By the time we stood outside Julia Child’s kitchen at the Smithsonian,
we had watched Julie & Julia,
Meryl Streep,
Stanley Tucci,
a hundred times
at Christmas, munching popcorn and gingerbread with our girls.
Each year, he would teach them some of his mother’s Christmas cooking.
Serviettenknödel,
cabbage red,
herring and apple salad, pink.
Each year, I would bring out his mother’s Christmas decorations,
handmade,
delicate,
fragile.
Set our house the same way I have done ever since moving in with him.
Each year I’d set up our Christmas tree a little earlier until the smell of pine filled our house by late November,
in time for Padme’s birthday,
in time for our wedding anniversary on the 1st.
I’d say to him:
“It’s such a waste to wait until the 24th to bring out the tree.”
By the time we checked in at the George,
we had taxied into D.C. from Ronald Reagan.
New York had been wet, cold, rainy.
The streets in Washington were warm, sunny and calm.
The receptionist, perfectly charming, upsold us to a suite.
Inside,
I have my husband open the suitcases
and pass me our things.