'Twas the Night Before Christmas Eve Day. . . .
Mamacita says: My father had an 8mm movie camera.
Every Christmas morning, he would sloooowly set up the monster lights that burned so hot and so brightly, they half-blinded us and heated up the whole house.
Then he would slooowly position himself with the camera, so as to get the best shot of his children running into the glittering magical room.
Then he would put the camera down and go get some toast and a bottle of RC.
Then he would come back into the room and sloooowly pick up the camera again, focus it, and finally, finally, he would say,
Okay, kids, come on in!
And four kids, pumped as high on anticipation and magic as kids can be, came running into the room. We stopped short at the sight: that huge sparkling tree, and whatever Santa Claus had brought it, displayed (unwrapped) around the wrapped presents that had been tantalizing us for two or three days. (My parents put up the tree a few days before Christmas, and took it down the day after.)
Everything we got was always a complete and total surprise. We never snooped into closets or under beds, like some kids did, because, well, why would we do that? It all came from Santa Claus, and he brought it all fresh and new on Christmas Eve, straight from his workshop in the North Pole! It had nothing whatsoever to do with my parents; all they did was unlock the front door before they went to bed, so Santa could get into the house.
We didn’t have a chimney, and that worried us ’till Mom explained that Santa just came in through the front door of houses that had no chimneys, and that he was glad not to have to balance the sleigh and reindeer on the roof sometimes.
Dad was as much of a little kid as we were, at Christmas. He would lie underneath the tree, shaking and feeling every present, and guessing its contents. He was good at it, too. When we were a little older, we used to put marbles in his present so it would make a noise and possibly throw him off the track. It didn’t usually work. He knew the sound of marbles rolling around wrapped socks.
When Dad was a little boy, they were poor, poor unto destitution, but his mother usually managed one present for each of her many children at Christmas. One year, however, there just wasn’t anything to be had. On Christmas morning, my dad found a pair of hand-me-down overalls under the tree.
He was just a tiny little boy, and he went out on the back steps and cried. His father, who was a terrible mean violent man, went out there and found him. Dad cringed, expecting the worst, but instead, his father reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver dollar. He gave it to Dad, explaining that Santa had meant it for Dad but had forgotten to put a name on it. Sometimes, the most unexpected things will come from the least likely person.
I think that was why Dad was such a kid at Christmas. When he WAS a kid, there wasn’t much of one.
I think that was why Dad wanted to make it last as long as possible. He made us stand back in the hallway on Christmas morning as long as he could, to make it last longer. I think he also knew that the anticipation is the best part.
Dad had his faults. Who among us doesn’t? Some of his faults were pretty bad, too. But whatever they were, they disappeared at Christmastime, because at Christmastime, he became a little kid with the rest of us.
This meant Mom had the burden of being the planning adult, but we didn’t realize any of the family politics at the time. And that, too, was as it should be.
When Dad died, Tim and I took all the dozens and dozens for reels of 8mm film and had them made into VHS tapes for all of us. The tapes even had a soundtrack. They were wonderful. He’s working now on transferring everything to DVD, and after that, I suppose whatever technology rears its awesome head.
When I look at those early tapes, I see my parents, younger than my children, looking for all the world like a couple of teenagers, pretending. Except that they weren’t pretending, they really were a couple of early twenty-somethings who were in charge of our house. It’s almost incomprehensible.
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve Day, my favorite day of the year, more favorite even than Christmas Day or Christmas Eve night. Christmas Eve day is a day of action, of baking and last-minute cleaning, of waiting for my children to arrive home, of delivering homemade bread to my aunts and to my cousins and to friends. On Christmas Eve day, the house smells like baking bread and cinnamon and vanilla, and the aromas do not come from candles.
On Christmas Eve night, the preparations and planning cease and the participation and celebration begins. But for me, the real fun of Christmas is these few days right before, because I love the preparation and the planning and most of all, the anticipation. Maybe this is because, even while standing in my new pajamas behind the door in the little hallways with my sisters and my brother, prancing with excitement, I really relished the ‘it’s all still before us’ thing, without realizing what it was.
Now. Slow motion. Four kids in new pajamas running into a magical room where only a few hours before, Santa Claus had been. Christmas dollies, smelling of new untouched plastic. The new-dolly smell is every bit as good as new-car smell!!! Stockings, always with an orange in the bottom because Santa cared about our health, but really to take up a lot of room. Slow motion, because our memories so often are. That’s why movie flashbacks sometimes begin in slow motion. When Dad would bring out the 8mm projector and start showing films, it was a genuinely thrilling thing. That was US, up there on the glittery screen! Watching those films helped prime our memories.
Nowadays, a child’s entire life is on film, but back then, only “moments” were filmed.
Real life goes FAST. Let’s all try to see it clearly the first time around, so we don’t have to see only in memory’s slow motion what we should have seen as it happened. Every second is a “moment.” Look at each other and what’s happening so you can remember; let that library of videos be a memory-primer, not a file cabinet of toilet training.
Merry Christmas, dear precious Blog-friends. Merry Christmas, and may your lives be full of wonder and enchantment on this day, and always.
Quality Television? Bring Back Variety Shows!
Mamacita says: Do you know what I miss, especially at this time of the year? Variety shows.
Those weekly shows hosted by Ed Sullivan, Andy Williams, The Smothers Brothers, Sonny and Cher, Glen Campbell, Dean Martin, Carol Burnett, Perry Como, Flip Wilson. . . Laugh-In. . . The Muppet Show. . . . John Gary. . . those Bing Crosby Christmas specials. . . Bob Hope’s USO shows. . . Those were places for real talent, not just celebrity-of-the-week.
