Christmas in St. Louis - Magic In the Air! (Part 2)

Lunch in the Missouri Room at Christmas with dad was a gift in itself. We paraded through the huge dining room where shoppers lunched until we reached a section cordoned off and reserved for executives. While the main dining room was open and bright with light, the room we ate in with our father felt secluded and rich with its dark paneled walls and heavy velvet curtains draped over huge windows looking out onto the city. Sconces on the walls glowed warmly affording a more subdued ambience than the cheerful dining area where mostly ladies were seated with their noisy children. We were seated at one of the large, round tables covered with a white linen tablecloth. Our waiters and waitresses wore black attire with little red bowties at their necks. They smiled and made over us as though we were royalty. In such elegance, my daddy did seem like a prince, and I felt like a princess sitting next to him. He seemed so important! I best remember the dessert, of course. I was awarded with a little plastic doll inserted into a circle of cake covered with pastel frosting and decorated with tiny, icing flowers to resemble the doll's skirt. Once I had consumed the skirt, I was allowed to take the doll home.

After lunch, Mom and Dad allowed my brother and me to run freely through the toy department, where we excitedly pointed out certain toys we hoped to find under the tree on Christmas Eve. These were the days when child abductions were not a concern and parents permitted their children certain freedoms unheard of today. While Eddie and I ran up and down the aisles foaming at the mouth in a fit of toy frenzy, Mom and Dad used the distraction to do their Christmas shopping for us. Dad pointed out to the salesperson whatever toy he and Mom needed to purchase and it was set aside for Dad to pick up and bring home undercover on a later day. Once my parents' task was completed, it was off to the city sidewalks to see the windows with holiday and winter scenes created in miniature within them. Now that I am older, I realize my father must have taken an afternoon off from work to provide this outing for us. He rarely missed a day of work, often worked ten-hour days, and was known to work through weekends when necessary. So, it is only now that I look back and appreciate the time he made for this day, not for himself, but for us. Then again, maybe it was for him as well.

When Christmas Eve arrived, magic filled the air! The house was clean and decorated, the kitchen was filled with food and the house smelled like my Grandma's molasses cookies. Our holiday outfits were washed and neatly pressed, and the high-fidelity stereo, dad's pride and joy, played one of our several Christmas albums: Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite (my favorite), The Perry Como Christmas Album, and A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra, to name a few. Christmas Eve was party night! Dad made sure to bring home wine and boxes of chocolates with exotic names like truffles, ganache, or cordials - all of which we kids mispronounced. My mother carefully guarded the candy that came wrapped in gold foil boxes from Stix, Baer & Fuller's confectionary department where high-end chocolates were sold. Christmas was the only time we had such extravagance in the house and Mom hid the candy boxes until she determined it was time for us to choose a chocolate. A - as in one - chocolate per night. We stood before these boxes as if they were filled with landmines, knowing that choosing the wrong piece meant our bounty for the night would be nothing more than disaster and we would have to wait another whole day to try again. By our hesitation and the look of agony on our faces as we made our decision, one would think that instead of candy, we might pick up a grenade and lose a hand. How we hated those pieces filled with fruit, nougat, or worse, a nut! Those were "adult" candies. We kids wanted our chocolates filled with caramel, ganache, or chocolate cream, coconut, and best of all, ooey-gooey liquids always wrapped in shiny foil (think of chocolate covered cherries). I learned to choose the pieces that were smooth without lumps since bumpy-looking candy was a sure sign of nuts and I hated nuts. I avoided the flat, rectangular pieces that indicated a nougat, a tooth-shattering toffee, or worse, marzipan that had a nasty, almond-doughy flavor sure to gag me each time I tried it. When we thought no one was looking, we would stick our little fingers into the bottom of a candy to see if its filling was acceptable, and if not, we stealthily put the candy back in its spot in the candy box. If caught, mom smacked our hand, but it was always worth the try. Before long, the box had nothing but punctured chocolates in it and without fail, dad fussed. "If I ever catch whoever is poking a finger into the candy, that will be the last piece they ever eat!" I don't think it would be hard for him to surmise who the guilty parties were. After all, there were only three of us and when he reprimanded us, all three of us looked up at him with hangdog expressions. But little did he know that mom was as guilty as we were. I caught her more than once poking her finger in the bottom of a candy when she thought no one was looking. The difference between her and her children was that once all her favorites were consumed, she finished off what was left. A child of the Depression made sure no chocolate was left behind.

None of us kids cared what we ate on Christmas Eve, however. I would have eaten a dog biscuit if it meant we could open our gifts earlier. But, if we were to have company that year, which we often did, Mom loaded the table with all sorts of delectable goodies: wienies wrapped in biscuit dough, cheese and crackers, Swedish meatballs, black olives stuffed with pimento cheese and sliced roast beef and ham rolled up and secured with a tooth pick. A huge Lazy Susan piled high with potato chips, pretzels, carrot and celery sticks surrounded a small bowl of French Onion dip. Like chocolate candy, snack items such as chips and pretzels were only found in our house on very special occasions. These were the top end eats in the 50s and 60s and people called them hors d'oeuvres which my father insisted on mispronouncing thinking it was a great joke: horse de hers. It really wasn't that funny the first time, but we laughed hysterically on the 145th time he said it because, after all, he was the man that made sure Santa came to the house. The adults consumed wine and the kids were treated to soda, another rare item in our home. Once darkness settled and the snow sparkled like glitter beneath the streetlights, dad turned off his hi-fi so we could listen to the carolers who came to our door. Their voices ringing through the frigid night air were angelic and as they drifted from one home to the next, their songs faded away like tiny bells tinkling among the stars. I was always sorry to see the carolers disappear into the darkness, but their appearance was also a precursor to the highlight of the evening. SANTA!