Fruitcake in the Jungle

The story of a very different Christmas

I don’t have any pictures from Mudumalai, but this is from a different time on the same trip: me (in the pink and blue puffer jacket with the bad haircut), my two sisters (holding the peacock fans), mother, grandmother (Mimi), and our family friend Marjorie

The other day, I was washing Annalee’s hair. At eight years old, she’s perfectly capable of doing it herself, but it’s a special time for us. Just like at a beauty salon where you tell your stylist everything, all the real news from school as well as her deepest thoughts emerge. That night, though, she kept scooting away from me in our rather large bathtub as I shampooed, and I couldn’t reach her head. Finally, in exasperation, I said, “Annalee. My arms are not that long.”

There was a pause then, “Okay?”

“So could you please stop moving away as I’m washing your hair? I can’t reach your head.” 

“Ohhh!!” She laughed and scooted back to where I didn’t need Inspector Gadget arms any more. “I just thought you were like, ‘Hey, Annalee, fun fact: my arms aren’t that long.’” 

We both laughed. I’m pretty sure my arms are a normal length. But here are some things I would consider “fun facts” about me.

–In the first house I lived in, snakes were a serious problem. And I don’t mean snakes outside; what I’m talking about are inside snakes. House snakes. One morning, my mother went to pick up the wooden blocks my sister and I played with because the electricity had been out the night before. The very first block she picked up had a baby cobra coiled beneath it. Which explains why…

–My first pet was a mongoose. We had a total of three pet mongooses during my childhood in Bangladesh: Mary, Julie, and Pepper. (My sister Jenny named the first two, and I named the last.) For the record, they were wonderful pets, exactly as described in Rikki Tikki Tavi. 

–I survived not only the house cobras, but also quicksand and falling off a roof (or close to it). And…

–One time, my family was charged by a wild elephant. 

It was almost Christmas when that happened. My maternal grandparents had made their second trip to Bangladesh, and we traveled with them and a family friend named Marjorie, a spunky older widow who was spending a year teaching at a school in Dhaka. I was a little sad because we weren’t spending Christmas at home, and I was sure my parents couldn’t squeeze any presents–at least, any that would be very interesting–into their suitcases. But we were headed to India for a little vacation, and I always loved our trips to India. And this time, we were doing something we had never done before: visiting Mudumalai, a wild animal preserve in the province of Tamil Nadu. 

We arrived in the afternoon and found our lodging. Dad was the quintessential budget traveler. He made it a well-known fact that the night he married my mother, he spent $26 on the hotel room. This remained the high-water mark of what he would spend on lodging for an unreasonably long time. But in 1987, in southeast Asia, it was pretty easy to spend less than that–far less, in fact–as long as you were willing to give up things like attached bathrooms and air conditioning. Dad usually was. 

Our room in Mudumalai was a classic Dad pick. The “hotel” was an ancient building that had been army barracks during the time of the Raj, and I’m pretty sure they were using all the furniture left behind when the British occupation ended. The room was plenty large enough for all of us, with stained mattresses resting on rusty bunk bed frames. For some reason, I don’t remember being disgusted by this, though when I close my eyes I can still see the stains as well as the clouds of dust that rose whenever we sat on the beds. It all just felt cool and exciting, and besides, we actually had an attached bathroom! 

We headed out for an elephant trek into the jungle. (I feel the judgment as I write this, but in 1987, it wasn’t widely known to be bad for the elephants. This was, after all, a wild animal preserve dedicated to protecting animals.) My fingers and toes were crossed that we would catch a glimpse of a tiger, but all we saw were lots of monkeys and a few peacocks. 

At dinner that evening, we met Giles and Naomi¹, a young Australian couple traveling through Asia. They were very warm and friendly, and as luck would have it, they were staying in the same hotel as us. We walked back through the darkness together, said goodnight, and crawled onto our creaky bunks. Everything felt cozy and exciting, and at some point during the night, the roar of a tiger thundered through the jungle, sending a delicious shiver down my spine.

Early the next morning, we all got up and piled into an old Jeep for an animal-watching excursion. It was chilly, and the back part of the vehicle was open, so we huddled close together, trying to stay warm. The driver bounced us down a dirt road for what seemed like forever till he finally stopped at a place with a swamp on one side and a thicket of bamboo on the other. A tiger had been spotted there just the day before, he told us. We paused, breathless, for several minutes, our eyes scanning the leaves. Tigers were masters of camouflage, the driver reminded us, so we should look very carefully. 

Just then, the engine died. It took several disheartening attempts to restart, and by the time we were rolling again, I was beginning to think maybe I didn’t want to see a tiger after all. We jostled on and came across a few bull elephants standing together maybe 200 meters away. Photography was one of Dad’s hobbies (besides planning budget holidays), so the driver cut the engine and allowed him to climb out of the back with his tripod and camera. He set them up and began to snap pictures. All was quiet except for the “click” of the shutter and the winding of film. The largest bull raised his head and studied us, his giant ears standing out from his enormous head. Bent at the waist with his one visible eye squinted, Dad adjusted the telephoto lens. 

“Amazing!” he murmured. The bull stamped his foot, and puffs of dust swirled up around him. 

“Wow!” Dad kept clicking and winding. The bull held his stare and then raised his trunk, stamping his foot again. In the front seat of the Jeep, the driver seemed to be getting twitchy and nervous. He jumped and said something about that being enough, but Dad kept snapping pictures. Suddenly, there was a trumpeting sound so loud and angry it shook all of us to the core. 