SNL is probably the closest thing we have to a variety show, now, although it’s not nearly, NEARLY, as cool as it used to be. But those old variety shows. . . . Sigh.
We could tune in weekly and count on seeing well-written sketches, all kinds of singing and dancing, and appearances by well-known and not-so-well-known celebrities and budding celebrities, REAL celebrities – the kind with talent. Singers and bands, comedians. . . you name it, it was on the variety shows.
I am not talking about talk shows, where somebody whose fifteen minutes is still running comes on and plugs his/her new movie/book/tv show, etc – those are a dime a dozen now, although it used to be different. I’m talking about variety shows: genuinely talented people from Broadway or movies that didn’t include Carrot Top or anybody whose last name has become a blend of someone else’s with whom they are currently having tempestuous public monkey sex, or tv shows that had lasted long enough to become properly popular. People who really had talent, not just a sweet/fast-talking agent. People who SANG their songs, not people who lip-synched them.
Lip-synchers. Bah.
Ed Sullivan took a chance every week with complete unknowns, some of whom remain unknown to this very day. He also introduced the Beatles to America; I remember that night very well. My parents scoffed at this new concept in entertainment, but even though I was just a little kid, I remember the distinct feeling that something inside of me had changed after watching the Beatles. When the camera turned on John Lennon, the words “Sorry, girls, he’s married” flashed across the screen, and for the first time in my life I knew what “jealousy” really was.
Ultimately, though, it was George who was my favorite.
Dean Martin’s show was ad-libbed almost all the way through. It was fantastic. Dean and his guests were show-biz-savvy, and they had TALENT. They didn’t need writers to tell them what to say. They knew what to say because they were real troupers and could do it themselves.
Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman, and Tim Conway laughed their way through some of the best-written sketches of all time. Sonny & Cher (who woulda thought it!) had a great show, too. I remember Elton John, back in his Mad Hatter period, wearing his trademark giant glasses and pounding the daylights out of the piano, on their show.
I also remember the Smothers Brothers’ show, the night of the musician’s strike. It was business as usual, and all the instrumental backgrounds were provided by their vocal chorus.
Back in the days of the variety shows, we could see all kinds of celebrities, not just Britney and Lindsey and Brennifer and Brangelina and some guy with a new fall tv show. Guests were required to perform, and PROVE their celebrity worth, not just giggle and smirk and hawk stuff.
Television seems to go in circles and trends: one season, it’s doctor shows; another season, it’s westerns; later, it’s crime scene shows, etc.
I haven’t watched tv since MASH went off the air, but if somebody ever has the balls to bring back the variety shows, REAL ones, with Broadway stars and comedians who know how to be genuinely funny without using four-letter words and assuming everybody approves of pre-marital sex for sophomores, and fully-clothed dancers who can really dance, not just strut their stuff, and bands who sing live, and scenes from New York plays, and dramatic recitations, and parodies. . . not just ONE THING, but many different examples of many different talents, lasting a full hour. . . I’d probably buy whatever their advertisers advertised. Are you listening, business world?
Maybe the general population’s tastes have changed to the point where such shows are no longer what they want, or maybe they just haven’t ever SEEN them, real ones, since TV is so dominated by the same old thing season after season, stressing celebrity rather than talent, and shock value, gore, and snark rather than actual good writing, with only a few exceptions. Today’s celebrities seem to be in the news more for their off-screen antics – usually nasty and disgusting – than for having any actual talent.
I’m no prude, not by a long shot, but it would be nice to have something – dare I mention the now-humorous word “wholesome. . . .”? – that I could watch that would make me say things like, “He’s such a beautiful singer!” and “She’s so funny; call Mom and tell her to turn on her tv.” and “That’s the funniest sketch I’ve ever seen!” and “We’ve got to get tickets to this Broadway show!” and never once hear an F or a Big D or a GD, watch some hormonal idiot reap the consequences of his/her own actions, or be expected to applaud when someone hires someone else to kill someone. I want to see awe-inspiring talent, not some dippy moron whose grammar and private life public life make me want to scream and yell and throw things at the screen.
I hear and see enough of those in my real life. When I watch something, be it tv or movie, I want to be entertained and thrilled and enchanted and blown away by the sheer brilliance of somebody’s blazingly individual talent, being performed live, warts and all. Perhaps I AM an exception, but I am just not interested in the antics of hormonal attention-seekers. I will, however, spend my money on products and businesses that sponsor quality.
Remember when the Hallmark Hall of Fame presentations were commercial-free? That’s the era I want back. I would seriously patronize a company that sponsored a commercial-free program.
Man, I’m old. But some things really were better back in the day.
Is anybody out there listening? Do we even HAVE enough genuinely talented celebrities to put together a variety show these days? I bet we do.
Item: I want to watch them perform. I do NOT want to listen to them promote, whine, and talk about their latest movie.
P.S. Do you know who’s in the picture? Talk about an unlikely pairing! And it worked like a dream. I have their duet on my hard drive. It’s bloody awesome.
In Every Pothole, There Is Hope.
Mamacita says:
My all-time favorite Christmas movie is still Love Actually. That doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t like any other Christmas movies.
There’s nothing like a zany Christmas movie like “Mixed Nuts” to really get me in the holiday mood. It’s Steve Martin back when he was cute and funny and cool, like WAYYYY before he started making stupid movies and disgracefully bad remakes of genuinely great films. Actually, Steve’s been in too many bad remakes to count.
I still like him, though. If you see Steve, tell him so he won’t feel bad when he reads my blog.
