm your host.
Welcome back to our annual December holiday anti-holiday episode. I say anti-holiday because there are lots of people listening who don't celebrate the holidays in December in the traditional sense.
They escape the typical trappings of this month, maybe in favor of rest and rejuvenation in a far off land. Our next story is all about that.
Steve Glickman told it at a Moth Story Slam in Chicago,

where we partner with public radio station WBEZ.

The theme of the night was refuge.

Here's Steve live at the Moth.

It's Christmas Eve in 2005,

and I am packed and ready to go to Puerto Vallarta.

My flight leaves in 12 hours, and I cannot wait to get out of Chicago.

It's been an awful year.

I broke up with my boyfriend of seven years and I've been living in a fog.

Months of therapy, sleepless nights, just the worst year ever.

But somehow I made it to Christmas Eve and I am ready to reboot my life starting now. I cannot wait to get to that beautiful beach in Puerto Vallarta and order a pina colada served out of a coconut and kiss this awful year goodbye.
I'm packed and ready to go. All I need is my passport.
I look in my desk drawer. Not there.
I look in my file cabinet. Not there.
I look in my bedroom closet. My dresser.
The kitchen cabinets. Not there.
Where the fuck is my passport? Then I panic. I ransack my apartment, going from room to room, emptying every drawer, every closet, every cabinet, and I throw its contents on the floor where I can see it all clearly.
I get down on my hands and knees, and I'm sifting through the piles of stuff like a crazed burglar. And after I've turned my apartment upside down for hours, nothing.

Where the fuck is my passport?

It's after midnight, and I'm exhausted.

Sitting on my bedroom floor, staring at all the piles of junk,

I say to myself out loud, as calmly as possible, I've lost my passport.

I've looked everywhere I know of, but it's gone. I am not going to Puerto Vallarta for Christmas.

And then I cry. The next morning, I make a pot of coffee and I contemplate how I might spend

And and then I cry. The next morning, I make a pot of coffee and I contemplate how I might spend Christmas week in Chicago.
I can't visit my family. They're not in town.
I can't visit my friends because they all think I'm in Puerto Vallarta and that's what I want them think. I boasted to everyone that I was going to spend Christmas week on the beach in Mexico, and they could all have their white Christmas in Chicago.
I told my coworkers. I told my volleyball team.
I told George, the star hitter on my volleyball team, who is a dreamboat and who I have a crush on.

I can't fathom telling them I lost my passport.

I will never hear the end of it.

I feel like the biggest loser ever.

I just can't catch a break.

And then I get an idea.

I hide out in my apartment all week long.

I spend my time watching movies and reading Mexico travel blogs. When I leave the apartment, I wear sunglasses and a hoodie because I'm incognito.
And I leave for only two reasons. To go to the grocery store or to the tanning salon.
I love the tanning salon. I love lying on the tanning bed in my Speedo, grooving to my playlist, surrounded by the gentle warmth and humming of the UV lights as they slowly cook my skin to a deep golden brown.
And when I close my eyes, it feels just like I'm lying on that beautiful beach in Puerto Vallarta. The first week in January, we have volleyball practice, and I show up at the gym, armed with a deep tan and stories from the Mexico travel blogs.
I scan the gym from my team, and then I spot Dreamboat George. I'm nervous, and part of me wants to walk out of that gym and go back into hiding for the rest of winter.
But I know that won't solve anything. I know I have to get out there and live in the world, meet people and take risks, even if I don't feel like it.
That's what all the self-help books say. And so I walk up to Dreamboat George with a smile on my face, and he smiles right back.
And he says, So, how was Puerto Vallarta? I say, Muy bueno. The weather was perfect.
The beaches were fantastic. And, oh, the food.
So mucho delicioso.

And as I'm talking, I'm thinking, is he buying this bullshit?

I study his face for signs of doubt, and I can't really be sure.

But I think he might be.

My other teammates gather around, and I tell them the same story. And every time I tell it, I get more confident, and I add more details, like a snorkeling trip and a sunset cruise.
Suddenly, I realize I'm actually pretty good at this. Dreamboat George says, I'm so jealous, which are the words I long to hear.

I simply smile and nod.

I sat on this secret for 11 years.

Over time, I got my confidence back.

I got a new boyfriend, and we've traveled a bit,

but never to Puerto Vallarta, because I don't like to repeat.

So, last December, I was cleaning out my bedroom closet, and I reach in and I pull out a ratty old jacket, and just as I'm throwing it in the trash, I feel something hard in the breast pocket.

