Every Christmas, I remember my own, albeit somewhat insignificant, Christmas Miracle – but for me, it was extraordinary.  I usually see myself standing in my dorm room getting dressed.  The wind was brisk that night, and I was ready very early for the annual college Snow Ball – our Christmas Dance (now called the Winter Pre-Break Semi-Holiday activity for all persuasions)  at Glassboro State College (now named Rowan U). This was my first big dance, and I was "dressed to the nines," whatever that means – I heard it in a Fred Astaire movie.  And my date and I had coordinated our outfits! 
I was the only person in my dorm who didn't have to rent a tux jacket.  As a former kid magician, I had several formal outfits, and tonight I chose a dark maroon tux jacket with a matching cummerbund.  And, keeping with the season, I buttoned my formal shirt with genuine ruby studs and matching cufflinks borrowed from my Dad. Nancy, my date, was going to match me in a maroon velvet dress she bought especially for the occasion.   I was very excited getting ready to go.
    The dance was in our cavernous college gym, and all of our dances were seasoned with the familiar aroma of sweat socks mixed with industrial-grade floor wax.  The Social Activities Committee had hired a band that motored down in three stretch limos from New York City.  When they first started playing it, it woke us up with some Rock Around the Christmas Tree…and so we did, sort of; I was an embarrassingly bad dancer.  After the first long set, the band took a break, and we had a special entertainment provided by the Student Affairs office -  a comedian who we had never heard of - Richard Pryor?  (There was no Googling on phones in the '60s, so we had no idea what to expect)
    He bounded onto the stage and began his shocking material about growing up on the mean streets of Brooklyn. After several minutes of the rapid monologue about drunk uncles, homeless people, and drug dealers, which got only a few nervous laughs.  Mr. Pryor stopped mid-sentence, took a check from his pocket, tore it into pieces, and said, "Folks, thanks, but no thanks - you guys have no idea what I am talking about – have a great holiday," and walked off the small stage.  This produced a full 30 seconds of stunned silence.  Nancy and I went to the lobby for a Coke and then returned to the festive music makers, where we danced the night away to romantic Christmas songs. (Years later, I would see Pryor on network TV and realize how insulated we all were from the real world at that time in our lives, specifically in South Jersey.) When I returned to the dorm after some fierce necking on the walk back, to my chagrin, I discovered that I had lost one of the genuine ruby studs which I had promised to guard with my life, as the set was a treasured memento of his year as a Masonic Worshipful Master.  
    Early the next morning, I called Nancy at her dorm, and we met for breakfast at the cafeteria. Then, we retraced our steps from the previous evening; however, I thought that finding a tiny ruby under a thin layer of fresh snow was almost impossible.  But Nancy urged me to at least give it a try.  First, we searched the dance floor of the gym.  We asked a building custodian if he had found anything, but he said only a pair of reading glasses, a white glove, and two ladies' compacts.  I was distraught - this mini-disaster was sucking the joy out of my first romantic weekend of college life. Nancy, an optimist majoring in elementary education, consoled me, "Maybe it will turn up…maybe someone found it and will turn it in on Monday…maybe?"  I was sure this wouldn't be the case and was not consoled by it.  We left the building, and I started to think about how I would tell my Dad the lousy news.  As we walked to the parking lot on a muddy path that hundreds had trodden the night before, with our heads bowed in thought, I caught a faint red glint in the mud, yards from the doorway.  "Nance, look!"  Embedded in the wet dirt, half-buried was Dad's ruby catching the sunlight – it had been trampled on by several hundred guys and girls…but there it was, found at last...I never told Dad or Mom about my Christmas Miracle until years later, when he gave me the ruby studs, hoping that I would pass them on to my son someday...which I did.

Season's Greetings!

    

Since 2015 I have been writing post for my Blog of "fictionalized memoirs and over the years I posted a dozen Christmas memories.  I grouped them all together and moved them to the top of the list for those of you who haven't read them or those who would like to take another stroll down memory lane with me in the spirit of the holidays.
 

CHRISTMAS COLORS

Every Monday after Thanksgiving I would start my annual project that continued throughout my elementary school days after I did the first one in third grade for Miss Russell – and this year I was determined to out-do last year’s chalkboard Christmas mural (and yes we were allowed to call the season Christmas in those days)  This temporary picture, my last year before high school, was going to be my final masterpiece.  I decided on the subject that I wanted to do and got the shoe-box of colored chalk that had been collected over the years.  I had been given time off from regular school work  in every class for six years at each major holiday to express myself on the blackboards that wrapped around our classroom and in those days; they were black, not green or white or electronic.  A daily dose of chalk dust permeated our kid's lives for nine and a half months each year.

