Host: Angelica Lindsey-Ali
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Angelica: [00:00:12] From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Angelica Lindsey-Ali. I'm a storyteller and frequent host for The Moth's live events in Phoenix and all around the country.
In this hour, we'll be exploring stories about the holiday season. Starting in November, Christmas seems to dominate the airwaves. So, no matter what religion you are or aren't, you'll hear a lot of that holly jolly stuff. I am especially suited to this topic, because I have done and seen it all. From catering Hanukkah parties while I was in college to dressing up as one of Santa's disco elves during one fateful 1990s Christmas party, I have never met a festive occasion I didn't like.
Growing up, the holidays were always a special time for family. I loved everything about waking up on Christmas Eve to empty plates of cookies and a heap of presents in the living room. When I became a Muslim in my early 20s, I thought I'd lose the magic of the holidays. It turns out that the spirit of festivity lives on, even if it looks slightly different.
Now, holiday fun looks like family gatherings every night during Ramadan, fancy outfits for Eid, gifts shared with loved ones and strings of lights as I share new traditions with my blended intercultural family. And even though I no longer celebrate Donny Hathaway's, This Christmas still brings me to tears. Oh, yeah, there are definitely still cookies. Holidays just aren't holidays without cookies.
[joyful music]
In this hour, we're going to start and end on Christmas Eve and enjoy the entire holiday season together. But as you know, it starts in November and continues right through to the first of the year. Our first story was told at a Philadelphia GrandSLAM. Here's Jesse Berdinka.
[cheers and applause]
Jesse: [00:02:07] Sorry, I've to adjust this. When I was 10 years old, my parents got divorced. And things were pretty bad for us financially, especially at the holidays. About a month before my 10th Christmas, I come home to the house with my brothers from school. My mom is sitting in the living room talking to this elderly gentleman. I don't know who he is, but I know who he is. His name is Mr. Sorrels and he owns a local auto parts store.
Everybody know here in this audience, if you're ever from a small town, you know a Mr. Sorrels. This is the guy who was like the deacon at the church, the head of the Rotary Club and everything else. I didn't know much about him personally except a few things. One, he was elderly. Two, he was wealthy. He always had those golf pants with the ducks on them, like in Caddyshack. He actually had the only Mercedes in my town, so I knew he had to be like a millionaire or something like that.
The other thing that I knew about him was, is that he was famous in my town for being a hero. He was a marine in the Battle of Tarawa in the South Pacific during World War II, one of the bloodiest battles in Marine Corps history. And for the life of me, I could not figure out what this guy is doing sitting in our living room. He comes out and he just tells us right away. He says, “My name is Mr. Sorrels. I am the commander of the local Veterans of Foreign Wars, the VFW. Every year, we pick a deserving family of underprivileged youths to buy Christmas presents for. So, we've picked your family this year, and we want you to think long and hard about what you would like for Christmas, within reason, and I'm going to come back in a week and get your list.” So, he leaves.
My brother and I think we've just made like the payday. We're like, “This is like the greatest thing ever.” And my mom, of course, like, “Don't be a jerk. You're going to ruin this for every kid after you.” [audience laughter] So, we think long and hard about what we're going to get. He comes back a week later, and he sits down and he says, “Okay, you've thought about it?” And he goes to my brother and he says, “Marty, what would you like for Christmas?” My brother looks at him very seriously and says, “I would like a case of Campbell's soup.” Campbell's soup. And Mr. Sorrels, to his credit, without even batting an eyelash, looks at him and says, “What flavor?” [audience laughter] And my brother's like, “Oh, my God, I didn't think about that. Chicken noodle. No, cream of potato. No, chicken noodle, chicken noodle.”
So, then he looks at me-- My brother's an idiot, so I'm not going to pick soup for a Christmas present, that's ridiculous. So, he looks at me and he says, “Jesse, what do you want?” And I said, “I would like a case of kosher dill pickles. [audience laughter] And not the store brand kind, because those all are yellow, look like people peed in the jar. I went Vlasic with the stork on the side. I want the really sour ones.”
