Christmas Eve

This isn't really a story; it's more of an archive. Since my dad died, I'm even more interested in chronicling past experiences that I was before. For one thing, my memory is ridiculously, almost comically bad. Unless the moment was set to music or filmed on a Warner Brothers back lot, chances are slim that I remember it at all. (My sisters and I are convinced this is the direct result of growing up with too much tin foil.) My second thought is that if my dad can die in a week maybe I can, too, and believe me there is one hell of a lot of psychic and emotional housekeeping-- on all fronts-- to cram into one's last few days of life. Something as piddly as a pleasant childhood memory would, I'm almost positive, take the backseat to more pressing matters. As I write this I am reminded of a brief conversation I overheard between my mom and Dad on the day before he died.

Mom bent down and whispered gently to Dad, "Honey, I hate to ask, but, do you know offhand what the code is for the answering machine to pick up messages remotely?"
Dad looked up at Mom with genuine regret, "No sweetie, I don't. I'm sorry."
Mom smiled down at Dad, placing her hand to caress his forehead, "Oh, honey, it's fine. I just thought it was worth a shot."
Dad smiled back at Mom, "Yes," he wheezed, "always worth a shot."

So, while the Christmas season is upon us like an unshakable a swarm of locusts and I'm enjoying a rare moment of childhood clarity, I thought I'd write this down:

My Grandmother was Danish. Her name was Ingemargrethe. Her mother's name was Duodecima Henrietta but that's another story for another time. Ingemargtethe went by Greta and would have been horrified to know that I was telling everyone her full first name. Horrified not in a mummies-are-groping-at-us-through-the-shudder-slats kind of way. More in the vein of, "I can't believe you put the ketchup bottle on the dinning room table. Pour a little in a tiny bowl. No, not that bowl, I'll get you the right bowl." She was creative, resourceful, elegant and vain. With one eye in the mirror and the other on the social register, her husband, Norman (my grandfather), never stood a chance.

Greta and Norman had three daughters; my mother, who they named Christine, then Virginia and Laura. (Norman had wanted to name his daughters Carolina, Virginia and Georgia, but Greta would have been horrified.) Every morning Greta rose; set her hair, put on nylons, a dress and full make-up, an apron and heels then woke her daughters without a trace of nostalgia for sleep. They were teenagers in the fifties. They wore bobby socks, bobby pins, and dated boys named Bobby.

Years later, when my mom was twenty-four, she announced at the dinner table that she was getting married. She'd been dating my dad for five weeks and Just Knew. She also knew that she was pregnant, but that's another story for another time. After a round of snaps, my grandfather, with both eyes on the price, muttered, "I hope neither of you other girls are planning on getting married any time soon." They glanced at each other over the the tiny bowl of ketchup on the dining room table. They would both marry their boyfriends within the year.

Granddaddy was Scottish and I suppose because the Danes (vikings!) were tougher than the Scotts (kilts), our clan ended up claiming Christmas Eve for itself because that's when Scandinavians celebrate the holiday, which worked out fine because then each family could do their own thing on Christmas day. The three daughters quickly bore eight cousins between them-- four boys and four girls-- and Christmas Eve became our own private kinder-bacchanalia. Sure we saw each other from time to time through out the year, but rarely all together at the same time, so Christmas Eve was our big night and we got goose bumps just thinking about it.

After leaving a cookie and glass of milk next to the fireplace, Mom, Dad and my two sisters and I drove down to the Jersey Shore where my grandparents lived, wearing the matching outfits that Grandmommy had sewn for us out of navy and green blackwatch plaid-- jumpers for the girls, and short pants with suspenders for the boys, who would be arriving at the same time. My Canadian cousins (a brother/sister team of two) had already settled in for the week, waited for us all to arrive with tightly-wound combustible anticipation.

The frigid December stillness of the tiny, seasonal, beach town enveloped our car in a somber cloak of quiet as we rolled towards their house, passing no other cars on the road and endless closed-up houses. Then with a shake of the cloak everything changed as we approached the gaily lit home. Echoing that indelible scene from the "Wizard of Oz," the front door opened onto a wild world of swirling movement, sound and color. Charm bracelets tinkled and ice cubes clinked as coats were carried up to the bedroom and laughing kids slid down the banister. The long, grand dining room table was set for sixteen with the addition of two extra leaves, and individual place cards, hand-written in Greta's distinctive old-lady script instructed us where to sit. Red and green folded cloth napkins and unobtrusive centerpieces of red roses and holly added color to the sea of stem glasses and shiny, silver flatware. Tall, white taper candles in polished, brass candlesticks stood down the middle of the table like an orchard. The smell of roast turkey, scalloped potatoes, creamed onions and steamed red cabbage mingled with whiffs of wine, beer and scotch, which lingered in the stuffy air after hugs, kisses and hellos.