And then everything happened at once–the bull elephant started running toward us, and the driver turned the key in the ignition while Dad snapped away. This time the engine immediately roared to life.

“WALTER!” my mother shouted in the cease-and-desist tone I knew well from my own vast experience with it. Dad grabbed his tripod and jogged back toward the vehicle, but the driver had already slammed into gear and was rolling down the road. 

“DAD!!!” My sister and I screamed, standing up off our bench seats. 

The bull elephant was closing the distance. Dad ran, then leapt for the tailgate. Someone grabbed the tripod from him and someone else grabbed Dad, pulling him in just as the Jeep picked up speed. The elephant chased us until he decided we were far enough away, then he stood in the road with one final stamp of his giant foot, ears flicking as he shrank into the distance, an angry glare on his face that said, “And don’t come back!!!” 

I can still see all that so clearly, but the next day was also incredibly memorable.

It was Christmas Eve, and we were supposed to take a bus to Mysore, the nearest city, for Christmas. The news at breakfast, though, was that a famous regional actor-turned-politician (think Ronald Reagan or Arnold Schwarzenegger) had died unexpectedly. So beloved was he that the entire province of Tamil Nadu went into a state of mourning. No buses would run until after Christmas. No taxis or hired cars either. Even the elephants were bereft, so there would be no jungle treks. The only place we were allowed to go was walking to the river, where we hopped on boulders and watched a monkey family. 

After dinner, we sat together on the porch of the old barracks where we were staying. Granddaddy was a retired high school band director and musician. He never went anywhere without an old violin in a beat-up case. That night, he took out the instrument and rosined the bow, then pulled it across the strings playing Christmas carols, one after another, as we sang along.

Lucky for us, Giles and Naomi were stranded too. They were good company for the carol-singing and produced a fruitcake, sealed in plastic, from Giles’ backpack. He said he’d brought it all the way from Australia so they could have fruitcake for Christmas. Mimi, my grandmother, sliced it, her smile crinkling up her brown eyes as she laughed that big shoulder-shaking laugh of hers. To this day, I admire the dedication to fruitcake, something I don’t normally enjoy, that would lead a grown man to carry it around India for weeks. But that night, somehow, it was a delicious and holy feast on a porch with a tattered old screen and a bare lightbulb, surrounded by the dark jungle. We sang and ate and talked and laughed, and before I knew it, my parents were telling me it was time for bed. 

“If you don’t go to sleep now, Santa isn’t going to come!” Dad warned us playfully. He knew my sisters and I didn’t believe in Santa, but we did as we were told. Before we climbed into our ancient bunks, Mom and Dad made us lay out socks. It all seemed a little pointless because there was no way we would have presents out here in the depths of the Indian jungle. But somehow that didn’t matter to me as I drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, I woke to sunlight streaming through the grimy windows. It was Christmas! I looked over at the sock I’d left out and realized it was stuffed full. Mom and Dad laughed at our bewilderment. Somehow, they had pulled it off. I don’t remember what I got every year, but that year, my parents gave me a Swatch watch with different colored bands to switch out, and it was the coolest present I’d ever received until then. 

Yesterday, one of my kids asked me when Christmas lost its magic for me. 

“It hasn’t lost its magic!” I said, but then I had to pause and ask myself if that was true. Christmas gets so much more complicated as an adult. I’m a people-pleaser, and just in my immediate family, there are six people who mean the world to me, for whom I want this time to be sparkling with all the happiness, peace, and love. The last few Christmases especially have been tough, with struggles and heartache for me and my family. Then there’s everyone else, of course, the deep ache that comes with the knowledge of so much brokenness in the world.

But that Christmas stands out in my memory because I was aware of everything it didn’t have and everything else–the unpretentious fellowship and simple displays of love–it had instead. For a few precious hours, the brokenness of the world shrank into the shadows, and the shadows somehow shrank in the warmth of sharing and celebration. We glimpsed the meaning of the words, “Love came down at Christmas.” 

May we all find ways to experience this somehow during the holiday season and into the new year.

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And now, a few things:

—Our family loves to watch Christmas movies in December. The Home Alones (even though they aren’t my favorite), Elf, The Christmas Story, and National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, and of course It’s a Wonderful Life. We also count About a Boy (love!!) as a Christmas movie because a Christmas song plays a main role, and Christmas is the setting for a pivotal scene as well as the end. Same with Jerry Maguire. Please note: my kids are age 8-24, and not all the kids watch all these movies with us. So my all-round, whole-family favorite is Klaus. It’s a Netflix movie that came out four years ago, a story about how, “One true act of goodwill always sparks another.” You’ll laugh, you’ll (probably, if you’re like me) bawl your eyes out. I love it so much!!! We watched it tonight, and I recommend you do as well.

—I also love reading holiday picture books. My favorites are: Silver Packages by Cynthia Rylant; The Trees of the Dancing Goats and Christmas Tapestry by Patricia Polacco; The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree by Gloria Houston. All of these fall more or less into the category of Heartwarming Tearjerkers, so keep tissues close!

—I’m hoping to finish the year with a “Best of 2023” featuring some books I don’t want you to miss. But my parents visited for two wonderful weeks, my first time seeing them in over a year, and then right after that, my kids got out of school and my older daughters came home (so thankful!!!). So in case I don’t get it done, here are a couple from last December, in case you missed them. Wonder Full and Painting Tiny Houses.

—I’d love to hear from you now! Please share all your favorite holiday things below!

Wishing you a peaceful, JOY-ful Christmas and holiday season!

1. Probably not their real names. I remember what they looked like, and that we ran into them again at a beach near Chennai. But I can’t remember their names.