Christmas in July

In summer theatre at Oxy, one of the parties we always had was a Christmas in July party. It was fun to do, when the evenings were a beautiful 75 degrees...

It came to mind tonight, as it's warm, and I had dinner with a dear friend of 20 years... and I found a "Christmas in July" XM music station on aol.com. After ten minutes, I heard my favorite version of my second favorite Christmas song:

"Have Yourself a Merry Christmas" by Jermaine Jackson and the Jackson Five. Wow! Shot out of the past. Short of that, I found this video from Ally McBeal -- which is always how I feel, every single Christmas SAVE ONE (my boyfriend at the time actually came up to meet my family).



Funny, I was just telling another friend the Christmas ritual for number of years -- no matter where I was, I would be get home to Newark and my family would try get it together to go to Midnight Mass together. Over the years, it would be hard, because people were coming from different places, grandkids would be sleeping, old people didn't want to stay awake, and other of us didn't want to have to sit and wait an hour to get a seat in the small church.

But back when it was a regular thing, I remember I'd just come from New York, December 1986, after my first six months there working on a TV show. And I was in CRUSH... Big Time. With my boss (who was almost exactly one year older than me):

This guy, when he had long and curly, Adrian Grenier (his alter ego) hair. :)

I just remember that THAT hour before mass was different. We were listening to some Christmas music played by the organist, and I was loving the smell of church incense... but I was also daydreaming of the new life I'd created in Manhattan (I saw my first snow!). The show I was on had just been cancelled so I even had a new job... and I never knew when I'd ever seen David Frankel (or our boss, Norman Steinberg) again... but I was optimistic about life.

And at one point I just turned to my mom and said, "Mom, where do you think I'll be this time next year?"

Without hesitation, she said, "Right here, sitting with me."

At the moment, I was greatly comforted by that thought, but I also remember praying for there to be a SOMEONE ELSE there too... Hey there -- knock, knock, knock.

(No answer. Yet.)

My favorite Christmas song? "Merry Christmas, Darling" by the Carpenters. Of course... of course. :)