So, I reach in, and I pull out my fucking passport. That was Steve Glickman.
Steve has no pictures from his failed vacation, of course, but in the spirit of second chances, you can visit our website, themoth.org, to see a picture of him on a successful vacation with his boyfriend. He's never misplaced his passport again.
Our next storyteller is Dawn Frazier. Dawn is one of the instructors in our community program.
She travels around the world with the moth, workshopping personal stories with all sorts of community groups. This story was recorded in Kampala, Uganda, in an intimate setting where women shared stories for the first time.
There were only about 20 people in the room. Here's Dawn Frazier at the moth in Uganda.
Okay, so many of you know that my family comes from Trinidad and Tobago, and my family came through New York and then moved to California in the United States. And so when I moved to New York, I totally expected that I would be able to be free, to meet other first-generation Trinidadians, and just have a good time.
But my first year in New York, my mom calls me up. And's like, Donnie, you're coming home for Christmas?

And I was like, yeah, I'm coming home for Christmas.

What's up?

She's like, well, I need you to do me a favor.

And I was like, okay, well, what do you want me to do?

So she's like, first, first, you're going to go run down to Nostrand Avenue.

And Nostrand Avenue is like where all the Trinidadians live.

She's like, go run down to Nostrand Avenue.

You're going to pick up 12 Jamaican patties, okay?

Six chicken, six beef. Then you're going to pick up 12 roti.
12 roti skin, okay? Bring these 12 roti skin. Bring these 12 Jamaican patties.
And bring some salt fish back with you from New York to California. And I was like, wait, what? Like, why would I do that? Why? That makes no sense.
And she said, well, don't you want a Caribbean Christmas in California? I was like, yeah, we can want a Caribbean Christmas in California. She's like, well, then bring the food in the morning.
I was like, okay. But I was mad because I had this suitcase.
In my suitcase, you know, I'm going from New York to California. So it's going to be warm.
I just have my flip-flops, my tank tops. But now I have to take all this stuff out of my bag to pack all this other stuff for my mom.
So I'm just aggravated. So I pack all the food, the salt fish, the roti, all the kind of stuff.
And I bring the stuff to California so that we could have a Caribbean Christmas. And I get there and I was like, mom, you know, there are black people in California, right? You know, I can go to Oakland and go get some saltfish and some roti.
She's like, no, no, but it's not the same. We want the good, authentic stuff from New York.
And I was like, really? Okay, whatever, whatever. And then, you know, we have a good feast and we live it up.
The next year, my mom calls me up again and she's like, Dawn, you're coming home for Christmas? And I was like, yeah, I'm coming home for Christmas. Why? What's up? She's like, well, I need you to do me a favor.
I'm like, okay, what do you need me to do this time? She's like, well, this year we're going to go to Trinidad for Christmas, okay? And I was like, oh, sweet. So I'm thinking to myself, this is awesome.
I don't need to bring any type of roti. I don't need to bring any salt fish.
I don't need any Jamaican patties. I was like, okay, cool, cool.
What do you need me to do? She says, go run down to the Pathmark, okay? The supermarket. And you're going to go pick up a 30-pound turkey.
Okay? You're going to take this turkey, you're going to put it in the freezer, and you're going to deep-freeze this turkey. All right? You're going to bring this turkey with you from New York to Trinidad.
And I was like, wait, what? There's no turkeys in Trinidad? She's like, you don't want a good, big Caribbean Trinidadian turkey for Christmas? And I was like, well, yeah, I want a big Trinidadian, I guess, or whatever. She's like, then bring the turkey.
And I was like, I was like, Mom, Mom, seriously, this sounds like foul play, okay?

This is like literally crossing the line.

And is this legal?

You know?

She's like, just bring it, just bring it.

So I take this turkey, and I put it in my freezer, and I deep freeze it for about two weeks.

