圣诞夜-吵吵闹闹又一年.docVIP

圣诞夜:吵吵闹闹又一年平静、安详的圣诞夜，有人家里却是热闹非凡。圣诞的意义也许早已超出了节日本身，而在于与最亲近的家人欢聚一堂，谈天说地。即使用词错误百出，即使互相揶揄拆台，在吵闹声中也能感知：无论时光如何变迁，记忆如何消逝，这世上有些东西是恒久不变的。有些事依然如旧，有些人依然如故…… Pivoting1） from a life less loud into all the talk at my familys Christmas gathering is like stepping off a plane from the wintry north into the heat of the tropics. I’m shocked for a second or two. Disoriented for several more. Then warmed and thrilled. Those are the feelings that last. My brother Mark is talking， his thunderous voice scaled2） to be heard above the din3）. My brother Harry is talking， with even more force， to be heard above Mark. My sister， Adelle， and I cant precisely match their volume and don’t care to try， but we have patience， determination. We wait for some slack between syllables—for little cracks in the great wall of talk—and shimmy4） in. Weve got plenty to say ourselves. Everyone does， my father and my siblings-in-law and my 11 nieces and nephews， except perhaps the one or two going through a quiet phase， which will end. It has to. In my family talking is like breathing， necessary for survival. At the high point of this particular Christmas weekend there will be 19 of us under one roof—Harry’s—and we’ll make sound enough for double or triple that number. It’s fortunate that the houses in his suburb are set far apart. Otherwise neighbors might complain. Not all families are like ours. I’ve noticed. In a restaurant just the other night， I observed a young man and two older people who were almost certainly his parents let minutes go by without a word spoken. They werent eating then， or absorbed in iPhones or BlackBerrys， and they didnt seem to be stewing5）. Had they somehow run out of things to say？ Or was this an elective lull6）， a restorative pause that gave them more comfort than conversation？ I didnt know what to make of7） them and had to force myself to stop staring. They were that exotic to me. And they made me realize that the part of Christmas I most look forward to isnt the perf