Panettone: A Tragic Love Affair

So much Christmas.

I have approached every other Christmas of my entire life with a vague sense of dread. Turns out, growing up in Southern California with parents who are divorced and ambivalent toward parenting will do that to you. Christmas in San Diego feels exactly like every single other day in San Diego: 68 degrees and sunny!!! SO SUNNY! And there are no trees in San Diego, not even those of the Christmas variety, so there are no cues to your brain that this day/month/year is any different than any other. We had a plastic tree when I was little — one that lived in a dusty brown box in the closet, the wires supporting the branches bent at not-tree angles. When I was about 12 (and my parents finally divorced) my grandparents moved to Las Vegas and I began spending Christmases in Las Vegas with them.

Inserting a paragraph break here so you can spend a few seconds conjuring your own picture of Christmas in Las Vegas in the late 80’s and early 90’s.

Here’s a brushstroke to help you paint your mental picture: We would stay at Circus Circus, and later when my uncle was promoted to senior pitboss, Excalibur. Have you ever stayed at Circus Circus? Have you ever walked past the buffet there? If you have not, I will tell you that not only is there a constant line, day and night, but that as you walk past, the only thing you can smell is an overwhelming odor of a vague warm brownness with a tinge of gray.

That is my formative memory of Christmas: the miasma wafting from the Circus Circus buffet. This smell attaches itself to your clothes and your hair and to the industrial carpeting of the entire hotel and casino. Never mind the cigarette smoke. It is only the smell of that buffet.

Every Christmas since then, I have waited for that smell to find me. I’m constantly sniffing, on alert for the cloud of coagulating buffet food and despair to attach itself to me.

And because I’m always wary of disappointment at Christmas, I sort of hang back and let the holidays pass me right by. This causes some tension in my house because my husband Taylor Altbringer (prom king, national honor society, beloved eldest, only son to married, involved parents) grew up in a place with snow and trees and something called trimmings? I don’t actually know what a trimming is, but I assume it’s something loving parents bestow on their children, much like vitamins or regular doctors appointments. Taylor Altbringer (insurance agent, lover of all dogs, enforcer of grammar laws) is in charge of the Christmas spirit every year and so it’s up to him initiate the lights on the house, the Christmas tree cutting and present wrapping, while I stare off into the middle distance.

It’s a traditional gender reversal, one that is common in our house. Taylor handles all of the interior decorating and any sort of family communication and all holidays. What am I doing during the times he’s pushing furniture around or writing birthday cards to our niece and nephew? I have no idea — likely rearranging my book holds on the Multnomah County library website or cross referencing camping review websites with own personal notes on campsites with the Recreation.gov website. What I’m trying to say here is that he is doing selfless, caring things, while I am doing deeply compulsive things that have no end, no benefit, no purpose.

And so this holiday rolled around and I was prepared to stand next to a wall, holding perfectly still for several weeks so that everyone around me could forget that I exist, but then something changed and I WAS PUMPED FOR CHRISTMAS. I know exactly what changed everything, but I can’t tell you because it involves a random web search and finding the perfect gift for some people and then buying this perfect gift and the gift itself making Christmas suddenly seem manageable. (You can email me privately if you need to know what this gift is. I will send you a link. Unless I’ve gotten you this perfect gift, in which case, I will ignore your communication.)

(Oh sweet Jesus, will I ever get to the panettone? Maybe!)

I was so pumped for Christmas that I finished nearly all of my Christmas shopping before December even started and I have no anxiety about finishing the rest of it. And I was excited to get a tree. And I’ve been playing Christmas carols in my car. Basically, this single gift find transformed me into a new person.

A few days ago, in my peppy Christmas spirit, I walked into New Seasons and right in front of me was an arrangement of panettone.

Here’s me:

And, better, it was panettone from Dos Hermanos bakery. Hands down, Dos Hermanos is the best bakery in the entire world. Their sourdough is perfection and their jalapeño bread sticks are spicy, salty, cheesy, bready bits of heaven. The only bakery that can even come close to Dos Hermanos is Fry’s in Victoria, BC. And before you have a moment of wanting to argue with me, just know that I will fight you in the street before I give the honor of best bakery to someone other than Dos Hermanos.

A note about panettone: I love panettone. I especially love chocolate panettone. I realize that I am the only person on the planet to love this sort of dry, cakey yellow bread (cake?). I see panettone at Christmas and all I can think is: FUCK. YES.

The Dos Hermanos panettone was $12 and I gladly paid that for a small poof of panettone. I got it home and I said to my family: LOOK! VERY EXPENSIVE PANETTONE FROM A SMALL ARTISINAL, FAMILY-OWNED BAKERY! I don’t think they heard me because they did not reply. But this single purchase checked all of my Portland white lady boxes.

I made myself a cup of baby tea (black tea with milk and sugar) and cut off a piece of panettone and put butter on it and I sat down with a New Yorker and prepared myself to have one of my favorite experiences of my life and I bit into the panettone and chewed and chewed the dryish, intentionally sort of stale bread and then I caught one of the tough bits of bitter, sticky candied fruit and I realized that maybe panettone isn’t my favorite thing about Christmas. Maybe panettone isn’t something I like at all.

I dutifully ate my slice of bread and didn’t mention my growing suspicion to anyone. The next day, I tried it toasted and barely finished the slice. And then I tried it warmed in the microwave and again I thought: why am I doing this to myself? Team, I still have 3/4 of my $12 artisanal bread in my kitchen. It’s just staring at me, accusingly.

I haven’t wanted to eat any more because it just feels bad in my mouth. And it feels emotionally bad that I’ve spent all of these years believing myself to be a lone panettone advocate in this world of candied fruit haters. But the truth is, I am just like everyone else. I do not want to eat panettone. I do not love it. I’m sorry, panettone. I’m sorry Dos Hermanos. I’m sorry entire country of Italy. I do not love panettone any longer.

But all hope is not lost. In a strange twist of fate, I have lost my love of weird not-very-appealing bread-cake, and gained a love of CHRISTMAS. (Attn. producers of Hallmark movies: call me. I can even write the script for this heartwarming/life affirming holiday affair!)