To get a new idea for this year, I had surveyed all the Winter issues of the Ideals Magazine in our school library - this was the teacher's Bible for  bulletin boards.  The scene I choose to duplicate was in the December 1957 issue - a classic Raphel type scene rather than a comic book cartoon.

 (Editor's note: In the 50's religious subjects were permitted to be discussed and celebrated in the public school.  At the start of every day that I went to elementary school a student had read a chapter of the old testament and we then recited the pledge of allegiance to the flag which was in the front of every classroom (although most of us didn't know what an allegiance was - but that’s a subject for other blogs, podcasts and rants on Twitter.)

    Back to my story.  This year I would produce a Nativity that used not one - but all of the blackboards in the classroom - it was to be a lifesize tableau and I would finally become to Bacon School's blackboards what Michelangelo was to the ceilings.

And so I began...the Wise Men came first, riding camels from the left.  This year I added something totally avant garde to my creation.  Along with the shepherds coming across the room from the right, wanting to touch all bases in our kid's world, I added Rudolph the Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman in a stand of pines decorated with actual red and green paper chains.  I used the giant jar of paste that every class had and every kid I had tried a taste to stick silver stars on the black sky.  These were the kind we got for a 100 on a spelling test.  Lastly, I added a large Star of David hovering over the stable.  However, I must admit that I stretched my labor out as far as I could to keep me out of doing arithmetic.  One day while I was working on final touches and shading another teacher came into our classroom and interrupted a lesson in diagramming a split infinitive or something like that?  After a brief hushed conversation with my beloved teacher I was told that I had been drafted to create another mural for this teacher's classroom.

Those weeks before our long awaited Christmas vacation I did four other blackboards of various subjects for various teachers.  I had become for Bacon School's holiday blackboards what Michelangelo was to ceilings.

  

PAPER CHAINS OF TIME

In my kid-years the middle of December had the longest days of all rather than the shortest because it seems Christmas would never arrive.  The hours dragged by in fourth grade for me.  I could hear the big round clock over the classroom door click each time a second passed and I tried to figure just how many seconds it was until the big day, but I gave up.  Math was not my strongest skill.  The numbers are too big.  (Editor’s note:  This was before calculators and laptops in every kid's backpack because they are a necessity.)  

At this time of the weary year I bet teachers still imagined all kids really like to make red and green paper chains stuck together with paste from the giant jar of white stuff only found in elementary schools. (This obsequious school tool has been tasted at least once by every student in the world  to find out if it as edible as it looks – it’s not!)  Students, however, still do prefer making paper chains better than figuring long division problems.

Miss R. announced as class begun two weeks before the big day that we were going to make decorations for the Bacon School Christmas tree that stood in the gleaming marble foyer across from the big double doors that we were never allowed to use unless our parents had come to chat with the principal about our misdemeanors, endeavors or lack of such.   So we began an annual task that I hated almost as much as waiting for Christmas - working on the paper chain gang.  As we started the paste’s medicinal-like smell permeated the room.  We all worked as slow as we could.  If we played this task right our chain building would take us right up to our lunch period and the aroma of peanut butter and jelly would replace the paste fumes if we were sure to wash our hands as we were reminded to do constantly by Miss R.

After producing at least 4 miles of paper chains and then having our half hour of eating freedom we returned to Room 103 and to our next assignment - making construction paper snowflakes.  Miss R reviewed our crafting instructions, “First select a color of your choice from the construction paper bin.  Carefully cut it into four small squares, minding your fingers.  Fold it once in half…then again…cut a ‘creative’ design…you then unfold it and you will discover a wonderfully unique snowflake… blah blah blah.”  (Now each of us have been doing this since we were 3 but we listened and asked questions because this “lesson” also took up more arithmetic time hoping this work might take the rest of the day  and  one day closer to the greatest day of the year.

Clip, clip, clip…        

The room sounded like the final exam at barber school.  It replaced the tick of the big clock for me.  And then wa-la we had jointly produced 558 colored snowflakes that strangely all looked somewhat alike and none were white like they are supposed to be?  Our room had run out of white construction paper in September.  We proud artisans marched out to the hallowed marble hall and reverently adorned the boughs of a real, very fragrant tree…that was already dropping its needles on the pristine granite…

...and like a paper chain of time, link by link, we were one day closer to Christmas vacation.

THE Christmas Concert

I watched this year's version of Christmas with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and thought of my own concert years ago...

...I was in the Bacon School band in 4th grade and worked my way up in a couple of years from third trumpet all the way to second trumpet (I only practiced when threatened with bodily harm) until I graduated from 8th.  I vainly attempted to play the trumpet for years until I went out for football in high school and never touched my horn again  – a very expensive and loud instrument bit the dust at a yard sale years later.