So, my mom could not be here tonight, but she wants everybody in the audience to know two things. One, she's mortified to think that you might leave here thinking that she didn't feed us. Well, she did feed us. [audience laughter] And two, that despite her best efforts, we were just very bizarre children, so very bizarre children. [audience laughter] So, about a couple days before Christmas, the VFW comes out, and they are all dressed in their suits and ties. They've got those flat caps with their post number and everything on like this. And they're dressed to the nines. They come out and they put-- We're in our pajamas and they put these big boxes on our lap.
My brother goes first. He rips off that paper, and there it is, that beautiful scarlet script lettering that says Campbell's on the side. But something is wrong. The top has been open, and I know it. I knew this was too good to be true. It's a bait and switch. It's going to be like ShopRite clam chowder in there or something like that. [audience laughter] So, my brother picks up one can and he’s like, “Campbell's Chicken Noodle.” He picks up another can, “Campbell's Cream of Potato. Oh, my God, they mixed to match a case for me. Oh, my God, this is the greatest present ever.” [audience laughter]
So, then they come to me and they put the case on my lap. I'm ripping it off. All I can think about is that sour. If you're a pickle lover, you love that when that sourness hits the back of your jaw, it's like the greatest feeling ever. And I rip it off, and there it is, that stork with the conductor's cap. The weirdest logo in the world that says Vlasic on the side of it. [audience laughter] I rip open the top, and I grab that jar and I'm so happy. I'm beaming from ear to ear. As I look at the jar, my happiness turns to sorrow and I start to cry, hysterically cry. And Mr. Sorrels comes over to me and he says, “Jesse, this is what you wanted, right? You wanted Dill pickles for Christmas, right?” [audience laughter]
I'm trying to talk to him through the tears. I'm like, “Yes, I love Dill pickles, but--” And I turned the jar to him, “These are sweet gherkins.” [audience laughter] Everyone knows sweet gherkins are the assholes of the pickle world [audience laughter] Complete assholes. So, Mr. Sorrels bends down and he says, “Damn it.” And he starts to cry too. [audience laughter] He's crying, not because he remembered a fellow marine who had fallen at the battle of Tarawa, he's crying because he bought a 10-year-old boy the wrong pickles for Christmas. [audience laughter]
Mr. Sorrels made me put on my shoes, in my pajamas, put on a coat, and him and the rest of the VFW drove me to ACME, and they bought me every damn jar of pickles off the shelf. [audience laughter and applause]
Seven years later, I walked into a recruiting center at the Blue Hen Mall in Dover, Delaware, and I became a United States Marine. [audience cheers and applause]
A very small part of that was because of the kindness Mr. Sorrels showed me and my brother all those years before. I learned a lot of things in my time in the Marine Corps, but one thing they never taught me, is that unless you know exactly what you're doing, pickles make a horrible gift. Thank you very much.
[cheers and applause]
Angelica: [00:08:08] That was Jesse Berdinka. Jesse lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with his wife, Meryl, daughter, Molly and dog, Nola. He's currently a creative officer in a tech company, but previously worked in Hollywood as a development executive for Disney and Miramax films.
Jessi says he still loves pickles and ferments his own. We have something in common there, because I have never met a pickle I didn't like and I have been known to make a jar or two for the holidays.
To see a picture of young Jessi one Christmas with a prized Kenner Star Wars Tie fighter, visit themoth.org where you can also download the story.
[whimsical music]
Our next story is told by Amy Klein, who shared it at a StorySLAM at the Bell House in Brooklyn, where WNYC is a media partner of The Moth. Here's Amy.
[cheers and applause]
Amy: [00:09:09] “So, you want to find a husband?” the rabbi said to me. I'm 38 old even by non-Jewish standards, [audience laughter] and I'm no longer religious, but I will do anything at this point to meet my soulmate, even visit a crazy kabbalist in Jerusalem who looks like Santa Claus to give me a blessing to get married. “Yes, I want to get married,” I say to him. He says, “Okay. Take book, open book, any page, any page, find a word.” Like, he's a magician. So, I take the book and I point to a word. He says, “Read it.” So, it says Kishuf. He says, “You know what this means?” So, I guess I say, “Magic.” He says, “No, it means cursed. You have been cursed. [audience laughter] This is why you're not married.” Uh-huh, a curse. Okay. It's not my dysfunctional childhood nor my terrible taste in narcissistic men, but a curse, this is why I'm not married.
