It was almost the night before Christmas, and the house was winning.
His creatures churned in the secondhand smoke.
A man in a knitted Santa hat belly laughed outside the Bellagio, a cigarette in one hand and a Modelo tallboy in the other. Guests walked to the tables with reindeer socks and plastic antlers. Small dogs in seasonal sweaters dive into baby carriages.
And my seventy-year-old mother made her way to an undiscovered dragon-themed slot — already $60 down but determined to turn it around.
Mash a button. The lights flashed. The contraption purred.
“Naihhhh!” she said as profits poured in, narrowly outpacing her initial loss.
“Expensive result!” cried my father.
“I didn’t know you could make money off of that!” My wife, Alexis—a newcomer to this family tradition—said from behind them.
We came back to Las Vegas for Christmas and were over $1.25. The world was ours.
Every family has its celebrations, choices and tics that can seem inexplicable to even the most open-minded of friends. And for about 20 years, ever since I was a teenager, my family’s vacations have generally looked like this: a reel of (relative) sin in a Vegas casino, lit on its coming-down color wheel, punctuated by the hit blackjack chips and the Paul McCartney Christmas carol (“Simp-ly haaaa-aaving…”) that seems to be playing over every table according to Nevada state law.
There are, of course, a thousand Vegas within the city limits: nighttime or open-air, cheesy or kid-friendly, game-loathing or financially disastrous—far beyond our annual habit of losing a few hundred dollars (and maybe a few hundred more ) when our cards or NBA picks go bad.
Ours is a Vegas in bed until midnight, mostly sober, anthropologically fascinated by daytime clubbers and perpetually frustrated by the volume of restaurant music. “I’ll be back after this guy’s done,” my father said one night, threatening to replace the DJ at the the best friendRoy Choi’s fantastic-yet-deafening Korean fusion spot at Park MGM.
For better or worse, I’ve spent far more time in Las Vegas than any other vacation destination, absorbing a procession of fateful (or at least memorable) moments over the years. There was the time Jay Leno, apparently surprised to see a teenage high school student on his show, (correctly) invited me to inspect the makeup of the middle-aged woman to my right. There were regular glimpses of Pete Rose, looking as leathery as his glove overseas, signing paid autographs at Caesars Palace.
One year, Siegfried (of “and Roy” fame) made our Christmas day flirtatious with my mother when we met him walking his menagerie of animals at the Mirage. On this trip, we visited the hotel to observe a moment of silence for him, before tracking down the chapel where my parents renewed their vows in 2014. “If I get emotional,” asked the officiant that day, swelling with sincerity, The Dark his hair is flexible enough for an Elvis impersonation at night, “is that okay?” No one has ever been better at their job.
A lot had changed in the family since our last stay in 2019, before Covid hit us: serious health scares, semi-retirement, personal loss. “If I had a week to live,” my father said this time. He didn’t need to bother with the punch line.
Having my wife join us now resonated, especially with my mother, who took a liking to Alexis long before we got together after reading a tweet of hers from a work trip to Vegas. “He is hopelessly lost somewhere in Venice,” the post said. “Send help.” My mother quoted the line in a speech she wrote for our rehearsal dinner last spring.
Alexis, a veteran evangelist for the Vegas food scene from previous visits, took us through her old favorites: Lotus of Siaman eerie Thai spot off the strip, and China Pomblanoupstairs at the Cosmopolitan, for José Andrés’ pork buns and tacos.
Over several meals, my parents introduced her to another family tradition: setting odds on details as mundane as the time of day (“above/below 9 o’clock?”), then haggling so much that the answer changed.
Alexis doesn’t share my family’s love of mid-stakes gambling, an instinct we’ve seen as something of a challenge. “You push buttons and sometimes there’s money,” Alexis said of the casino games. “I could do much more interesting things by pushing buttons. I could start a car. I could launch a rocket.” Her case was admittedly bulletproof — and unchanged even after my father’s late Christmas Eve four-figure jackpot.
“Got it,” he said quietly, as the 10 of clubs completed his video poker royal flush – his first ever, he believed, after many thousands of smaller hands over the decades – prompting a look from a casino employee for the best. logistics type: big winner cards. (“Trust me, it can make up for it,” my mom said about the tax implications.)
Raised in Louisville, Ky., among track denizens, my father can be a miserable loser and a confused winner, self-pitying in defeat and pitiful in victory, as if either outcome feels a little unfair. In Vegas, he is both unrecognizable and camouflaged among his own people – a man who takes calls on the loudspeaker in public places and says, “In the words of Danny DeVito…” before quoting Dustin Hoffman’s character from “Rain Man.”
“You meet like-minded people,” he once said warmly from the Wynn Race & Sports Bookwhere we top unknowns who placed the same bet on the Miami Heat.
My mother also caught the gambling bug early, attending horse races with her parents as a teenager and attending college in Saratoga Springs, New York, a pony sanctuary. She spent enough time on the machines during occasional stops in Atlantic City that a casino once sent her a birthday cake to our home address to welcome her patronage. “We have to take Oma to a casino,” he said recently of my godmother. Oma is 3.
When my folks got their say on my parenting, we became one of Vegas’ many fused subgroups as secular Jews who loved and celebrated Christmas in New York, but decided everything made a little more sense in the desert.
“I know some people disagree, but I think Las Vegas is very beautiful,” my mom said one afternoon, appraising the mountains and the Sphere, the super orb now swelling from the city skyline like a municipal pimple. Then they happened on Museum of Romantic Heritage.
But he is not wrong, especially at this time of year, when season and scene conspire in harmony — spiritual despite the evil, joyful despite the odds. People-watching can be more rewarding than any gamble: kids in their snowman PJs on Christmas morning, yawning through photos of their presents in a sequined lobby. Dressed Greens and Mickey in conversation, headless, on a break from the outdoor hustle and bustle, with would-be tippers distracted by a Bellagio water show in the ‘Carol of the Bells’ series.
Even a family of disallowed oversharing can learn new things about each other. Passing an ad for the men’s show Thunder From Down Under, my mom found her memory racing. “I went to Chippendales once,” she volunteered. “It was okay.”
By Christmas Day, her focus had shifted more specifically to her daughter-in-law—and how to get her to fatten (or lighten) her wallet. Already, Alexis had cautiously entered, posing a question as we waited in line for donuts: What were the odds, he asked, of getting to the register before 10 a.m.?
“I see?” he said. “Try!”
That night, she declared herself ready for the real thing, sitting next to my mother for video poker.
It started badly. They dropped $20, $40, sunk. Alexis was less discouraged than confused. “This is?” asked.
And then, almost simultaneously, two Christmas presents: Four sevens flashed across each of their screens—the kind of worldly success that can, if casinos have their way, give a rookie a lifetime of bad ideas.
“I like to win!” Alexis mentioned, as she and my mom admired their work, posing for pictures with their respective gifts.
“This had to happen,” my mom said beaming. “Welcome to the family.”
Alexis was in, as if that was ever in question. And he knew enough to cash in.
“I feel like that means I’m stopping now,” he said.
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