This One Time I Was Accidentally A Hero At Christmas
A toboggan, a love story, and Beverly D'Angelo calling my cell phone.
CONFESSION
I was not lovable. I had evidence.
I was open-veined on all the dating sites: OkCupid, Match, Jdate—and I’m not even Jewish.
No boyfriend. No traction. No momentum. Nothing could quiet that voice.
Whitney Houston once sang, I’d rather be alone than unhappy. Eventually, I accepted both.
Then, Steven. We were an 80% match on OkCupid. Doesn’t science matter? We met for coffee. He touched my arm.
Steven. Ridiculous name for an incredible guy—handsome, brilliant, playful. And somehow interested in me? I was skeptical.
We kept seeing each other. This birthed a new anxiety—how fast could I screw it up?
The Christmas Test.
Steven and I had been dating for a few months. Christmas was approaching. I figured, sink or swim. I agreed to go home with him to Maine to meet his family.
It was me testing him. It was him testing me.
A first meeting of family is worse than a first date. Family is where you find out whether you really belong. Family doesn’t hide the truth.
We booked a flight. Instant regret.
Win them over. Or die.
Watching Steven with his nieces and nephews, I fell harder in love with him. And my insecurity kept splitting me open.
Then, another question. Was his family testing me?
I was originally from Louisiana but got the hell out of there as fast as I could. I was fully Los Angeles by now. All city. All sunshine. No snow shoes. No winter coat.
I told his mother the snow was beautiful. “Try shoveling it,” she replied. Steven’s sister wanted me to mount something called a “toboggan.” His brother asked if I had any tips for “deep frying a turkey.”
I wanted to fit in. These were good people—even despite what was happening to that poor turkey.
This was a Rom-Com kind of family. A Hallmark Channel kind of family. They always had Christmas movies playing, like Prep and Landing or Die Hard or Christmas Vacation.
On Christmas Eve, they asked me if I liked lobster. As I was explaining vegetarianism to blank faces, my cell phone rang. They were still staring at me as the caller ID displayed her name.
Beverly D’Angelo was calling my phone.
At the time, I worked for Carrie Fisher. One of the strangest parts of my job was clearing Carrie’s home voicemail. Not because of stalkers or fans, but because of her mother. Debbie Reynolds left long, rambling, affectionate messages that sometimes came with unusual housekeeping instructions and were later followed by a quiz.
Eventually, I forwarded Carrie’s home phone to my cell so I could intercept Debbie before the answering machine filled up.
Beverly had called Carrie’s home line in Beverly Hills, and it transferred to me, standing in Steven’s family’s kitchen in Maine.
I wanted to duck into the next room, shield them from my 24/7-ish job.
But, this was Christmas Eve, with Christmas Vacation blaring on the TV, and nothing could have been cooler than me having one of the film’s stars on the line.
The kitchen was quiet. The snow stopped falling. The turkey in the deep fryer stopped screaming.
I put Beverly on speakerphone. The voice, sultry, confident. She was a badass. The call was quick, easy, Beverly would try Carrie’s cell. I hung up.
I looked around. And yes—for a moment, I thought: Now they think I’m cool.
But then, dinner was served.
REVELATION
They had made lasagna for me—vegetarian, “a first-time recipe,” I was told.
“Beautiful out there,” Steven said of the snowy evening. “Try shoveling it,” his mother replied—a standard, playful retort. Not an attack on me.
And the next time I was offered a toboggan ride, I was told not everyone gets the invitation. (Very sweet, but still, absolutely not.)
The call didn’t make me cool. It made me present enough to see they had already folded me into the rhythm of their day, their family jokes, their lives.
The call didn’t create my place in the family. It decorated it.
Steven and I never stopped choosing each other after that. We married in 2021.
PRACTICE
Don’t shrink to fit in.
Add details instead.
What you think is “too much” is often just unfinished courage.
Decorate what already makes you interesting.
Wear the strange scarf.
Ride the toboggan.
Answer the phone.
If there happens to be judgement, let it be information.
As John Waters said:
“When they leave the room, those who are left become the party.”
If this story landed, here’s the one that explains why.
DEEPER
After you read the post about the Beverly D’Angelo call, if you want to dive deeper, here are a few more details I couldn’t fit on the page.
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF ALL THIS?
What’s your latest broken heart to art story? What are your questions about the creative journey? What’s your favorite “Rudolph” quality?
I’d love to hear from you!
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Wowee!! “Decorate what already makes you interesting.” I’m currently standing in the Magic Kingdom facing Cinderella Castle reading this as I wait for the nighttime parade, and this line has mesmerized me. Thanks for sharing this post! It made an already magical place even more magical! I’m excited to ponder how this applies to me as I watch the parade. ✨
For most of my life, my “Rudolph quality” felt like a liability. I was the distracted talker, the one who spoke easily with everyone, the person who could move between groups, who was often read as insincere or two-faced. Even my own family was hard on me for it.
Until one afternoon, when I saw it through my husband’s eyes. We were out running errands and kept getting stopped by people: someone from my book club, Audubon society, the dog park, and the volunteer Search and Rescue team.
I assumed Ron was getting irritated, and later he admitted the first few interruptions did bother him. But then one of my kiddos from the library spotted me, lit up, and ran over. I slipped into “Mr. Jacob” without thinking, crouching down, asking lots of questions, and listening intently.
Later, he told me, “It’s like being with a local celebrity. I’m Mr. Jacob’s husband," he had said, smiling, "and that’s pretty cool.”
That moment didn’t just change how he saw me; it changed how I saw myself. The trait I’d been taught to dim was, in fact, a light.