That kind of relates to your character in the movie in that once your daughter calls, you put off everything to accommodate her.
My favorite moment in the movie, of course, is after she calls. First of all, the vest is my invention. [It] was my contribution to the movie as ‘make good choices’ was to “Freaky Friday,” which ended up being the bumper sticker. I do have a friend who wears a Christmas vest and when I joined the movie I said, “How can we kind of keep the mania going in her house?” And I said, “Well, what if she had a vest? And what if it was a vest she knitted? And what if it was a vest that every year of her daughter’s life, she added a little ornament to the tree on the vest? So that it started with just a tree but then every year of her daughter’s life she embroidered a new little ornament. And now there are 18 ornaments and this is her.” So I’m in the car [scene and] I’m sewing the ornament on the vest, even though nobody knows this. And then when it’s the night of the [skipping Christmas conversation]…and she thinks she’s going to have a little holiday frolic with her husband now that the daughter’s gone, maybe in the living room or something other than where you normally do when you have kids around. And so I think she’s just so shocked when he’s like, “You want me to give up Christmas? What are you talking about?” Because she loves it.
I just love that she’s kind of gone along with it, and then she gets a little angry about everybody being so angry at them. She’s like, “Okay, yeah, we can do whatever we want.” But then the minute the daughter says, “I’m coming home,” she’s like, “She’s coming home!” And he’s like, “What about the cruise?” “Cruise schmooze. I need my vest.” I need my vest is the moment. She goes and gets the vest and she’s so happy. And then when he says, “Five minutes ago you said I was a genius.” She says, “Yeah, well now you’re an idiot.” It’s that quick to me. The switch is so quick. And then she gets to be right back in the love of it all.
Family is obviously much more of a pull than the cruise.
Oh, there’s no question. Well, the cruise is also a way to not think. I think we all try to find ways not to think. We all try to find ways to get away from heavy deals in our lives. There’s no question. A lot of people do it with drugs and alcohol. Holidays, they’re missing people. It’s a time to just get drunk.
The more separate you get from your feelings… I think going on a cruise is like, “Okay, let’s not deal with the fact that we’re really sad that this girl’s not here and that we’re now older. That our life has changed, that we’ll never have the same life that we had. Let’s go away and go on this fantasy.” She goes along with it because it sounds like an okay idea. But I think a lot of people do it. But I think it wouldn’t have addressed the very thing that is so important, which is the real feelings of loss and letting go of your kids. And I am entering that. I am absolutely entering it with my daughter. My daughter’s going to be 18 years-old and they could draft her. And don’t think I haven’t thought about it. I’ve thought just that idea has really sobered me beyond how sober I am. I think that’s more the thing. The family connection is the loss and the feelings that go along with it. I think people attach to these fantasy ideas to get out of their head. But I don’t think you need to get out of your head. I just think you need to talk about it and feel it. And you can probably get out of your head right at home.
Do you have any holiday traditions in your family?
Well, we have our holiday meal with the same kind of group of friends. And now for about 5 or 6 years we’ve had the same dinner, which kind of turned out to be something that we all like to do. We used to watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” all together on Christmas Eve and weep. We’d sob uncontrollably and then be very puffy-eyed in the morning. We do a traditional morning and stuff.
I have found, I used to resent it, but now I found that the Zen work of cleaning up after Christmas is now some of my favorite time. Because everybody is off doing what they like to do, which is probably use something that they already had – nothing new. My experience is that everybody goes, “Ohh, ahh, uhh, ahh,” and then they go to their respective rooms and do something that they were already doing, which then makes you feel like you wasted a lot of money. But then I love to just spend the time breaking down the boxes, folding the stuff. There’s some beautiful time. It feels like everybody is really content. Hopefully everybody is safe in your home. It’s just a nice day.
