Christmas in Ohio

Christmas for my family was a search for perfection.  The annual objective was for this Christmas to be the best ever.  Each year hopes were high that the decorations would be the most beautiful in the neighborhood, the roast beef would be ready at the same time as the mashed potatoes, the dessert wouldn't be burnt or fall, the traditional cookies would actually be eaten, no fights would erupt and most of all everyone would give and receive the perfect gifts.

I suppose this illness infects most families then and now. It is the one period of the year when each member of the family must be indulged. Each person must receive a gift guaranteed to delight. The gift that will make him/her happy. Except the men who didn't want anything and didn't like what you did give them so they got ties. They hated the whole emotionally fraught mess that usually broke any budget and resulted in tears of disappointment and frustration. They tried to keep this to themselves.

The lesson learned from Christmas should be that you couldn’t make anyone happy. Unless that person was a child.

Of course even though the men were expected to find the cash to pay for all the special presents, they also had the onerous, even frightening task of buying perfect gifts for their wives. Men hated Christmas not for the money spent but for having to perform the dreaded duty: shopping.

My mother dreamt of the perfect gift from Daddy. I think she imagined one of those huge expensive boxes you would see in the movies that Cary Grant gave Katherine Hepburn or Carole Lombard. The box would have a giant ribbon and inside would be pink tissue paper and a mink stole.

I remember the year Daddy brought home a pretty wrapped box a week or so before Christmas and said it was for Mama. He had a grin so I knew it was trouble.

She looked at that present 10 or 12 times a day wondering what it was. She picked it up and studied it over and over. It was heavy. It didn't shake. It was solid. It was about a foot tall and ten inches square. She decided there was something small like jewelry hidden in some heavy wrapping because it was fragile and needed protection. The heaviness was to put her off the scent. It wouldn't be a mink stole. No stole would fit into it. She thought it could be something for the house. She hoped not but at least this year he had thought of her and gone to all the trouble of shopping and buying something just for her.

You know where this is going of course. What surprises me now is what is continuously surprising about married couples: how little they knew each other.

Apparently in the early years of their marriage she had been embarrassed by his gift of extremely sexy underwear which she opened in front of her mother in law who was visibly shocked.

She already hated Mama for taking her Anthony away without being Italian and didn't want to know what went on behind bedroom doors. It seems Mama didn't want her to know either. Grandma might have been Italian but she didn't approve of sex. Maybe if Tony had married Anna Verna, the nice Italian girl she had hand picked for him she would have given the lingerie a pass.

So you can see Daddy had tried and failed at giving Mama presents. I remember adoring the very high-heeled ankle strap sandals made of wood with adorable little scenes carved into the heels he had brought home from the Philippines after the war. I coveted them in the worst way. I begged to try them on. They didn’t touch Mama’s feet. “Ankle straps,” she said. “Only floozies wear ankle straps.”

Perhaps here is the place to talk about the disapproval of my other grandmother. She not only disapproved of sex she disapproved mightily of my father who made the terrible error of being the son of a foreigner. A wop. An Italian.

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I remember once asking Mama if sex was nice. She answered, “Yes, but don't tell your grandmother.” I didn't know which one she meant. It could have been either one of them.

So Mama and Daddy had a good relationship in at least one area. Still they didn't know each other at all.

Which takes me to that Christmas morning when she tore off the wrapping and revealed the 20-pound candy cane Daddy was so pleased about. He laughed and grinned waiting for her to enjoy his joke.

She didn't.

After that it became my mission to help Daddy atone with the perfect gift for Mama.

I dragged him into department stores where he drew the line at going above the first floor. He would actually groan at the sight of the escalator. So I chose first floor items: a black onyx cameo ring one year. A high-end leather I Miller pocket book another. Something tasteful and classy reflecting my mother as I, with a woman’s eye, knew she would love.  

She always made a fuss. But it was sort of half hearted. She knew. And Daddy knew.

And I got everything on my list.