Being a Mom at SantaCon

My daughter’s roommate, Owen, is on stage swinging his hips with swagger and lip syncing “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” We’re at The Range, a laid-back country bar in Ithaca, New York. Owen points his finger at the audience. I doubt he’s aiming at me. I’m 55 and invisible.

I haven’t been to a college bar in a very long time. Sophie, my newly minted 21-year-old daughter, invited me up from our New Jersey home to go bar-hopping the weekend after her birthday.

“I want you to see my world,” she’d explained, “instead of just hearing about it.”

The road that brought us to this moment was twisty. Mercurial middle school tantrums, COVID high school lockdown, navigating life without her dad after the divorce — we’d grown closer through it all and I was touched at the invitation. At the same time, I was nervous. How would I manage the loud bar, staying up (way) past my bedtime, relating to her friends? I didn’t want to disappoint her. She’d been through a lot and had high expectations for this evening.

We begin the day at a “darty,” a daytime party; Ithaca College students celebrate the end of each semester with a darty on Kendall Avenue. The end of the first semester is marked by SantaCon, a boozy street festival.

Before we left her apartment, we donned holiday sweaters. Sophie’s roommate had offered me the choice of fornicating reindeer or cats with “Meowy Christmas” speech bubbles. I chose the cats. Sophie’s sweater featured a cow with a Santa hat and a large bronze bell. Its tinkle gave me reassurance that I wouldn’t lose her in the crowd. I didn’t want to get lost here without a map. It felt like a foreign country.

After my divorce, travel became my soulmate. I’m fortunate that my job affords me a lot of vacation time, and I get on planes at every opportunity. But I’ve never time-traveled like this. Ithaca feels more foreign than Bangladesh.

Stumbling sober down an embankment slick with mud, we pass a herd of girls in reindeer onesies. Each lugs a gallon jug filled with bright liquid.

“BORGs,” says Sophie, noticing my questioning look.

“What?” I ask.

“Black Out Rage Gallons. Vodka, water, and MiO. It’s like KoolAid.”

I cringe. “Do they drink that whole thing?”

“Let’s hope not.”

We arrive at Kendall Avenue. Cars marked “Tompkin County Sheriff” are parked haphazardly in the road as cops stand around chatting, watching the growing mass of drunken kids dressed in Christmas sweaters and antlers. They don’t appear to be stopping this bacchanal.

“Are they going to arrest people?” I ask, knowing some are underage.

“Nah,” she says. “They’re just here to make sure no one gets hurt.”

I graduated from the University of Michigan 30-some years ago. We had “Hash Bash” on April 1 every year, but it was the late ’80s and Nancy Reagan told us to “Just Say No” to drugs. So I did. That didn’t prevent my friends from lighting up in the Diag, an open space in the middle of campus, to protest marijuana laws. Still, that seemed tame compared to these huge jugs of vodka. I think like a mom now. Not a college kid.

“Duuuude, did someone bring their mom to SantaCon?” A slurry voice blows warm, wet breath onto my left ear. I turn around and see a swaying young man wearing a red hat that matches the red in his BORG. “Merry BORGmas” is written on the side of the gallon in black Sharpie.

The faces around me are youthful. Hopeful. I watch as they swirl around me, flirting with one another, a lingering touch or a swat, languorous upticks of their lips signaling a promise of something more. When did I lose that hope?

I’m keenly aware of every wrinkle on my face and every dimple on my thighs. My ex-husband once told me he married me for my “thick ankles” which counterbalanced his thin ones.

“Your ankles are our only hope that our children will be athletes,” he’d said. It was a joke between us as we hiked on uneven terrain, jumping over creeks in the woods on dates. Now, as my ankles thicken, it’s not funny.