“I remove curse for you,” he says, “Only cost 400 shekel.” “400 shekel? I don't have a $100 on me.” He says, “That's okay. You go to ATM, you come back.” [audience laughter] So, I leave the office and I walk past the dozens of religious women praying in the waiting room into the August Jerusalem sun. I know I'll never see him again. I walk back to the bus stop to go to my hotel, I'm like, “What kind of sucker does he think? What does he think I am? I already paid him $20. Who knows what he's going to do with it? I'm not going to pay him another $100 to remove this curse.”
I'm waiting for the bus and I'm really pissed off. And then, I just start to think, well, if there was a curse, who would curse me? Not that I believe in it or anything, I'm just saying. Maybe it could be one of my single friends. A lot of them don't want me to get married before them. No. I guess they're bitches, but not witches. [audience laughter] Then I think, well, what about my sister, my older sister, who’s not married, who’s hated me since the day I was born and she was four years old? She is a very determined person and she could put a curse on me. The bus came, but I didn't get on it. How could I, knowing that there might be something that stood between me and meeting my husband?
So, I go to the ATM and I take out the 400 shekel and I walk back to the rabbi's office and I'm wondering maybe if he'll remember me. I walk back in and he says, “You have money?” He remembers me. So, I give him the 400 shekel. He puts it in a plastic bag and he starts waving it over his head like the ceremony that they do with the chickens before the day of atonement. He starts saying these words, “[unintelligible 00:11:56].” This is my atonement. This is my redemption. This is the money that will go in my stead for charity. He puts the money in the drawer and he says, “You will meet someone. He will love you very much. He will please you sexually. He will love you more than he loves his mother.” [audience laughter]
And I'm like, “Is this going to be a Jewish guy?” [audience laughter] Then he says, “Give me your passport.” He takes my passport. I'm like, “What now?” First, he takes my money. Now, is he going to sell me into indentured servitude that's how he's going to find my husband?” He starts copying it down, copying and copying it. I look over his shoulders and there's all these numbers. It looks like a quadratic equation. And finally, he slams the passport down and he says to me, “[00:12:40] Hanukkah. It will be done by Hanukkah.” Hanukkah, that's only five months away. It's August now. He said, “Hanukkah.”
So, I go back to the States. You can believe that winter, I go to every party, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, winter solstice. I don't meet anybody. When my friends says to me, “Hey, I thought you were going to meet your husband now,” I start to cry because I thought so too. I felt like that time when I was 10 years old and they told me that the Messiah was going to come the next day, and I put out my white outfit on the chair and the Messiah didn't come. My husband didn't come either. But when you raised religious, no matter how long you leave it, you still can't give up hope.
So, the next September, when I met Dan, I thought, well, maybe this could be the one the rabbi didn't say which Hanukkah. [audience laughter] You know, we could be engaged by December, but Dan dumped me in October. And in December, he was having a party, so I decided to go to show him what he was missing out on, because guys love that. [audience laughter] I got drunk, and I flirted with him and I flirted with his friends. I guess I flirted with a lot of people, because a couple of days later, I got a message on my cell phone and someone said, “Hi, Amy, this is Solomon. I met you at the party the other day. I just wanted to wish you a happy Hanukkah.” We went out the next day, and we got married about a year later. I just wanted to say that was the best $100 I ever spent. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Angelica: [00:14:23] That was Amy Klein. We caught up with Amy for an update. She says, “Solomon and I got married. And immediately after the wedding started trying for a baby. I wanted to go back to the rabbi for a blessing, but he had passed away. After three years, 10 rounds of IVF, nine doctors and four miscarriages, I finally got pregnant with our daughter.” Amy's book, The Trying Game, chronicles her pregnancy journey. To see pictures at their wedding and some with their daughter, visit themoth.org.
[uplifting music]
In a moment, a writer becomes an unlikely pen pal during the holiday season, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
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Jay: [00:15:42] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX.
Angelica: [00:15:56] This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm your host, Angelica Lindsey-Ali. Our next story is told by Mary Gaitskill, whose collection of short stories, Bad Behavior, has made her a cult favorite. She told this story at Cooper Union in New York City. Here's Mary.