And then the day comes where I'm flying off to Trinidad for Christmas, and it's wrapped up in all this foil, all this aluminum, all this type of stuff, and I throw it on my backpack. And my mom lives in this little, little tiny village way in the corner of Tobago.
And so in order to get there, I first have to fly from JFK Airport to Miami Airport, from Miami Airport to Trinidad's Airport, to Trinidad's Airport, a little two-propeller jet into Tobago. I'm going through this process, and I still got this 30-pound turkey on my bag.
But as I get to Trinidad's immigration, I'm starting to drip. And I don't know if this is going to work.
So I am looking at the immigration official and he says to me, mom, you have anything to declare? And I'm thinking, okay, I don't know if I need to declare a turkey. So I say, no.
He's like, okay. I got on the other little two-propeller jet, I get to Tobago.
Turkey's dripping, dripping, dripping, dripping. I'm like, this is just going to be a wreck.
It'll take two hours to get to my mom's little village in Charlottesville. I'm there.
I'm happy. I was like, I've gone on this long, extensive trip to bring this turkey.
I get there. I was like, mom, here it is.
Your turkey has arrived. It's here.
It's here. She's like, oh, good, good.
Go put it in the freezer. Quick, quick.
Because everybody's waiting. Your sister, she brought the ham.
And your cousin, he brought the three-layer cake. And I was like, wait, the three-layer cake? From where? She's like, oh, he just brought it from Florida.
And he put it up in the area, you know, above in the plane. And I was like, so wait, I brought a turkey.
My cousin brought this three layer cake. My sister brought this ham.
And here I was thinking that I was going to be saving the day with my big old like, you know, turkey. And that's what it hit me that all these years of like traveling back and forth with food and all this stuff wasn't a pain it was just something that I guess that our family did we just travel with food that's what we do I guess as a family as a Fraser this is what I'm expected to So last year, when I was returning to California for Christmas,

when my mom called me up and she's like,

you're coming home for Christmas?

I was like, yeah, I'm coming home for Christmas.

And I looked down at my suitcase.

It was empty and ready to be filled with whatever food she needed. Yeah!

Dawn Fraser is an instructor in the MOFs Community Program. She's also a communications coach and the host of the podcast Barbershop Stories.
When I told Dawn that this story was included in our holiday hour, she said the timing couldn't be better. She had just traveled to Florida with her sister's wedding cake.
To see photos of Dawn's family Christmas in Trinidad and Tobago, including the turkey she brought that year, plus the roti, pig's feet, patties, and other Caribbean goodies she brought the next year, and for other stories from the Moth Community Program, go to themoth.org. After our break, our last two stories.

The Jewish tradition of asking for what you want, twice. And the sheer stress of planning your first kiss on New Year's Eve.
When The Moth Radio Hour continues. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts,

and presented by the Public Radio Exchange, PRX.org.

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We're up to our last two stories as part of this December special.

No matter what our plans are in the next few weeks,

December can remind us of family and friends who have died, and that's bittersweet.

Evan Lunt told this next story at a Moth Slam in Boston,

where we partner with public radio station WBUR and PRX, the public radio exchange. The theme was Wonders.
Here's Evan Lunt live at the Moth. Now, I am not religious at all.
My mother's Jewish. My father's a nice little goyim.
I was a nice mix. They said, you can do whatever you want.
And I said, great, I choose neither. I'm going to choose the holidays that have the best food.
So Lent was out the window. Yom Kippur was out the window.
But my grandmother, on the other hand, Elizabeth Tabkis, she was very religious. She was the nice Jew that had the latke in her pocket when we went through her clothes after she died.

We were expecting to find money, we were expecting to find jewelry, but we found an old latke.

And it was great.

We would visit her in the nursing home and she would celebrate the holidays with us.

And she would celebrate all of the little, we'd have Hanukkah celebration with her.

We'd have a Passover Seder.

She wouldn't remember who I was, but we'd have a Passover Seder with her.

Thank you. celebrate the holidays with us and she would celebrate all of the little, you know, we'd have Hanukkah celebration with her.
We'd have a Passover Seder. She wouldn't remember who I was, but we'd have a Passover Seder with her.
And that continued. And I had her menorah.
And one day I said, mom,

can I take this menorah to college with me? And she looked at me, she said, absolutely not.

This is in my family for too long. You can't take it with you.
And I said, mom, can I, you know,

it's tradition in the Jewish faith, in case you're not familiar, you'd ask twice. And I said, Mom, can I please take this minority college with me? And she said, fine, I'm going to wrap it up all nice.
I'm going to put it in a little box, and you're not going to touch it until Hanukkah. And I said, okay, fine.
So Hanukkah comes around. This is now last year around, Hanukkah was late last year.

It was around Christmas time.

So my house that I lived in with eight other people was mostly Christians.

So we had a Christmas tree.

And I said, okay, I'm going to, you know, do this up a little bit.

I'm going to put the menorah right next to the Christmas tree,

right in the window on the second floor so everyone else on the street can see it.

And I said, my grandmother would love this. It's her menorah.
She would love this. And each night I would go up and I would walk upstairs because I lived on the first floor and I'd light the menorah.
And first night went by, great. Second night went by, great.
Haven't burned anything down. This was an old house.
Third night goes by, great. Fourth night comes and I'm feeling a little down.
This was, senior year of college was a little rough for me, as I'm sure it's a little rough for most people. You know, you're writing thesis, you're dealing with relationships, it's a time.
And I'm lighting the menorah, and I say, all right, you know what?

