We decide we will stay home for the
Holiday and greet our old friends and former staff on an informal basis for the
whole week of Christmas through New Years. The local merchants on Eleventh
Street send over all the fixings for an endless buffet and refuse to take any
money, but they come and celebrate with us and renew old ties and friendships.
The French butcher sends over a
huge Christmas goose and an eight rib standing rib roast and all kinds of fancy
cheeses and salamis. The Bakery
sends over a huge chocolate Yule log and ten pounds of Christmas cookies.
Everyone who comes brings a different dish. I make a gigantic bowl of eggnog
every day heavily laced with brandy, and Cindy makes a steaming pitcher of hot
chocolate with tiny marshmallows for the children and me. Many of my former
staff come and give their best wishes. My old secretary comes and sits in a
corner crying, “There will never be another one like this,” she says. Cindy
can’t get her to stop bawling until she gives her a large glass of the spiked
eggnog. That does the trick. From then on Mabel is all smiles. The twins have
never seen so much food in one place and promptly got sick on the hot chocolate
and too many cookies.
This is a magical time, a wonderful
time, culminating with Cindy and me taking a walk on Eleventh Street on
Christmas Eve to thank all our merchant friends before we go to the small local
church. A light snow is falling, but that doesn’t stop me. I skid a couple of
times on my sequined crutches, but Sergeant O’Hara and you know who are there
to keep me from falling.
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