[cheers and applause]
Mary: [00:16:16] Thank you. In August of 2012, I was separated from my husband and I was in humongous debt, like 66k of it. I'd just taken a job teaching at a college in Geneva, New York, way upstate. It was a temporary job that came with a furnished house, and so I decided to give up the rental home I'd shared with my husband, put all my stuff in a storage locker and save some money. My last night in my hometown was spent at a motel with a boyfriend of three months. We broke up that night when I literally ran out of the motel, fled to another motel, drove up to the bucolic college town the next day, where I arrived in a pretty bad mood. [audience laughter]
My first social experience was a cocktail party held to welcome me at which I was so testy and weird that I alienated, I'd say, three people, including the head of the department, who would engage me in a conversation about Madame Bovary, [audience laughter] which she seemed to think was a book about a very bad mother. [audience laughter] Excuse me, they didn't have birth control then, she didn't want the kid. At which point the head of the department is looking at me like, [audience laughter] “This is the person we brought here to guide our young, impressionable students? Can we send her back?”
But I actually liked the students. They were nice. I liked some of the faculty. I was friendly with the people across the street in the science department. They had these two cute kids, Laurel, eight, and Rose, six. But it was hard to connect with such a close-knit community, which was so much about families. It didn't help that I was in a state of grief about my marriage still. It also didn't help that my husband was about to publish a book, a memoir about our marriage, [audience laughter] which he said that no one would know was about our marriage, [audience laughter] because he had not named me by my name, but instead was referring to me as F, [audience laughter] a pseudonym behind which I would be so hidden.
Plus, I was working on a novel, which is a cocooning experience that doesn't exactly foster community bonding. As part of writing on this novel, I had to do research on riding and handling horses, which sounds like fun, except the horse that I was learning with up there was a very crabby animal named Buzz, who would stamp menacingly when I groomed him. Stamp when I put the saddle on him, fight the bit, shove me when I tightened his girth. The trainer was like, “You're being too nice. His owner's a real bitch. He's used to a heavy hand.” [audience laughter] “Okay.” [audience laughter] So, it was teach, ride, jump, ride angry horse. Teach, ride, jump, angry horse. [audience laughter]
For fun, [audience laughter] I drank and watched TV, [audience laughter] because I didn't have cable. I went for CNN, mostly depressing or just irritating news stories endlessly recycled, which I intercut with a show called Criminal Minds, [audience laughter] which was about horrible crimes solved by the FBI heroes who did incredibly complex psychological profiling which led to them always closing in on the killer at the end of the show as he hovered over his cringing victim, shouting, “Drop the gun. We know what you're going through.”
So, one day in late November, I'm coming home to my house, and I see in the yard this beautiful spreading branch tree. There's an envelope in it and I think, a message for me? I eagerly reach for the envelope, which is addressed to The Grinch. On top of everything else, somebody's calling me a Grinch? Why? I open it and read, “Dear Grinch, you're probably at the Whos right now having a good time. We're having a good time too getting ready for Christmas. This year, I would like a beauty bar station, so I hope you can get it for me. Thank you ahead of time, Merry Christmas, Laurel.” Okay, the little girl across the street. [audience laughter]
I call her mother, Nan, to tell her about the letter, and she explains to me the family Grinch lore. She had read how the Grinch Stole Christmas to Laurel when she was three and the child had fallen in love with the bilious protagonist who returned her love with a pair of sparkly pink slippers, a decadent Christmas present that mama had already said no to. The lore had somehow expanded to involve the Grinch living in an invisible encampment in my yard across the street [audience laughter] which is probably why Laurel thought he would get the letter left in the tree.
