by W. Ed George

Germans herald the Holy Child with breads, pickles and wurst. “Yummy,” decrees my mother-in-law from Dusseldorf each year; I call it “Spam Christmas.”

She takes umbrage; injects politics, money, my drinking every time. Holidays thus ratchet our rivalry.

But this year I’ve set the menu. I’ll mince garlic till our kitchen stinks, baste fatty shoulder (two) and slather on the Morton’s Tender Quick. Voila, Spam Christmas!

“Mum woulda loved this,” mein liebster will gush. “Sad she stayed home.”

I’ll confess on Boxing Day how, after much badgering, his mother had graced our yuletide table—rendered, uncharacteristically silent, and tastefully dressed.

W. Ed George

The author is a recovering journalist based in California. He caught the fiction bug during the pandemic.