Our “ band” was under the direction of Mrs. N. (I rarely use full names to protect the innocent and avoid lawsuits for slander).  She seemed a very nervous, very thin, very far sighted music teacher - who always looked worried.  I remember two things about our band.  One – we never quite got in tune for the performance.  And most of all,  I will never forget our Annual Christmas Cantata  in which we played every Christmas song ever penned.  This show went on longer than a history lesson on the day before a school vacation.  During the performance chorus members were known to pass out from lack of food.  My lip always became numb after the twelfth chorus of My Three Kings, played as a round - and we had just begun our musical marathon.  We yet to play Gregorian chants, Medieval Welch carols, Bing Crosby's greatest holiday hits.  Some with Latin names like Adeste Fideles ( I always called it “at guest day feed-all-us”)  I blared my harmony out as the audience yawned in time with the tunes.  

My mother and grandmother were seasoned school program goers – they beamed as I blasted my second trumpet trills, frills and flourishes during the Traditional Olde English Standards of the 18th Century segment of the concert.  I had a two note solo.  The chorus sang in Latin and English at the same time on these ancient rapsodies in two part harmony,  Next, Miss N. thumbed her pile of music sheets,  and then tapped the music stand with her two foot baton.  We were at the ready for a rare Armenian Folk Song.  I operated my long overdue, spit valve which made a loud blatting sound and missed the downbeat.  This piece featured a triangle solo by my cousin Warren, a virtuoso on this age-old percussion instrument.

And then it was finally over.  All 800 carols had been rendered for another year.  The audience stood and wildly cheered.  Madame N. made her well rehearsed bow at least five times as the band prayed she would not offer an encore. For many in the audience it was finally a chance to wake up their legs that had gone numb.

Lastly, Mrs. McC. , who must have been 90 years old principal, then thanked everyone in the Millville White Pages and closed by bidding all a “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!”  (Editor's note:  In the 50’s educators were actually permitted to utter the word Christmas on school property instead of the current generic “Winter Holiday”)  The best part of the evening for me was an ice-cream soda on the way home at George and Mary’s Luncheonette. 

That night, in bed, as I held a washcloth with an ice on my throbbing lip,  (Editor’s note: Technically the lip for a trumpet player is called an embouchure -  I would learn this years doing a crossword puzzle), I had a very anxious moment because I remembered that our Annual Spring Concert was just a few months away!

A PORTABLE GIFT

Today, it seems everything is getting bigger - except cars which have become miniature station wagons.  Houses are massive.  Our carbon footprint is size 14 ½ - But I can remember when the trend was to develop smaller things - small and portable was mentioned on every ad.   And my smaller wish was in 7th grade.  I “needed”  a portable tape recorder.  “What for?” My mom asked.  I told her my idea was to create a lasting recorded history of life; mine, my friend’s and of course my family.  She gave me her look that said without words this wasn’t scoring big with her.  I continued to sell.  “I'm sure everyone will love to listen to it years from now!”  Same look, so, I added a bit of insurance. “This was the only thing I put on my Christmas List”.  Mom just laughed.  I added more, “If I got this new “portable” machine I would be unique in my circle of friends.  (A fact because in the 50’s having a tape recorder was a rarity outside of a working for the  local radio station.)   

I waited impatiently for Christmas morning to arrive.  When I made my dash into the living room under the tree was a very big box that had a gift card and red bow on the front OPEN ME FIRST!  I did and found a Webcor Portable Reel to Reel Professional Model tape recorder.  I was beside myself with joy and immediately I needed to get it working right to capture this morning for posterity.  I tried to lift it out of the carton but couldn’t budge it, neither could my mom.  My grandfather, who was the strongest guy I knew, picked it up with a grunt as my mother remarked, “Gee I didn’t think it was that heavy!”   Pop then added, “Margaret this has to weigh at least 40 pounds... where did you get this thing?”  My mother replied, “I didn’t, Santa brought it from Sears & Roebucks.  When he put it under the tree I thought that it was the packing which made it so heavy but…(her voice faded away)

That day I produced events to record - me and mom singing carols...interviewing my grandmother about her Christmases when she was growing up…a Christmas Special TV show that I intended to  listen to again and again.  But as the new year unfolded… I never did.  And after a week of vacation the spirit of the holiday faded and I went back to school and my amazing high fidelity machine was went to my bedroom...like many things in life, it quickly lost its novelty and just collected dust under my bed.  That winter I taped only one friend who visited me to see what I got from Santa - he had very little to say.