Although the Grinch had given Laurel and Rose Christmas presents every year since the reading of the sacred text, [audience laughter] Laurel had never before written a letter to him, and Nan wasn't sure why she had this year. “Huh,” I said. “Is it okay if I write back to Laurel as the Grinch?” “Well, sure,” said Nan. “That sounds like fun. I'm sure she'll write back to you.” So, I eagerly tore a page from my notebook and wrote in it, “Hey, Laurel, [audience laughter] it's a Grinch. I'm not at the Whos anymore, because we had a fight and I'm back to hating Christmas, so I'm spending it in my dark cave with my winged assistance. But even though I hate Christmas, I still like you. So, I'm considering your request. [audience laughter] You're a friend of a Grinch.” [audience laughter]
I put the letter in the tree and eagerly awaited a reply which did not come. Nan said she read the letter over Laurel's shoulder and that the child seemed quite stony about it. [audience laughter] She didn't even want to talk about it. I started to apologize. And Nan said, “No. No, it's okay. She's at the age where she's realizing that relationships change, and [audience laughter] sometimes not for the better. I'm sure she'll write back to you.” But she did not. I checked the tree every day. I was honestly hurt, [audience laughter] but I was also surprised. I thought, come on, little girl, it's a Grinch. You got to let a Grinch be a Grinch. Still no letter.
I had dinner with the family a couple times, dropped by for Thanksgiving, watched Laurel dance in the Nutcracker Ballet. Had a good time. But I did notice that the child was looking a little pale and sour. And that one night, she even snapped at her father after he'd praised she and Rose for something, “Dad, stop acting like we're so great. We're not, and you know it.” Well, Christmas came and went. I spent it in Chicago with my sister and her kids, came back, worked on my novel, rode bus, was reassured almost every night by the FBI [audience laughter] that no matter what we know what you're going through.
Eventually, I got together with Nan and asked if the Grinch had at least come through with the beauty bar, and she said “Yes, he had.” But when they sat down to watch the cartoon, and Rose was rhapsodically recapping about how happy and loving the Grinch was, Laurel just sat there looking sick, like she knew the truth and it was on her to protect her sister's innocence. I expressed surprise that Laurel had taken it quite so hard. And that's when Nan told me that there had been some trouble between her and her husband that year and a lot of tension around the house, which the kids had picked up on and that had been right around the time when Laurel wrote the letter to the Grinch, and she thought that's probably why she was so upset that he and the Whos had broken up.
Nan, being a calm person and an experienced parent, felt pretty sure that this could be taken in stride, but I was not. I thought this is awful. This charade has taken a turn for the worst. [audience laughter] I got to write another letter. And I did. This time, not from the Grinch. “Dear Laurel, this is the Grinch's winged assistant, 002, second in command. The Grinch is wondering if you received the Beauty Bar and if you liked it. And just between you and me, Laurel, he thinks you might be angry at him over his quarrel with the Whos. He knows he is in the wrong, but he doesn't know how to apologize. Please send us your prayers and good wishes. I am confident that that would help.”
Now, because we were well into January and I didn't want Laurel to think the Grinch had forgotten her for so long, I distressed the letter and basically acted like I'd found it in the yard where it probably fell out of the tree. Went over across the street and said, “Laurel, I found this letter. It seems to be to you from somebody named a winged assistant. Do you know anything about this?” There was a letter in the tree the next day. “Well, nobody likes to apologize, but I'm sure if he did, the Whos would forgive him right away. They are so nice.”
To which the winged assistant replied, “Well, you see, Laurel, when a person's heart grows as fast and as large as the Grinch’s did on that Christmas so many years ago, well, it can be quite sensitive, and vulnerable and easily hurt even by well-meaning Whos. It might help if you could offer him some encouragement. He cares a lot about what you think.” Again, let her tree the next morning. “I'd like to encourage him, but it might help if I knew what the fight was about.” [audience laughter] “Well, you see, Laurel, the Whos were getting ready for Christmas early like they always do. And the Grinch was especially excited about a special present he'd gotten his favorite little Who girl. He was in the corner wrapping it and the child came running up and said, ‘Is that for me?’ She saw it and the surprise was ruined. And the Grinch was so upset that he snarled at the child, and she burst into tears and ran away from him.
The Grinch was mortified and he slunk back to his room where he planned to stay for the rest of the night, but a kindly Who mother who'd seen the whole thing knocked on the door and entreated him to come out, which he did. He tried to make it right by smiling at the child, but because he was so embarrassed and felt so bad, the smile came out all wrong, like a horrible leer with teeth and everything. The kid just burst into tears again. This was too much for the Grinch. He fled back to his room where he summoned his winged assistant and made an escape out the window back to the cave, where he sulks to this day. He is not sure if he can't even smile correctly in a way that people can understand if he can ever be good again.”
