Last week, as I dozed on my couch while enjoying the afterglow of another successful Christmas, I experienced a collection of sights, sounds and smells that took me back years to the holidays of my youth. In the current world, a successful holiday includes avoiding gift returns, not adding too many holiday pounds and not severely increasing the number of people you will need to avoid, for whatever reason, in the coming year.
But through the haze of sleep and static-filled radio stations, echoes drifted across the airwaves, recalling the pop-filled music of 78 rpm records on a Wurlitzer juke box, barely audible as the melodies twist and spin through a tangle of holiday cheer. Voices blend into polyphonic din, punctuated here and there by shrill laughs, booming greetings, raspy chuckles and smoke-stained stories of business and fishing and lusty imagined friends. Such was the world of Willard's annual Christmas party. Early in the evening, I would take my assigned post, just inside the front door, greeting guests as they exited their cars, steadying high-heeled furs through ice and snow or sheltering wool and silk forms through drizzle and rain. Safely inside, names were placed on decorative stickers and a delicate dance ensued as to where, exactly, on that dress, was a proper place for name sticker and dare I be the one to place it. The men simply slapped the sticker on a lapel or, more rarely, a fuzzy sweater. Then I would haul the coats, wool and fur and polyester, smelling of perfume and smoke and bakery and liquor, to the appointed bedroom where they would join a growing pile of like items.
As the arrivals petered out, and my hand began to swell from shaking and writing and carrying, I would wander through the house, careful to avoid the dreaded key-hole arches and their ankle-smashing outcropping. My first stop was always the bar. Though too young for anything serious, I could take stock of the variety of soft-drinks while attempting to follow slurred directions for each guest's "usual...don't you remember, you made it for me last year..." The bar was on the deck of the enclosed swimming pool where the scent of whisky and rum and squirt mixed with the mustiness of damp astroturf and sharp sting of chlorine hanging in a smoky mix of pipe, cigar and cigarette smells. The room wasn't heated, except for the steam that rose from the water. There was no swimming at these parties, not since Marie flung her dress across the bar and splashed into the water several years ago. Marie had never been swimming in her 80-plus years, we were all thankful she had chosen to weare undergarments that particular evening. As she sank in the cool water, her eyeglasses fluttered toward the bottom while her upper plate of dentures drifted, like a tiny raft, toward the light-up Santa at the far corner or the room next to the exercise bicycle.
No, the swimming would be left to the grandchildren, like myself, in the days between Christmas and Willard's birthday. Or the days between their fall holiday and Sport Show Season and, in later years, the annual trip to Padre Island. For the Christmas party, there were jokes about swimming and swimming suits, discussions as to who at the party the uncles and cousins would like to see thrown in the pool, for whatever reason, and memories about the year Marie went swimming.
Next was the table with the food, smoked turkey, baked ham, corned beef, cranberry relish and veggie trays, coldcuts and cheese. Then the table with fruits and breads and the lightest angel food cake with whipped cream frosting and potica and cookies. Finally a round of familiar faces, many from Gohere Bay, looking so different in holiday finery, suits and jingle bells, cleavage-bearing silk and chin-cuddling cashmere. Different from the khaki and denim of Gohere Bay, not a bucket hat or fishing lure in sight. No Zebco or Garcia logo merchandise or baseball caps were to be found among the merriment. The stories were the same, fishing stories, hunting stories, jokes in a variety of colors and tones. Tales of seasons past and plans for the season to come were shared, dreamed and often forgotten among the eggnog and rum punch.
After a few rounds at the organ, with accompanists of varying skills, I would wind my way to the bedroom where I had piled the coats hours earlier. I would sit on the edge of the bed, next to a mountain of wool and mink and fox and leather, soaking in the perfume and musk and smoke and liquor, letting the sounds blend into that dissonant drone of the holidays, music and the tinkling of ice in crystal. Heavy footfalls and the soft click of high heels across linoleum punctuated the dreamlike half-light of the darkened bedroom. Somewhere in the early hours of morning I would succumb to the headiness of it all and rest my head on a soft mink or fox and doze, drifting in and out of consciousness. Guests would come and collect coats and purses, hats and scarves; kisses planted on my cheek amid hearty handshakes and back-pats. White Christmas and Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Bing Crosby and Nat Cole and Goggi Grant, the soundtrack of winters far from Gohere Bay, yet ever so near.