Here's something I haven't done in a long time. In fact, my entire life.
I'm going to pray. And, you know, I do my little, I sing the song to no one.
There's no one there. Everyone's doing their own thing.
But I'm going to sing it to myself and then to my grandmother. God bless.
And I say, all right, I'm going to pray.

And I say, all right.

I'm not on my knees because it's a dirty floor.

But I'm going to sit down in my chair

and I say, all right, how do I start?

Elizabeth, no, that's too formal.

Grandma, can you hear me?

And I say, I'm going to light my candles for you tonight.

And I'm And I say,

I'm going to light my candles for you tonight. And I'm going through and I'm lighting the candles and it's the fourth night.
So you light five candles and I'm going through the prayer. And

I say, grandma, can you hear me? And I look out and looking out the window, nothing. It's cloudy.

Looking out the window, maybe I'll see something,

is there a cat, no, she liked cats.

And I'm sitting there and I'm just looking at the candles

and they're flickering and they're flickering

and all of a sudden they go out.

I'm like, that was weird, there's no wind.

I'm inside, there shouldn't be a draft I paid rent this month and I say grandma is that you and there's a knock on the door I'm like that's weird again I paid rent this month there shouldn't be a knock on the door. Shouldn't be anyone coming for me, I promise.
And I go down, and there's no one there. And I come back up, and it turns out one candle had stayed lit, and it's the shammas, which is the candle that you light all the other candles with.
And that was the night I realized my grandmother was still with me. Thank you.

That was Evan Lunt.

Evan is a chemistry student at the University of Pennsylvania.

Outside of the lab,

he likes playing cello,

doing crossword puzzles,

and finding other people's dogs to pet.

He celebrates Hanukkah every year now,

and he keeps the tradition

of putting his grandmother's menorah out. Our final story starts in December, but ends in January.
Making New Year's plans is a little stressful, and if you add to that a budding new relationship and plotting a first kiss, yikes. Bernie Summers told this at a romance-themed slam in Los Angeles, where we partner with public radio station KCRW.
Here's Bernie live at the mall. So I met this girl, and I really liked her.
She was kind of a nerd, but nice, like a nice, nerdy little girl. And I asked her on a date.
And our first

date, we had a wonderful time, but I didn't kiss her. I didn't even try to kiss her.
Because on the first day, I just like to talk and listen and, you know, get to know the person. And then I asked her on a second date.
Now, the second date is when I usually, you know, going for the kill. and I will attempt to kiss goodnight.
But on our second date, I took her to this Italian restaurant, and whatever I had had so much onion and garlic in it that a Tic Tac would have just suffocated in my mouth. So I didn't kiss her goodnight, I just sort of hugged her goodnight.
And then I asked her on the third date, and I thought, you know, I gotta kiss her tonight. I mean, if I don't kiss her tonight, she's gonna think I'm the shy, insecure coward, which I am.
But I don't want her to know that. So on our third date, I took her to this jazz club.
And this jazz club was like this dark, intimate club. And, you know, it was a couple days after Christmas, all these pretty Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling.

And her and I were sharing this cozy booth.

And it was just a perfect moment to share our first kiss.

It was very romantic.

In fact, the piano player at the bar was singing the song,

Isn't It Romantic?

He was like, Isn't it romantic?

Me'll be young on a night like this?

Isn't it romantic, every know this song is like a lover's kiss? Sweet symbols in the moonlight, do you think that I might fall in love perchance? Isn't it romantic

so the moment was screaming, kiss her. And then she told me about this New Year's Eve party she was going to and I wanted to go with her.
And I said, yeah, sure. And then I thought, you know, it'd be kind of cool if our first kiss was our New Year's Eve kiss.
It'd be very symbolic, beginning of a new year, beginning of a new relationship. So at that moment in my mind, I decided that was when I was going to kiss her, the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, which meant I couldn't kiss her tonight because if I kissed her tonight, then our New Year's Eve kiss would be her second kiss, and that's just lame.
But here's the thing. This nerd wanted me to kiss her tonight.
She had her hand on my thigh. She's got her face close to mine.
She's looking into my eyes. I mean, she's doing everything but saying, kiss me, stupid.
But I can't. You know, I'm saving myself for New Year's.
So New Year's Eve comes, New Year's Eve day. And I'm, you know, getting ready for the party.
I'm in the bathroom really excited. I'm shaving and brushing and flossing.
And all day long, that song is ringing through my head. Isn't it romantic? Me of the young on a night like this.
And it's like this song is telling my brain, don't blow it, Bernie. Kiss her tonight.
So we're at the New Year's Eve party, and we're in this loft, very crowded loft. And we're sipping champagne, talking and laughing.
And I look at my watch, it's like 10 minutes to midnight. So I decide to go to the bathroom, because I remember I saw a bottle of mouthwash in there.
So I thought, you know, I'll gargle, so when I kiss her at midnight, I'll have minty fresh breath. So I go in the bathroom, I gargle, and I wash my hands and comb my hair.
Step out of the bathroom, and I see that the number of people at the party has doubled. Before it was packed, when I was jam-packed, you can't Step out of the bathroom and I see that the number of people at the party is like doubled.
And before it was packed, when I was like jam-packed, you know, you can't even move a muscle. And I look at my watch and it's five minutes to midnight.
And I'm trying to get to her, but I don't even see her. And then before you know it, I hear 10, 9, 8.
And I'm like squeezing through the party trying to find her. Seven, six, five.

