THE YEAR I SLEPT THROUGH CHRISTMAS

Every December the 1st right through until "D" Day, or "C" Day as it should properly be called, I took on the persona of some crazed, half-mad housewife bent on performing dizzying feats of endurance and determination while balancing the production of every cookie, cak, oranment and floral arrangement found in that year's assortment of glossy Christmas magazines.  I was absolutely DRIVEN!  Ultimately, the kitchen looked like a war zone with splattered cookie dough everywhere, damp and sticky towels, spilled food coloring and poufs of flour mingled with powdered sugar lingering in the air.  I frantically pounced upon every project aware that there were only 12 days left to go--make that 10--and miles to go before I sleep.  I must, I told myself, recreate to perfection every glossy page of insanely ridiculous projects like snowmen made of brooms with peppermint stick
handles and other such "finery" located on these pages not to mention the old family favorites.  Add glitter and some sprinkles to everything for just the finishing touch!

I'd try to maintain some semblance of routine and order while my mind raced franticially from one project to another, realizing that this was my destiny and would be forever remembered--for the
effort, if nothing more.  There was no second place; everything had to be PERFECT, at least to the untrained eye.

It was push, push, push....along with responsibilities of home and laundry, children and school, meals and dishes.  This duty...the sworn responsibility...remained right there in my pre-frontal cortex demanding that I give it its due.  I would routinely work into the night, long after bedtime...creating, messing up, creating again until some form of perfection would rise out of the morass.  Then take on the next project of rolling, baking, dusting, cutting.....endlessly.

Needless to say, by around the 20th, I was beginning to look like the Pillsbury Dough Boy with my apron now stiff from dried cookie dough and food coloring splotches everywhere, hair dangling dotted with cookie crumbs.  I was coughing up powder balls from my throat, my facecaked with confectioners sugar that had come from my nose when I sneezed.  I was certainly "losing it", as the classic saying goes.

However, to the outside world, everything just seemed routine and normal to see a candle buring in the kitchen late into the night..and then in the sewing room, then me dragging my worn-out self to bed.  All took this in with a grain of salt as good-natured fun..."she must be loving it"....as though Michaelangelo had found a new medium.

All of a sudden it was the 24th and I was forced to put the finishing touches on all the cakes, cookies, fruitcakes, and the last ornaments on the tree.  For Christmas Eve, I would set out a large bowl of Wassil Punch, in case any English Carolers just happened by up in the hills of Colorado.  We'd already had the traditional English favorite, oyster stew, for dinner.  Then, the punch bowl was left in the center of the table surrounded by Christmas cookies ready to avalanche off the table.

We'd take the younger kids off to Christmas Eve services, leaving four teenage boys at home.  All
the while I would tick off in my mind all the 22,000 things still left to do at home.  One Christmas Eve, we trudged back in from the usual cold and snowy winter's night to the warmth of home and hearth.  I knew right then just what I needed to revive me for the rest of the night's work: two
tall classes of Wassil Punch!  Cool and sweet with the mixture of cranberries and cherries, gingerale
and rainbow sherbet, I drained both glasses quickly.  And then a strange new feeling came over me,
as though I'd been playing all day out in the snow and was just going to sink down and rest on
some fluffy pillows for awhile.  I managed to mumble the words.."what was in that punaaaa??"
And then it was all quiet and the lights went out.

As they sheepishly admitted later, four teenage boys with plenty of spunk decided to see what would happen if they emptied two bottles of vodka into the punch bowl and I was their first victim!

Lat the next afternoon, Christmas Day, I finally opened my eyes to the sound of four young
girls fumbling with toy boxes right on my stomach.  I mumbled something and gradually
cam back to life sounding like an old wounded ogre from some faity tale.  I tried to move
first my hands and then my legs, to which one little girl angrily cautioned me, "Mom!
Don't move!  We're trying to play a board game here!"  Oh, that explains it, I thought, slowly rushing toward consciousness.

As I looked down I saw that I was still completely dressed for Christmas Eve and tha I had been lying in state in the master bedroom, totally useless like a hood ornament.

Suddenly all my senses came rushing back.  "What time is it??  No, what DAY is it??  How long
have I been here??  How did I GET here??"  The last thing I remembered was sinking slowly
into an easy chair in the living room the night before.  "Oh, WHAT ABOUT CHRISTMAS??"
We already had it, was the response.  But....what about all my projects...the ones I was going
to finish??  Oh, they're packed in boxes in the garage.  Groan.

As I roused myself and got up and looked around I found that my husband had fed everyone
(who knows what) and had it all cleaned up, boxes and papers burned, presents safely hidden in each child's bedroom to keep away prying eyes and stop any attempt at pilfering.

Yes, I slept through Christmas...in that pleasant forest of candy canes with fluffy marshmellow clouds and a big Rock Candy Mountain..where there is no time and no grime and no more
glossy magazine covers screaming at me....for another year.

It almost looked hospital-clean again; first time in almost 4 weeks.

I didn't think about it at first, but I later wondered how I had gotten from the living room, completely unconscious, three entire rooms away and up onto the bed??  Did they hire a sleigh??  No, of
course not!  Then it hit me.  Their father had instructed the four prankish teenage boys to
"hail away the body" (words to that effect) and "dump her onto the bed."  I am sure that
with all the cheerfulness of convicts on a slave ship they dutifully dragged me down the hall and lifted my lifelessdead-weighted  body and deposited me on the bed.  Oh, perhaps I even snored!
I am sure that there were more than a few snickers about what bad jobs they had to do on
Christmas Eve.  We never spoke about it again.  Except now.

Those glossy magazines are now gone and I have somewhat given up on the idea that the world is waiting for me to arrive at some dazzling idea to wow them at Christmas, but I've decided just
to let my inner Rip Van Winkle out and take a long nap on the formerly businest night of the year!

The first of December next year, one of the boys said to me, "This year can we just have an old- fashioned Christmas tree..the one with plastic ornaments and tinsel?"  I enrolled him in Art School that year.

JTR  2012

INFO ON PERCE PEARCE, DISNEY EXEC

HELLO! PERCE PEARCE'S SISTER WAS MY MOTHER'S BEST FRIEND...NEVER MARRIED AND WAS BORN AROUND 1900, SO SHE IS NO LONGER ALIVE. I BELIEVE HER BOOKSTORE HAS BEEN TORN DOWN IN FAVOR OF A DRUGSTORE OR SOMETHING OR OTHER! I KNOW OF NO OTHER RELATIVES THAT ARE ALIVE. HOWEVER, I BELIEVE PERCE WAS MARRIED AND LIVING IN ENGLAND WHEN HE DIED. NOT SURE IF HE HAD CHILDREN. DIED IN THE LATE 1950'S. HE SUPPLIED ME WITH MOVIE TICKETS AND NOTE FROM WALT EVERY TIME A DISNEY MOVIE CAME OUT, WHEN I WAS A CHILD. LAST TIME, WAS LATE 50'S. JUDI TALCOTT ROGERS