Maybe it was the very large glass of wine I was drinking. [audience laughter] Maybe it was the beautiful snowfall that night, but I got strangely emotional writing this letter, so much so that I didn't realize until I went out to put the letter in the tree that I couldn't put it in the tree because of the heavy snowfall which would cause footprints to be walking up and back and give away the whole thing.
The dramatic frustration of this was heightened the next day when I saw a Laurel outside at the foot of the tree examining some animal tracks. “It's the winged assistant.” She cried to her sister across the street. “But he didn't leave anything in the tree. Something must be wrong.” Which meant that I spent a good part of that day going from store to store looking for the longest barbecue tongs I could find, [audience laughter] which meant that after midnight, after the snowplows had banked the snow, I was out there clutching the letter and the tongs.
It was a beautiful night, very clear, starry with the heavy snow weighing down the branches of all the trees, including my tree, the magic Grinch tree, which, as I approached it, sweeping up my tracks with a small pine bough. [audience laughter] I realized this was important to me. I was still alone in a strange place. I was still in pretty serious debt and I had no idea where I was going to go after this, but right then, I was really loving being the secret Grinch pen pal of this little girl across the street. I felt real joy and reaching up with the tongs to get the letter in the tree. And I felt even more joy when I read the letter the next day.
“I think it was really brave of you to smile when you didn't feel like it. I know because I do it sometimes and it's hard. If you can do that, you can still be good. Love, Laurel. In other words, you may be a big old Grinch and I might be a little eight-year-old girl, but still, I know what you're going through.” Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Angelica: That was Mary Gaitskill, aka the Grinch. Mary grew up in my hometown of Detroit, but moved to Canada at the age of 16, and soon after decided she wanted to become a writer. Mary has spent her life writing and teaching the art form to college students. Her most recent book is a collection of essays titled Somebody with a Little Hammer.
[joyful music]
In a moment, a Thanksgiving invitation brings a family together when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
Jay: [00:33:49] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by the Public Radio Exchange, prx.org.
Angelica: [00:34:04] You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Angelica Lindsay-Ali. In this hour, we're sharing stories about the holidays. Our next story is told by Juno Men. She told it at a Seattle StorySLAM, where we partner with public radio station KUOW. Here's Juno.
[cheers and applause]
Juno: [00:34:25] So, it's the fall of 2012, and I'm a senior in college and I get a call from my aunt that I don't know very well but has always been really nice to me. And she says, “Hey, I don't know what you're doing for Thanksgiving, but if you don't have plans, why don't you come out and hang out with me and my family?” I think Thanksgiving with a family sounds better Thanksgiving alone in my dorm. I'm excited about spending Thanksgiving with people, but I'm especially excited about connecting with family that I don't know super well. And so, I go out to Minneapolis, Minnesota for Thanksgiving that year, and it ends up being one of the best Thanksgivings I ever have. We go drinking, we see a basketball game, we watch movies, we go shopping, and we have an incredible Thanksgiving dinner.
But the night that becomes emblematic of how good that week was was one evening, everyone else had gone to sleep, and my cousin, who I don't know super well, looks at me, his name is Alvin, and he says, “Hey, there's a casino about an hour away. [audience laughter] Do you want to go?” And I say, “Hell, yeah.” [audience laughter] So, we drive out to a casino at 01:00 in the morning an hour outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and we are ballers. [audience laughter] We go in with $20. And after half an hour, I'm sitting at a blackjack table, Alvin standing behind me, and I look at the fortune that we've amassed, and we have an incredible $30. [audience laughter]
I look at Alvin and I say, “Should we go for $40?” And he says, “Hell, yeah.” [audience laughter] So, we keep playing. And $30 becomes $32, becomes $34. And if you're wondering, yes, it's $2 blackjack. [audience laughter] And that becomes $36, and that becomes $34, and that becomes $30, and that becomes $20, and that becomes $0. And then, the dealer looks at us and says, “Thank you for playing. But if you don't have any more money, you're going to have to leave.” So, we leave.
