Life in the Hollywood Lane

A Blue Christmas, I’ll Have

I’m going a little Yoda on you in that title because of that legal thang with lyrics. Anyway, about that Christmas thang….

I always always always always loved Christmas. Well, maybe not the year the dog ate the guinea pig—that one not so much. But the others were magical times. I adore it, revel in it, deck the halls, and all that jazz. I love the lights, the trees, the wrapped packages.

That’s the one time of the year I remember Dad actually playing the piano, and we’d all sing carols. Mom would nip the eggnog a bit too much, but it was a happy time.

Cyndi hated Christmas. It got so bad that she’d go to some beach in Thailand with her latest guy for the holidays. She couldn’t avoid Christmas altogether there, though, because the hotel owners would put up trees, thinking the farangs (foreigners) would want a touch of Christmas and home.

“If I wanted a touch of Christmas and home, I would’ve stayed home!” Cyn would grumble.

I never left LA over the holidays—I got more auditions from the middle of November to the beginning of January than I would in the six months before and after. Most actors go home to lick their wounds and come back refreshed, due in part to the accolades from their friends and family. As I said before, my circle back in Wisconsin would just look at me with that why-haven’t-you-made-it-yet look. “I might be a hometown beauty,” I’d want to tell them. “But I’m average for Los Angeles.” That might not have been taken too well, so I just kept that to one myself.

On Christmas Eve I’d go to a special service at my spiritual center. One time the band played “Breath of Heaven” while an eight-month-pregnant woman danced. I’m not much into the story of the Virgin Birth and all, but that was one enchanted moment as she whirled around celebrating life, love, and new birth. On Christmas Day, my latest huggahunk and I would pick up Cara, and we’d go off to a huge orphan Christmas party comprised of numerous folks who don’t have family in LA.

That year was a completely different story. Christmas sucks when you’re single and your BFF just offed herself. That year I was with Cyndi—with her hatred of Christmas, that is. I actually checked prices for overseas trips, but it was too close to Christmas to get any decent fares. Four thousand dollars to fly to India—wow! Luckily, Cara sent me on more and more auditions as my strength was returning…somewhat.

December and January are the two months of the year in SoCal when the heat might click on, bringing warm memories of home. That and the smell of a dryer running and baked goods coming out of the oven fill me with memories that are all misty and maybe even watercolored….of things that probably weren’t the way they were in my mind. Plus, the one baking the Christmas cookies and banana bread was me, not Mom.