Years later, I wondered how my mom felt about this outcome.  Did it disappoint her that I forgot about this expensive toy?  I felt bad when my grandmother told me what it had cost her - almost a week’s pay to buy “on time” as they said then - it would take her several months to pay it off.  For years afterward my Mom kept those few hours of tape in her bureau drawer until I left home after college to live in my own place.  She had never heard any of them.   And I know she reluctantly let them go to the city dump on the outskirts of town and she gave he recorder to her minister so he could record his sermons for shut-ins.   

Today, I wonder if someday many centuries in the future,  archaeologists will be digging up the relics of a place once inhabited by a the people called Millvillians...and they will uncover the echoes of a long ago Christmas Day made by a long gone boy...recorded for posterity on an ancient primitive device called a portable tape recorder.

THE LAST NOEL

Tonight, watching the Disney World Annual Christmas Processional with  hundreds of voices singing Christmas carols I couldn't help but think of my musical night of the Bacon School Holiday Concert. I played the trumpet.  I had to play in our school band because my mother insisted that I was not going to waste her hard earned $2 dollars a week for my trumpet lesson.  I practiced that blaring for 8 years until I went out for high school football, put it down and never picked it up again - but that's another story.

This story is about Miss N, our maiden junior high music teacher, who ventured from the shadows into the spotlight, to produce her winter musical extravaganzas for adoring parents.  (Miss N always wanted to lead a professional choral group touring the capitals of the world - but like many of us, life doesn’t always work out like dreams do.  After college she ended up playing scratchy records of ancient symphonies to kids who preferred rock-n-roll. But this was her one night to shine and her ensemble was as ready as we would ever be.

The choir was made up of about 20 girls picked for their angelic sounds and 7 boys whose changing voices made them baritones on some days and tenors on others. The "orchestra" was 6 trumpets, two trombones, one sax and tuba and Mary Jane, the math shark, on violin which the trumpets succeeded in drowning out.  My pal David “played” the snare drum, triangle, cymbals and anything else one could play by hitting it.  Miss N accompanied us on the baby grand piano with one hand as she dramatically waved a two foot long baton with the other.  

Showtime finally arrived, a blessing as we would not have to practice another Christmas song until next October.  Backstage everyone was nervous. We could hear the murmuring of the audience on the other side of the heavy curtain as the auditorium filled up.  Our elementary school auditorium doubled as a gym so a faint aroma of musty sweat socks was part of the festivities mixed with the scent of  hot chocolate seeping in from the cafeteria across the hall.  The band members had been ordered to dress in white shirts or blouses and dark pants or skirts.  Everyone complied except Ralph who was wearing the old sweater he wore every day. The choir was adorned, head to toe, in heavy robes borrowed from the local Methodist church.  After a brief speech of welcome from Mrs. McC, our always jovial and matronly Principal. Mr. Hays, the school custodian, hit the lights and he opened the velour traveler. Ms. N  entered stage left wearing an antique black floor length gown.  She whispered, “Ok children do your best…and trumpets keep it down please.”

And so, it began. The band kicked off our holiday salute with a jaunty rendition of Deck the Halls followed by the choir singing a Gregorian Chant from circa 1250 AD.  Our program alternated between the band playing fun holiday songs and the choir singing its way through the ages of music, songs that have not been heard for centuries – in Latin, French, Armenian and Gaelic.  The printed program was four pages long!  By the second hour of our musical marathon the rustle of the restless audience (except for sleeping fathers) sitting on hard wood chairs was louder than the band.  My upper lip was like a raw hamburger after playing high note C sharps and B flats.  And all of us were feeling the intensity of the 500-watts of stage lights overhead.  

And then it happened - Before Ms. N could turn to the next page of her thick music book, one of the choir members on the back row of the choir riser fainted from either the heat or fatigue and slumped in a heap on the floor.  Our principal, always at the ready, raced from her perch in the wings and gushed a quick “Thank you children for another fabulous evening of festive cheer and every parent (as was their duty) applauded long and loud – and I'm still not sure if it was for our musical skills or because our performance was finally over.  Then the room cleared as everyone rushed to the cafeteria for free refreshments provided by the PTA moms.

As for Ms. N, she remained standing alone on the empty stage looking like a deflated Christmas lawn decoration.  As I headed to the post concert party I heard her muttering as she gathered up her reams of music sheets - “But we had another dozen songs to go…what a shame...we practiced them so diligently…we never even got to the Victorian era.”

That year there was no Spring Concert.  Ms. N never returned after Christmas vacation.  I learned years later that she eloped with a professional bar band sax player from Atlantic City.