On the walk out to the parking lot, I shove my hands in my pocket, and just before we get in the car, I find a chip, and it turns out we had been at $40 the entire time. But I don't really care that we don't make a lot of money, because for me, the mission had been accomplished. I connected with family, and that evening became a seminal moment in my relationship with my cousin, Alvin. And after that, we became indispensably connected to each other.
We spent the next eight Christmases together, our families. He came to me after his graduation, and we did a week-long road trip in the Pacific Northwest. He was in the room with me and my family when we made the really difficult decision to put my dad on hospice care, and he was the first person that hugged me when I got off the stage after giving his eulogy. When I came out to him as transgender, it was really nerve wracking. The first thing he said was, “Is that all? [audience laughter] I thought you were going to tell me you were chronically ill. What can I do to support you?”
I'm really excited about my connection with Alvin, because he is one of the coolest guys I've ever met. He is sociable, he is popular, he is an athlete in high school. He is professionally successful. He is very attractive and very good at dating, which I was not at the time. And on top of all of that, he's very kind and loving, and he cares about his family. I'm just honored to be part of his family.
A couple of years later, our moms get into a fight and they have a falling out. I think families are messy. That's just what happens. But me and Alvin, we can figure this out. Me and Alvin are going to work together and we're going to figure out how to reconcile our mothers. And so, I send him some text messages and he doesn't respond. And then, I call him a couple of times and he doesn't respond. And then, after a couple of months, I realized that he's not talking to me. Families are messy. It makes me really sad and angry, and I spend a lot of months trying to figure out how to solve this situation, how to rein it back in, how do I reconnect with my cousin?
I get sad, and I get angry, and I get frustrated, and I get anxious, and I get depressed and I do a lot of crying. And then, it dawns on me that what I'm feeling is not anger or sadness or anxiety. What I'm feeling is heartbreak, because I've just lost one of the great familial loves of my life. Alvin still hasn't talked to me in a really long time, and it makes me sad to think that this is all that's left of us. I don't know if he wants to reconnect with me and I don't know if he feels the same heartbreak that I do, but I do know that about a month ago, my aunt in Boston, Alvin's mom, where Alvin lives, called me and said, “I'm not sure what you're doing for Thanksgiving. But if you don't have plans, would you like to come out and spend it with us?”
I don't know if Alvin and I are going to reconnect and I don't know if he's going to want to talk to me, but I do know I still have a chip [audience laughter] from a casino about an hour outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota. [audience laughter] When I see him, I'm going to give it to him and tell him that I hope that we can get back to $40 one day.
[cheers and applause]
Angelica: [00:40:39] That was Juno Men. Juno currently works as a standup comedian and writer in Seattle. She did eventually make it to Boston to hang out with Alvin during Thanksgiving. Although they didn't make it to a casino, Juno still left Alvin one casino chip richer. Juno says she loves holiday movies, lights and decorations, winter sweaters, indulging in warm drinks and the sense of togetherness and community. It sounds like a woman after my own heart. To see a picture of Juno and her family visit, themoth.org.
Our final story is told by Niceol Blue. She told it at a SLAM we held in Dublin. Here's Niceol, live at The Moth.
[applause]
Niceol: [00:41:41] It's Christmas Eve, and I'm sitting on the sidewalk in San Francisco with my back against a building, wrapped up in a sleeping bag, sniffling with a cold that just won't go away and asking strangers for spare change. San Francisco isn't very warm at Christmas, but it's also not the worst place to be a street kid. There are plenty of squats and couches to crash on, and there's a lot of outreach programs. There are the [unintelligible 00:42:16] Christians, there are the pizza Christians [audience laughter] and there are the sandwich Christians. There's also a lot of other street kids to hang out with.
This Christmas, however, all of my friends had hopped the train east to Vegas, where it was a lot warmer. I was terrified of hopping trains and had chicken out at the last minute. So, there I was lonely, hungry, cold and tired on the sidewalk. I sat there feeling sorry for myself for a while, and then I noticed across the street the sandwich Christian van had pulled up. The thought of a warm toasted sub sandwich and a bowl of soup completely thrilled me. So, I gathered my sleeping bag around my shoulders and crossed the street over to where the sandwich Christians were. They smiled at me, recognized me. As they handed me my sub sandwich and poured me a bowl of soup, they invited me to join them the next day, Christmas Day, for celebrations at their church at their church.
