Christmas 2020 has, for me, been low key, slow and easy, but much less exciting than Christmases of the past. Raising four children, I tried to make Christmas bright and shiny and happy and delicious! Some years worked better than others.
My biggest energy endeavor was holiday lighting. I would string outdoor lights over ALL the large boxwoods in the front of the house, plus white lights on the two outdoor planter evergreens by the front door, plus white lights on the wreath on the front door, plus white twinkle lights on the wreaths hanging from the upstairs bedroom windows, plus white lights on the garlands on our entry staircase. I would connect ALL of these cords and plugs so that I could push one clicker from my car as I drove home each day and voila! Tah Dah! Lights!! My family would help for about the first fifteen minutes and they seemed to enjoy or maybe they took for granted this lighting miracle. I loved it! Also, I knew if I wanted this holiday lighting miracle, I had to make it happen myself.
I haven’t recreated my lighting miracle over the past few years and I will have to think about that in another writing. However, I have been thinking about Christmases of past and wondered if you had anything happen like I did in these recollections…
It is December of 1989. I am standing in the entry hall of the Belle Meade Country Club in Nashville, Tennessee. I am all dressed up and admiring the elegant holiday decor in this elite venue. Tonight is the Boult, Cummings, Conners and Berry Attorneys holiday party. It is a treat to take off my “mom jeans” and put on pearls and a dress with some shoulder pads, it is the 80’s thank you Ms. Julia Sugarbaker, and indulge in a crystal flute of Diet Coke and lime. I enjoy, no, I sincerely love and value the other spouses from my husband’s law firm. They are kind, involved in the community, wickedly smart and, most importantly, they are as equally exhausted as I am.
The end of the calendar year brings longer working hours than usual for most all attorneys, and this trickles down to longer single parenting for each of us. There are several male spouses in our group and we are all happy to gather, chatter, drink and overshare details of the lives of our children. Again, it is still the 80’s and no one has given us permission to talk about ourselves yet.
Suddenly, I feel a tug on my elbow and I feel, (I will call him Johnny as I haven’t asked him for permission to use his real name in this story) Johnny tugging me away from my conversation. I like Johnny, and he was in fact my first real estate buyer when I decided to try my hand as a real estate agent.
He says in his very original raspy voice and in a very serious tone, “Celeste.”
I reply, “Hey Johnny!”
Johnny, “Come to the men’s private bar with me. I need to talk to you.”
He lets go of my elbow and purposefully marches down a side hallway expecting me to follow. I see my husband laughing in a crowd of suits so I know he will not miss me.
I follow Johnny as I am super curious! Geez! What is the private men’s bar? Did he say men’s private bar or private men’s bar? Are the men private or is the bar private? How can I even get in there? I do know more about this exclusive club than the average bear, (no I am not a member but I was a lifeguard in the summer of 1979 dadgummit!) but I have never been in the Private Men’s Bar.
We enter and sit at the almost empty bar. He offers me a drink as he orders something amber in a hi-ball glass. I offer cheers to him with my still full crystal flute.
Me: “What’s up Johnny?”
Now I need to stop right here and tell you a little about Johnny. First, he is a long time partner. He is enough older than me that his children are in college while mine are in preschool. He always has a ready laugh and is always … well jolly. So his rather serious demeanor and escorting me away from the holiday party are not stressing me out but are making me curious.
Johnny: “I need to talk to you about Berry. “
Me inside: gulp and uh oh.
Johnny continues: “He is working too hard. Night and day.”
Me inside: ummm I know this Johnny, as I think about how long it took me to string my lighting miracle together.
I continue listening…
Johnny: “The health care industry is exploding in Nashville and Berry is in middle of much of this business for the firm.”
Me in my head: ummm yes and somehow SOMEONE is still helping our three little girls to make it to two different schools, ballet, gymnastics, doctor’s appointments, friend’s houses, dental appointments, eye doctor appointments, choir practice and piano lessons. Plus, remember that I helped you buy that condo? Where is he going with this? Is something wrong? Is he going to hire an assistant for Berry? Oh! Maybe Berry is getting another award!
I continue listening…
Johnny continues talking, “He is under too much stress.”
I continue listening but decide to finish my beverage to insure I can conjure a polite response here in this private men’s bar, because I am feeling a little invisible.
Johnny: “I know you are proud of him… but I think it’s important for both of you to forego having any more children.”
Me inside: “Wait. What’s this? Johnny… Jolly Johnny no less. Has just taken on a roll of birth controller? Here … in the Belle Meade Men’s Grill at the Boult, Cummings, Conners and Berry Christmas party??”
I immediately scroll through the filing cabinet in my brain searching for the file labeled: RESPONSES MY MOTHER PREPARED FOR ME WHEN I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO SAY… the file has no helpful suggestions for my current conundrum. Hmmm, not one word of Mom advice for how to respond when a senior law partner in your husband’s firm tells you to stop having children.
Well there is only one thing I can say to this, “Johnny, I am pregnant.”
Johnny looks appropriately flummoxed, glances at my yet to show belly, finishes his drink in a quick swig and maybe because we are in a members only place where manners are expected, he has the good sense and goodwill to congratulate me. I ask him to keep his news between us as I have only shared this Christmas secret with nine year old Maggie. He grins, shakes his head and escorts me back to the party.
I see Berry coming towards us, “Where have you been?”