My mom and aunts always looked so beautiful with their hair set and their best jewelry glistening. All dolled up with powder blush and lipstick, wearing festive dresses, nylons and aprons, they helped Grandmommy ready the meal in the small, cramped kitchen. The men-- who wore winter wool blazers with pocket squares and Christmas ties-- mostly tended bar and kept a loose eye on us kids from the living room's outskirts. My grandfather looked especially dashing in his apple colored sweater and my dad wore the green tie on which I had painted a red and white Christmas tree and a reindeer when I was about four. I painted the tree upside-down so that Dad could look down while he was wearing it and see it right-side-up. It was sloppy and silly, but he wore it every year, without fail, and said that it wouldn't be Christmas without it.

Within about thirty minutes of wiping out the cheese and crackers, mixed nuts, and shrimp cocktail, all the cousin's shoes were off and shirttails were out. We chased each other around the small living room, jumping from winged-back chair to couch, tossing the throw pillows on the ground to use as stepping stones so that we wouldn't have to touch the shag carpet that was teaming with alligators in hot lava. Around and around we went at breakneck speed, panting and squealing; small beads of perspiration forming at our temples until someone banged their knee on the coffee table giving the rest of us a chance to catch our breaths while they cried. We also played, "Bull," with one of us down on all fours as the rest of us darted from sofa to chair to avoid being tagged. This kind of crazed, high-speed red rover caused the crotch on my wool tights inch to just above my knees, slowing me down, so I took 'em off. Then all the girls did, too. Eventually the house got so hot that one of the men would open the front door to let in a little cool air while Granddaddy muttered about heating bills.

Dinner was finally served, which was good because the sooner we ate, the sooner we could open presents. (We would open presents from the real Santa and our parents in the morning.) Dad always said grace, not because he was the only Episcopal, but because he was a man-- which still counted for a lot in our family, even though it was the seventies-- and considered the most churchy after Greta. Also, because he spent the better part of his adult life monologuing at dinner parties about his spiritual quest. We held hands, bowed our heads, and listened to his sincere, ad-libbed prayer that would have to carry us all the way until next Thanksgiving since that was the only other day out of the year our family ever said or heard grace.

Waiting for every last person to be served and for Greta to be seated and raise her fork could take a while. Sometimes we kids hanged spoons from our noses or played, "Iggy-wiggy, I'm a Piggy." And sometimes the adults played jokes on Greta to lighten the tension that the mounting kitchen stress threatened to chip away at our holiday cheer. Someone might sneak a bottle of ketchup onto the dinning room table and we'd all wait, stifling giggles, to see how long it took her to notice. One year, dinner took a little longer than expected and Uncle Tom was getting peckish. So he headed out to McDonald's for a quick hamburger, bringing Greta's horror to new, unimagined heights. The next year my father wrapped up a burger in Christmas paper and ribbon and gave it to Uncle Tom as a gift. Before we left, Uncle Tom sneaked out to our station wagon and hid the burger in the glove compartment. My parents discovered the burger, eventually, and tucked it away in the freezer where it stayed until Dad took it out and wrapped it back up to re-gift to Uncle Tom for next Christmas Eve. "Don't forget the hamburger!" Mom would call out to Dad the week before Christmas and we all knew what she meant. The hamburger hijinks went back and forth for years with the hamburger (and its subsequent replacements) cropping up in different hiding places each time. Until Uncle Tom ran off with his secretary; then the game ended.

After dinner my dad would usually make some crack in front of us kids about how he was too tired to open presents this year and how maybe we should just skip it. A roar of, "Nooooo wayyyy!" went up in the crowd and then Dad would smirk which signaled that it was time to head back into the living room to wait for Santa's arrival.

We sat on the carpet nestled between the corduroyed knees of our dads and uncles while the women folk loaded the dishwasher as fast as they could so that they could turn it on and get it started. Then once all the adults poured themselves another drink and found a seat, we heard jingle bells coming from somewhere distant. Or upstairs, as the case was. Our eyes grew wide and we sat up straight like prairie dogs, pivoting our heads from cousin to cousin in stunned amazement. Then a loud, deep man's voice bellowed, "Ho, ho, ho!" getting louder and louder until Santa ambled down the stairs and right into our very living room. We were pretty sure it was Granddaddy in that velvety red suit with the wide, black shiny belt and the snow-white furry cuffs. But under the silky, white beard and mustache with all that long, white hair flowing from underneath his red hat it was hard to tell, so it was easy to believe that Santa had walked right into our lives. The magic didn't wear off until it got so hot in that little body-filled room, that Santa had to take off his itchy, hot beard and hat and take the pillow out from under his jacket before passing out the rest of the gifts; in descending order, according to age.

