From Dec. 19, 2020, here is the story of my family's Christmas preoccupation with fish. As a bonus, I've linked to my imitation of Ringo Starr's infamous "peace and love" message.
Every family, I’m convinced, no matter how straitlaced and proper, has an oddball holiday tradition.
For my family, it is fish.
Not a Christmas Day meal. Not an expedition where we cut a hole in an icy lake and squat in a shanty, waiting for a nibble on our cane poles.
No, this is a ceramic fish.
It is a cross between Big Mouth Billy Bass and Flounder from Disney’s “Little Mermaid,” if the latter were drawn by a singularly untalented four-year-old and bereft of any aesthetic appeal.
Technically, this hideous sculpture is a koi (not the real McKoi), but I’m not one to carp about labels. Whatever it is, it is truly horrific, with bulging eyes and a gaping mouth questing upward, ever upward, in search of some elusive worm. Or possibly human flesh.
The fish travels back and forth between our house and my sister-in-law and her husband’s house each year, sometimes wrapped as a gag gift — emphasis on the gag — and sometimes secreted outside, on top of a car, or dangling from a tree.
Legend has it this piscine monstrosity was once the size of a tennis ball, but has been painted so many times over the years it has ballooned to its present size, roughly the dimensions of Rosemary’s Baby or some other dark denizen of the netherworld.
One year, the fish was pink and teal. Another, it was yellow and black, a nod to a certain team in Pittsburgh whose name shall not be spoken. Occasionally, it has been adorned with battery-operated lights or pinwheels or pictures of loved ones in compromising positions. (OK, not that compromising — we’re not that kind of family.)
Two years ago, my wife and I plastered peace and love stickers across its scaly surface and affixed it with a QR code. The code led to a YouTube video where I imitated Ringo Starr’s passive-aggressive message to fans to stop mailing him merchandise to be signed. We shipped the fish special delivery, requiring a signature by the recipient.
This was where I learned two horrible lessons. First, marking “fragile” sixteen times on a box is still no guarantee mailroom gorillas won’t play catch with a package. Second, ceramic fish can break.
The fish arrived a few days before Christmas in pieces. (I am tempted to say “in Pisces.”) Photos were sent. Services were arranged. The fish, we assumed, would receive a burial at sea. Another custom lost to the vagaries of the USPS.
But it was not to be. By Christmas Day, the fish had been resurrected, shades of Danny DeVito’s Penguin, who bragged to Batman that “a lot of tape and a little patience make all the difference.”
Not tape, but glue allowed my in-laws to stitch Frankenfish back together and re-gift it, with bolts on each side of its neck. Later that year, they stole it out of our house on Mother’s Day and gave it to us again last Christmas. This time, it was green, white and red, wearing a tie.
It has lived a hellish half-life in our basement ever since, awaiting another chance to rise and thwart our revels.
My wife and I are plotting what to do with Mr. Chips this year, aware time is running out, especially if we want to find a way to get it inside our victims’ … er, family’s house without them knowing. Thank goodness they don’t read the paper.
Some years, I’ll be honest, the fish has been a damn — or is it dam? — nuisance. But this year, when so many other traditions have been postponed or canceled, it has provided a sense of continuity and familiarity, an activity we can complete in isolation and deliver while social distancing.
Provided the backdoor key we have still works.
Shhh. Don’t tell. And Happy Haddock Days to you and yours.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
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