Me, “Oh Johnny and I were just catching up. Let’s eat!”
A few weeks later is Christmas Eve. We love to gather at Berry’s sisters house for dinner and gifts and desserts! Lynn and her husband Jim are the ultimate hostess and host and our three girls and their daughter and son, love to laugh, open presents and snuggle into the arms of Grannie and Dada, Lynn and Berry’s wonderful parents.
I have made a surprise plan for tonight. I have wrapped a package for Berry containing the positive pregnancy test, plus a tiny baby girl’s jammies, plus a tiny baby boy’s jammies with a poem about our baby to come in August. It is just another gift of many under the tree and I watch as Berry opens it. He is laughing at something someone else has said and then I see him take a second glance at the box he opened. He is sitting by his mother? I think this is correct. Berry’s father is sitting in the other side of his mother. I look at Maggie and we smile because she knows this is THE announcement gift.
Berry is stunned, looks to me for verification and then comes to hug me. Grannie looks at the package and I will never forget her words to Berry’s father, “Ern! Do something!”
Ern, “Margaret, I think enough has been done already!”
Me in my head: I think I need to get some new babysitters.
Christmas break 2005 (?) My dear friend, Beth has asked me to come be with her in Johnson City, Tennessee following an operation. She needs help, humor and company. Beth says she has no sense of humor but we laugh much when we are together. She has cabin fever so we take a Saturday afternoon trip in my car to do a little Christmas shopping. We lug many bags back to the car after our visit to Stein Mart. There is much wrapping to do! I have driven my husband’s snazzy SAAB from Nashville to Johnson City. I open the trunk and it is not empty as I was expecting. Huh? What’s this? It is a large Macy’s bag and it is very heavy. I get excited! He has hidden a gift for me! Hurrah! He didn’t wait until Christmas Eve. I look inside the bag and my heart sinks. It. Is. A. Skillet. He has hidden a skillet in his trunk. Huh. I think again. Huh. Did I ask for a skillet? Well sure every busy household can always use a skillet but this feels a little well, it just doesn’t feel very special. I think of a few things I could do with this skillet…
That night, I help Beth wrap many gifts as she is very tired from our shopping. Suddenly, I have an idea. I go back to the car and retrieve the skillet in its box. Then, I dig through the Steinmart bags to find the jacket I bought for myself at about 80% off the regular price.
Beth watches as I take the skillet out of the box, it is very shiny, and proceed to put the jacket in the skillet box. I wrap the skillet box with the new jacket in lovely paper and tag it:
To: Lestie
From: Berry
Then I put the skillet in the Steinmart bag. There! Mission Accomplished!
Now you might be wondering about this jacket in the skillet box. It is really cute. It is hip length, and the material is a warm, soft, brown faux fur. From twenty feet away you would think it is real!
It will be super cute when I am doing playground duty with my second graders. When I return home I tell Berry I found the skillet, “THANK YOU!” and I tell him I wrapped it for him and I will put it under the tree. An effusive thank you goes very far with these cerebral lawyer types.
Fast forward to Christmas Day. The day is happy! We have entered a new era in which the now teenage children are more excited to talk to their friends about their presents than the actual present. Their attention is definitely not on me as I open the large gift Berry proudly and knowingly hands me. I tear into the wrapping paper and the children stop to notice the Calphelon label on the box. I reach into the box and …. pull out the fur coat! Several things happen simultaneously.
Kathryn, “Mom! Dad got you a fur coat!”
Will, “Damn Berry. Good job!” Will is now 15 so he has given up calling us Mom and Dad. We are now Celeste and Berry.
Berry, “My. God. Celeste. What. Have. You. Done?”
Then the holiday cheer ceases and the room is quiet. The kids look confused and Berry is stunned, not happy pregnancy stunned, but more like “she has lost her mind stunned”. I quickly tell the story of finding the skillet, trading it out for the Steinmart faux fur coat and we all have a laugh.
That afternoon we go for my sister’s house for Christmas dinner. I wear my new fur coat! As I am warming hot chocolate on the stove I smell something funny… a plastic burning smell. I look down and the sleeve of my fancy fur coat is too close to the stove! But wait! It is not burning! The sleeve of the coat has actually melted! So much for imitating Zsa Zsa.
Later in January, I am walking across the campus of my son’s school after a ball game. I hear my voice being called and I see the Head of School calling after me. I stop and think, “Oh my God, Celeste what has Will done?”
I also return to the mental file in my brain. I search furiously for, you know the one, RESPONSES MY MOTHER PREPARED FOR ME WHEN I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO SAY.
The file actually specifies: “…you should save any cursing or misuse of God’s name for when you have slammed your hand in the door.”
Oh no. The head of school what is going to say to me??
I wait and he catches up to me.
“Hi Brad!” I say brightly. “Is everything okay?”
He gets his breath and with his hands on his hips says, “Oh yes! Everything is great. We love having Will here! I just wanted to tell you I loved the story about the pan.”
“Excuse me?” I am totally blank. What pan?
He continues, “The fur coat, and the pan, and the gift! I heard that story! I had a hearty laugh!”
I am now the one flummoxed. Oh he means the Christmas Day skillet switch. How in the world did this man know this story. All I can think is, maybe he heard it at the Private Men’s Bar at The Belle Meade Country Club.
The Chocolate Drawer 