We divorced five years ago. The day our marriage ended, I bought my first pair of bifocals. I turned 50 later that year. His timing was a sucker punch — a cocktail of betrayal, menopause, and empty nest. Friends encouraged me to try online dating, but the thought of swiping left and right makes me nauseous. I haven’t been on a first date since 1997, and the internet has changed the landscape. These kids remind me that I am middle-aged and irrelevant. They also remind me of the future I had imagined when I was their age. My life looks nothing like the one I’d planned so diligently.

When I was in college and still hopeful, I dated plenty. I indulged in crushes and hook-ups and spent myriad drunken evenings at Good Time Charley’s, a beloved bar in Ann Arbor. Those of us who were underage would transfer the round, blue stamps of our 21-year-old friends by licking the back of our hands and pressing them against theirs. We ordered huge Long Island iced teas, because they had several types of alcohol and got us drunk fast for cheap. Still, they weren’t served in a gallon jug like these BORGs. My Charley’s days long past, no one here sees me as anything other than the middle-aged woman I am.

From time to time, I wonder, What would have happened if I’d married someone else? Unfortunately, I fell in love with a man who cheated on me for years before finally confessing his indiscretions on a cold, January night. If I’d married someone else, though, I wouldn’t have Sophie. And I wouldn’t trade her or our relationship for any husband in the world. I wouldn’t trade this weird SantaCon experience. Because she wants me here.

I look around, floating in a sea of Sharpie-titled BORGs.

“I want a BORG-apotamus for Christmas”

“Deck the Halls with BORGs of Holly”

We’ve had enough SantaCon and head back to the car. Boys are grilling and selling hot dogs in the front yard of a low-slung brick house. Behind the house, I can see people crouching to pee in the tall brown grass of early winter.

Another voice bellows, “Did someone bring their MOM to SantaCon?”

“Yoooooooooooooo,” a drawn-out, drunken response volleys back. “That mom is baaaaaaaad!”

Sophie looks at me and bursts out laughing. “That’s a compliment, Mom.”

 

We arrive at The Range at 9:45, 45 minutes past my bedtime. Sophie is wearing a long-sleeved, black lace bodice — all the girls seem to be wearing a similar uniform, revealing midriffs, some with belly button jewelry and tattoos. I’m wearing mom clothes: a decidedly unsexy black turtleneck sweater and jeans. At least my low, red boots are sassy.

We find seats at the bar. Three of Sophie’s friends have joined us. It’s drag night at The Range, and the host asks for a volunteer to lip sync. Owen raises his hand. At the end of his performance, the host asks why he is there that night. Whether he is celebrating something.

“My friend Soph’s birthday,” he says. “And her mom is here.”

“Happy birthday Soph, and heeeeeyyyyyyy Soph’s mom!” croons the entertainer.

Suddenly, I’m not only invisible, I’m a novelty. I’m not sure which is worse.

A young man with black hair approaches me, hand outstretched. “I’m Connor,” he says. “Nice to meet you, Soph’s mom.”

“Oh, hey Soph’s mom,” another boy says, careening into me, almost spilling his beer.

Sophie’s mom. That was my name in her toddler years, when the kids in our playgroup couldn’t articulate “Ms. VanderVeen.” I’m taken back to those days, as tonight my only identity is that: Sophie’s mom.

I’m afraid of becoming irrelevant. At the same time, I’m living a life filled with career, art, friendships new and old, travel, and growth I didn’t experience in my marriage. As my wrinkles deepen, so does my life. I no longer believe that a partner will complete me. I’m doing that on my own.

Maybe I’m still relevant, but in a different way than I was at 21. My reproductive years are long behind me, but I’ve raised a daughter who is an intelligent, compassionate, globally responsible badass. And she’s becoming my best friend. She wants to hang out with me. She’s proud to bring me to the bar, mom clothes notwithstanding, and introduce me to her friends. She wants to share her world with me.

“Is Soph’s mom still here?” the singer asks into the microphone 45 minutes later.

Yes. She is.

 

Lisa VanderVeen is a freelance writer whose recent work has appeared in River Teeth, Panorama, and Traveler’s Tales.

This article is featured in the November/December 2024 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.