We cousins always got eight of the same present from Greta and Norman. My favorites were the solid, black and white Westinghouse clock radios, which stood on our bedside tables and for years no matter whose room I went into in my house or at my cousins'; there was my clock. I also loved the heavy, bright-colored-metal, old-fashion cash register banks. We panhandled my uncles for change, dropping coins into the slot then pulling the lever down to reveal the creeping total. It didn't take us long to realize that the banks would remain locked for days and then weeks until the total amounted to ten dollars and only then could we push back the door to receive our windfall; the whole of which I usually spent at Woolworth's after long and careful consideration.

All the grown-ups exchanged gifts with each other and we got presents from our aunts and uncles as well. There were tears of joy, inside jokes and a huge amount of hooting and laughing among the adults. Sometimes we got the jokes and other times they had to be explained to us. After all was said and done we rolled and reveled in the shallow pond of wrapping paper and ribbon before Greta tossed large, green, plastic garbage bags at us and told us to get to work.

Then it was time for the Annual Favorite Gift Picture. Dad set up the tripod while the rest of us hemmed and hawed over which present to hold up for the group photo. Any present that had made the receiver either cry tears of joy or laugh 'til they cried was a no-brainer, so they usually found a spot on the couch first. Sometime I would try to fudge the parameters of the favorite gift picture by draping my new rainbow suspenders on my head, hanging fancy argyle socks from my ears, and holding up the big picture book, "Free to Be, You and Me." But one of my boy cousins would knock the suspenders off my head or rip the socks from my ears so, so much for that. The older kids perched along the high back of the couch while the adults sat on the cushions, arms and stood on the sides. The little ones filled in on laps and the floor and were ever being reminded to save a spot for my dad. From behind the tripod, he would say, "There will be a series of two photos taken," then he would press the button that began the blinking-red-light countdown. "Hurry! Uncle John, hurry!" people called out as Dad scampered over the tri-pod's legs and over to the laughing mob where he dove onto the floor to sit cross-legged in the middle just in time. More often than not, he forgot his favorite gift in all the hoopla which is why the second in the series of two was always a little livelier with folks shouting, "Uncle John, remember your gift!" and "He made it!" just as the camera flashed and clicked.

Folks stood, groaning wearily, making cracks about getting older then reached down to help one another up as we headed back to the dinning room table one more time for home-made plumb pudding with hard sauce, and cookies decorated in the shapes of angels and Christmas trees. We cousins usually skipped the dreaded plumb pudding and opted for two-fisting the Christmas cookies before heading upstairs to put on our pajamas. It was about 9pm now and we'd been gunning it on high speed since about 4pm. We were pooped, every last one of us. Packages were gathered, coats were exhumed and thank-yous made the rounds while our cars purred out in the street, warming up for the long ride home. I could never believe that Christmas Eve was already over. It went by so fast.

When Dad went out to pack up the car, he must have folded down the back seats and laid out our all- cotton sleeping bags because they were always there, three in a row with the corners turned down and our pillows at the top just behind the front seats. We wriggled in and hunkered down while Dad tuned the FM radio to which ever station was playing Christmas carols. I remember looking up out the side window at so many stars-- too many to count-- and listening to Bing Crosby sing, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," in low volume from the tinny, front speakers while Mom and Dad debriefed each other on the evening's B stories and long-running subtexts that went over our heads. In those moments before I succumbed to sheer exhaustion, I was tingly with excitement. Soon I would be asleep and then I would wake up to Santa's certain arrival. It's one of my happiest, coziest, most contented memories, laying in the back of that car on that night. I am safe, I am loved and Santa is on his way.

Pulling onto the Garden State Parkway Mom reminded us to keep and eye out for Santa and his sleigh in the night sky as she passed a little tied bundle of Christmas cookies to Dad so that he could hand them to the toll booth collector who had to work on Christmas Eve. "Merry Christmas," Dad said brightly as he placed the bag and a quarter in the toll collector's open palm. And that was usually the last thing I remembered him saying before I drifted off to sleep.

Back at home, Dad carried us in from the car to our beds, in ascending order. As I got older I would wake up when our Volkswagon's rumbling motor was cut in the driveway but I faked being asleep so that I could still be carried in. Eyes fluttering, I wrapped my arms around his neck and once my bed was warmed up I quickly willed myself back to sleep because-- as Mom had told us, time and time again-- Santa didn't come until we were all fast asleep. And do you know she was right.

Santa always came. He always would. And nothing would ever change.