In my early childhood days the Christmas Eve parties had been in someone's apartment with quite a lot of drinking and dancing. The men in their white shirts with skinny ties; the women in heels they slipped off before jitterbugging. They were young after all, in their 20s---brothers, wives, cousins, friends, work buddies. They played the stereo: "Mack the Knife" "Blueberry Hill" "Rock Around the Clock" It felt like wild and crazy times, which probably had more to do with everyone's age and capacity for alcohol than with it being the end of the Eisenhower era. And Christmas parties weren't about the children, our time was Christmas morning. I remember being tired one Christmas Eve at an uncle's apartment and falling asleep on a pile of coats that everyone had tossed on the bed, kind of the way in which a cat or dog will fall asleep on your clothes. It's almost impossible to describe that feeling of warmth and comfort.
My parents bought a house before I turned five. Most but not all of the family Christmas parties from that time forward took place there, a stretch of about 25 years from the late 50s to the early 80s. By my late teens the Night Before Christmas had become more of a happy lark and the WPIX Yule Log set the mood.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMjTD7c6TCo&feature=related
The adults took the televised yule log more seriously but my generation found humor and absurdity in the yule log and yet still enjoyed it, perhaps even more so. The Christmas Eve parties were still mainly for the adults and "the kids" needed to create our own entertainment. A few of my cousins, my brother and I, and maybe a couple friends would leave the house early in the evening, and we would drive around or walk around to look at Christmas lights and smoke a joint or two, so that by the time we returned to an adult party in full swing, we'd sit together in the combined den and dining area and fire up the Yule Log on WPIX. By now we were all in a peaceful, bonhomie, holiday mood, meditating on The Yule Log, laughing for no apparent reason which puzzled some of our parents, drinking a little wine, or a beer, or maybe a cup of tea as a buffet table was being prepared with turkey and ham and cold-cuts and potato salad and pies, and cakes and Christmas cookies. My mother and her mother knew how to create a spread. The guests varied over the years but mainly comprised my father and his brothers, their wives and kids, my grandmothers, and great aunts, but also neighbors and friends of my parents, and as we got older, friends of mine and my brother's and our girlfriends, and maybe the friends' girlfriends.
Some years, when I wasn't stoned and sitting in front of the TV mesmerized by the Yule Log, I attended Midnight Mass at the Episcopal church a few blocks away. By my late 20s I became more ambitious, and with a couple of friends would head over to Saint Patrick's Cathedral or Saint Thomas's for Midnight Mass.
And there were always people left at the house when we returned, folks to sit with and enjoy a turkey sandwich and meatballs and a little pie and coffee, and a glass of wine or brandy. It was a feeling not unlike falling asleep on that pile of coats many years before.
Have chores to do before the big day, and tomorrow I'm going to pay a visit to "The Two of Us" blog and maybe enjoy a little spice wine.
Happy Christmas, My sweet wayward honey-
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