At the word, church, this cold sadness filled my heart. It was the same sadness that had covered me being raised in a very strict fundamentalist Christian family. The same sadness that filled my heart every day when I was told I was wrong, I was a sinner for being who I am. It was the same sadness that was the reason I wasn't home for Christmas. But these sandwich Christians were nice, they were friendly, they were smiling. I was hungry and cold and tired, and I didn't want to hurt their feelings, so I said yes.
That night, I stayed up all night in the 24-hour fast-food joint, trying not to fall asleep over my bag of small fries. And the next morning, I was even hungrier, and more tired and colder as I pulled my sleeping bag around my shoulders and walked up the street to where the church was. When I got to the doors, I could hear voices inside and they were shut. I was suddenly embarrassed and ashamed and I could feel every inch of my dirty clothes, of my duct taped combat boots, of my scuff leather jacket and my flopping over Mohawk and I thought, I don't belong here. This isn't the place for me.
I turned around and I was just about to go when the door opened and a young guy stepped out and he said, “Hey, why don't you come in and join us?” He was nice. I didn't want to hurt his feelings, so I went in. He led me inside to this big room that was warm and filled with people. Everybody was laughing and talking and sitting at big tables that were set for dinner. As the young guy led me to a place at the table, I sat down. And all of the sudden, all these volunteers came in and started serving us, serving me Christmas dinner. There was turkey, there was ham, there was roast beef, there was mashed potatoes, there was cranberry sauce, there was stuffing, there was gravy.
And that's not all. There were three different kinds of dessert. There was pie, there was ice cream, there was cake. I had three servings of the dinner and all the desserts, [audience laughter] and I was so full stuffed and happy. When we were all finished, the volunteers came in and they cleared the tables away, and everybody sat down on couches and chairs around the room. I noticed that there was this big Christmas tree in one corner and in another corner, there was a radio spilling out Christmas songs. There was all these kids running around. I sat on the couch, I noticed that the grown-ups were gathering the kids and shushing them and I thought, oh, here comes the sermon. I steeled myself for it.
But instead of a sermon, this little kid about seven or eight runs over to me with a present in his hands and he handed to me with a big grin. He says, “Merry Christmas.” I took the present and I looked around and I saw that everybody else was being handed presents by smiling kids. I opened up the present, and there was a green hand-knitted woolly cap and matching mittens. I couldn't stop smiling as I put them on and sat there on the couch grinning away and looking around the room at all these happy, happy people and laughter and songs. And the sadness in my heart melted away just a little bit, but something else melted too, it was that judgment that I had carried for protection.
I realized people are people. And these people, these sandwich Christians, hadn't preached at me or judged me or told me I was wrong, but they had warmed my belly, and warmed my hands, and my head and my heart. And for that one night, they made me feel at home.
[cheers and applause]
Angelica: That was Niceol Blue. She's a musician, storyteller and writer who performs all around the world. Niceol fell in love and eventually moved to Ireland. She's happily living with her partner in a little seaside where you can find her putting on a kettle of tea while lavender grows outside her window. To see photos of Niceol and her partner Órla taking a Christmas swim in Galway, go to themoth.org.
That's it for this holiday episode of The Moth Radio Hour. Whatever you celebrate, we hope that you find spaces of togetherness and joy with those you hold dear. The holidays mean something different to everyone and we hope you have the best season experiencing the beauty of this special time of year. Happy holidays to you and yours. We hope you'll join us next time. And that's the story from The Moth.
[overture music]
Jay: [00:49:29] This episode of the Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Jenifer Hixson and Angelica Lindsay-Ali, who also hosted the show. Coproducer is Viki Merrick. Associate producer, Emily Couch. The stories were directed by George Dawes Green, with additional grand SLAM coaching by Jenifer Hixson.
The rest of the Most Leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Jenness, Jenifer Hixson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Marina Klutse, Lee Ann Gullie, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Sarah Jane Johnson and Aldi Kaza. Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers.
Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from John Coltrane, Donny Hathaway, Chet Baker, Gerard Edery and George Mgrdichian, Vince Guaraldi, Duke Levine, and Ryan Marvel. We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching this, your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.