{"id":336,"date":"2008-12-24T15:18:52","date_gmt":"2008-12-24T19:18:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.summerofjim.com\/2008\/12\/24\/christmas-eve-1966\/"},"modified":"2008-12-24T15:25:48","modified_gmt":"2008-12-24T19:25:48","slug":"christmas-eve-1966","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/?p=336","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Eve 1966"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think about this\u00a0day from time to time.\u00a0 It’s easy to remember specific details on two accounts. First, it was the night of my Brother Paul and Janet’s engagement party.\u00a0 The festivities took place at chez<\/em> DeLaurentis and featured a quantity of food that would have rivaled anything that could have been mounted at 25 Alston Ave.\u00a0 With regard to food, clearly Mrs. D and Mommie Soph were cut from the same cloth.<\/p>\n

Second, it was a night of a snow storm of near blizzard proportions. By\u00a09:00PM we had well over a foot on the ground.\u00a0 This was New Haven, CT… not<\/em> Stowe, VT.<\/p>\n

Here it is, I live in Connecticut… New England. <\/em>New England with all those winterly traditions… going to grandmother’s house, the horse and sleigh, the bells… and snow<\/em> of course!\u00a0 And\u00a0around Christmas\u00a0this powerful image gets reinforced in drawings (Currier & Ives) and song (White Christmas<\/em>)… the trouble is that in 58 years of living in Connecticut I can only remember one <\/em>Christmas where we had a significant<\/em> snow.\u00a0 Sure, there were other years\u00a0(and not many of them!) when there may have been a\u00a0piddling<\/em> of snow… or perhaps an “old snow” that had fallen two weeks before and had lingered <\/em>to the 25th.\u00a0 But not a real <\/em>snow of lore and legend.<\/p>\n

Just one… 1966.<\/p>\n

And here is the irony.\u00a0 There are folks who live in San Diego, or in Houston, or in Orlando and they are envious of us folks who can enjoy a Christmas with snow… “gee, you’re lucky you live in Connecticut… you get to enjoy a Dickens Christmas, roasting chestnuts by the fire, steaming plum pudding and snow.<\/em>”\u00a0 Little do they know.<\/p>\n

Just one… 1966<\/p>\n

Now, on the Eve that I am describing… after stretching my stomach to its maximum capacity, I took my leave and drove home thru the beating storm (my parents must have been out of their minds to let me do that… even I wouldn’t let me do that.\u00a0 It’s even possible that I hitched a ride with someone else returning to Alston Avenue).\u00a0 The ride back wasn’t all that far… city streets in New Haven, no major hills.\u00a0 No traffic, not a snowplow in sight… it was Christmas Eve, after all.\u00a0 Just drive slow.\u00a0 And I had one thing in mind… to convince my buddy Gary Moss to drive down from Woodbridge so that we could go sledding.\u00a0Not to some golf course, mind you… but down the steep hill of Edgewood Avenue.\u00a0 A city street, unplowed, no traffic… at night, with\u00a0a driving snow in clear evidence in the pyramid of light coming from the street lights…\u00a0and it was Christmas Eve.\u00a0 We made a couple of runs down the center of the street… the thickness of the snow\u00a0slowed our descent.\u00a0\u00a0Still, it couldn’t get better.\u00a0 Something straight out of a Currier &\u00a0Ives woodcut.<\/p>\n

Couldn’t get better, that is, unless you take into account another detail.\u00a0 Earlier in that day Mommie Soph would have driven over to Eld St.\u00a0 This is where\u00a0the Chipp\u00a0tailors worked to make our “bespoke”\u00a0tailor made suits. Mommie Soph was my father’s emissary to the tailoring shop’s Christmas party.\u00a0 Since food was involved, it was only natural that she should take on this\u00a0task.\u00a0 Provisions fell into 4 categories: Deli, from M&T and would include roast beef, pastrami, corned beef, tongue, turkey, sour tomatoes, half sour pickles, potato salad and coleslaw. Pastries from Lucibello’s in Hamden, this included every known Italian pastry in the world. Pizza, from Pepe’s on Wooster St. (and I’m not going to get into an argument here\u00a0over Pepe’s\u00a0vs. Sally’s). And finally whisky.\u00a0 My\u00a0Father would have\u00a0provided an extra<\/em>\u00a0case of Scotch that was to be given to Toplitsky… he was the head of the Tailors’ Union in New Haven, and he was always sure to pay a visit on Christmas Eve (and not leave ’til he killed a bottle of his stash).\u00a0 This was in the day when relations between management and union were not as contentious as\u00a0they are\u00a0today.\u00a0 Everyone had to live… and my Dad just figured that living was a little bit easier with a little\u00a0whisky to warm\u00a0Toplitsky’s soul.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0tailors’ party\u00a0would not have been exclusive to 1966, although it certainly\u00a0would have taken place then, so I feel comfortable adding it\u00a0to the memory of the day.\u00a0 It should also be noted that leftovers from the tailors’ party\u00a0always found their way to 25 Alston Avenue.\u00a0 Mommie Soph\u00a0always made sure there were plenty of leftovers, and December 24, 1966\u00a0would not have been different\u00a0(I think after eggs benedict, Pepe’s cold pizza is my favorite before noon\u00a0food).<\/p>\n

I can imagine that after a half hour\u00a0or so of sledding, Gary and I would have\u00a0repaired back to my house\u00a0to shake off the cold and the snow and\u00a0scarf down\u00a0a cannoli to replenish the calories we had burned on Edgewood Avenue’s hill. <\/p>\n

I was certainly passed the age of turning in early to let visions of sugar plums dance thru my head.\u00a0 This might not be accurate; but for the sake of this tale, let’s just say I finished off the evening by watching Reginald Owen’s version of The Christmas Carol<\/em> (I would switch my allegiance to Alastair Sim’s version some years later).\u00a0 <\/p>\n

A great evening.<\/p>\n

I am sitting in our kitchen\u00a0in Woodbury at present…\u00a0looking out to the horse farm on the far side of\u00a0our split rail fence.\u00a0 The snow is over a foot deep and the fir tree boughs have a healthy coating of the white stuff.\u00a0 I love looking at snow almost as much as I love shoveling it, sledding in it… or just walking in it.\u00a0 The house in back has a ribbon of smoke curling into the grey sky… maybe it’s someone’s grandmother’s place?\u00a0 I am sure they could hitch up the spotted\u00a0mare to a sleigh (which they do every now and then).\u00a0 Looking at the snow covered yard, the trees, the smoke drifting from a chimney, Christmas decorations twinkling thru a multi-paned window.. that’s about as Currier &\u00a0Ives as I have seen since… since?\u00a0 Since 1966.\u00a0 Not that Gary and I spotted a horse and sleigh on Edgewood Avenue on December 24, 1966.<\/p>\n

But we could have.<\/p>\n

Happy Holidays to you all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think about this\u00a0day from time to time.\u00a0 It’s easy to remember specific details on two accounts. First, it was the night of my Brother Paul and Janet’s engagement party.\u00a0 The festivities took place at chez DeLaurentis and featured a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childhood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}