And then I see her.

She's in the corner, but I can't reach her. There's just too many people between us.
Three, two, one. Happy New Year.
And everyone is kissing someone. And I see her there in the corner all alone, looking sad and nerdy.
And by the time I reach her, it's like 20 minutes after midnight. And before I could say anything, she says, Bernie, I'm leaving.
She grabs her coat and she leaves the party. And she's obviously very angry at me.
I don't blame her. You know, it's like our fourth date.
I haven't kissed her. I leave her alone on New Year's Eve.
So I chase after her. We're outside and I kind of grab her by the arm I say, no wait, she said, no Bernie I'm sensing you're not all that into me so I'm just going to go home I said, let me explain I didn't kiss her on the first date because I just don't kiss on the first date I didn't kiss her on the second date because I had really bad onion and garlic breath I didn't kiss her on the third date because I thought I'd be better to kiss her on the fourth date on New Year's Eve tonight, but I couldn't reach it tonight because there were two people at the party and I couldn't reach it.
I'm really sorry. And then she gave me this look, you know, and it was just hard to read, you know, because sometimes a woman will look at you and you have no idea what they're thinking.
And then she said, goodbye, Bernie, and she walked away. So New Year's Day came, and I'm just feeling very lonely and depressed.
It was a terrible way to bring in the New Year. Later that night, I'm lying in bed sleeping.
And there's a knock at the door. And I'm thinking, who's knocking on my door in the middle of the night? So I go to answer, and it's her.
I say, what are you doing here? She says, let me in. I said, what? She says, hurry up, let me in.
So she comes in. I said, what's going on? It's past midnight.
She says, well, actually, it's 1158. So you have two minutes

till you kiss me. I said, what? She goes, well, I know you want to kiss me on a stroke of midnight

New Year's Eve. But you know what, Bernie? Everybody kisses on a stroke of midnight New

Year's Eve. We're going to be original.
We're going to kiss on a stroke of midnight on New

Year's Day. I said, okay.
She said, do you have champagne? And I said, I have Snapple. And she said, get it, hurry up, it's 11.59.
So I'm running in the kitchen, I'm getting the Snapple, and the song's rushing through my head. Is it a romantic meal? I'm going to like this.
And she asked in the living room, do you have champagne glasses? And I said, I have Batman and Robin coffee mugs. Honey, you only have 20 seconds.
It's romantic every night. It's a lover's kiss.
And I run into the living room with the coffee mug. Sweet symbols in the moonlight.
Do you think we're going to fall in love, perchance? And we're sitting on the couch together with a Batman and Robin coffee mug. She's looking around and watching.
She's doing the countdown 3, 2, 1, and we lock eyes and I say to her

you are the coolest girl

I have ever met in my entire life

and she said

shut up and kiss me

isn't it romantic romantic That was Bernie Summers. Bernie is a New York writer who finds his dysfunctional love life a great source for comic material.
He and his New Year's date eventually ended up parting ways but he hopes to have a date for Valentine's Day on February 15th. That's it for this episode of the Moth Radio Hour.
We hope you'll join us next time. Happy December.
Your host this hour was Sarah Austin Janess. Catherine Burns directed the stories in the show, along with Jennifer Hickson.
The rest of the Moth directorial staff includes Sarah Haberman and Meg Bowles. Production support by Timothy Lou Lee.
Moth Stories Are True is remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift.

Other music in this hour from Melody Creators, Modern Mandolin Quartet, C.S. Heath,

Nigel Kennedy and the Croke Band, Proyecto Solo, and Ruby Braft and George Barnes Quartet.

The Moth is produced for radio by me, Jay Allison, with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

This hour was produced with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Moth Radio Hour is presented by PRX.

For more about our podcast, information on pitching us your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.

And have a great holiday season.