Christmas Part One: The Lead Up

Christmas—Part One: The Lead Up

We knew Christmas was coming when my mother put a sparkly German advent calendar on the mantle of the fireplace, just under her favorite Gauguin knock off of Tahiti. The calendars over the years varied little.  They were either a manger scene or a candle lit village covered in the snow that we never got to see in Los Angeles.

Each day before school my sister and I alternated opening the little paper windows and it was fortuitous that the calendar ended on the 24^th so we both got the same number of windows to open. The window for the 24^th was always the most coveted, largest and had the best picture.

There were no chocolates or toys behind the windows, just sweet little pictures. A trumpet, a candle or a toy car.  By the time my son was old enough for an advent calendar there seemed the commercial need to put actual goodies and chocolate in each window.   I continued the tradition of the simple glitter shedding German ones.

The next sign of Christmas was the smell of popcorn, Karo syrup and food coloring being conjured into Christmas gifts.  My parents would spend evening after evening busy in the kitchen popping corn and stirring large pots of sugary goo. My father formed the cooling mixture into popcorn balls.  Sometimes they added red cinnamon candies.  Once cooled completely, we would cut brightly colored cellophane on the dining room table, wrap each ball and tie it with a ribbon.  These would be distributed to friends later. When you bit into the stiff balls, the corn would cut into your gums.

The next harbinger of Christmas was the annual Group Six carol sing at our home.  Our church, Hollywood Beverly Christian Church, divided women into like-minded groups in an attempt to stimulate socializing and friendship. It was pretty obvious that my mother had been put in the “career woman” group—Group Six.

Being the only married member of the group, and the only one with a husband, young children and a welcoming hearth and home, my mother invited Group Six every Christmas to come share a buffet of Christmas cookies and sing carols in front of the fire, no matter what the temperature.

One member of G6 arrived early every single year.  I imagine she didn’t want to drive home and then back to our house. And I know that she had no idea how much she irked my mother, because she never entertained and had no idea of the work that went into it. She would park and read a book.  This drove my mother nuts.  Irritated because she felt like she should invite her in and annoyed because her last half hour of getting ready time would be stolen, she bemoaned this woman’s arrival every year.  And every year, after some good old complaining, my mother would go out to her car and ask her in.  The woman’s name was Betty and she always brought those round, rich cookies that have powdered sugar on them.

The ladies would fill our living room and my mother or someone else with musical skill would play the piano. Sometimes there would be the Autoharp or guitar.  My sister and I would join in and feel slightly awkward around these women who sometimes seemed a little desperate for our companionship. My father loved to play practical jokes on them, but not in an unkind way.  Group Six was just something we had to do before the fun stuff happened.

Another Christmas lead up was the Hollywood Christmas Parade. The parade route was a block from our church and we would go to the Friday night church dinner beforehand.  The food was truly atrocious—green jello encasing celery with stiff dollops of yellowing mayonnaise on top, fried chicken and brown gravy over lumpy potatoes.  The evening I remember the most was when my uncle, who lived just below the Hollywood sign, had gone off on a freighter and left my mother in charge of his house.  The Hollywood Hills caught on fire.  Aldous Huxley’s home, a few blocks below my uncle’s, was burned to the ground. We could see the fire from the parade.  My uncle’s house was spared.