Groovy Ghosts of Christmases Past

Some people’s Christmas memories smell like gingerbread, or pine trees, or egg nog.

Mine smells like English Leather cologne.

All my early childhood Christmases have melted into a blur. I can remember some gifts, and the decorations in the house (some of which I’ve inherited), but if we didn’t have photographs of those years, my memory vault would be even more empty than it is now. I remember sledding and tobogganing during the break, and trying to skate and giving up because no one would teach me and my knees couldn’t take the punishment, and hot chocolate in the warming house by the skating rink. I remember too when I was 4 or 5 and I pulled the whole tree down on top of myself. I couldn’t move, pinned not only by the nominal weight of the tree but also by the horror of my mistake and the guilt of somehow defiling our whole Christmas by my carelessness. The needles pricked, too.

Real strong memories of the Christmas SEASON, however, only begin for me around 1970. I would be 10 years old then, and whatever was going on in childhood was being replaced by hints of what teenage and adult life would bring. I had two older brothers, and watching them operate from a distance (which was the only way they’d let me) offered tantalizing hints of what was to come.

I remember shopping for my eldest brother, who would be 15 at this time. He wanted a copy of the LP “Steppenwolf 7”. It had a VERY psychedelic cover, with skulls and seascapes and the band acting tough. I could’ve bought it at Dearborn Music, a steady old store that’s still running, but instead I ventured to The Happy Apple, the “head shop” that had opened in town. Inside was run-of-the-mill hippie stuff: black light posters, clothes, candles, those brass bells on a cord that everyone was selling for some reason. They might have been selling something more illicit, but I was too young to know. All I know is, I felt pretty damn cool to be walking down our main shopping drag with the bag from The Happy Apple, with its drippy letters and fat, happy, purple, and obviously stoned apple mascot.

My next eldest brother would’ve been in junior high around that time, so he was concerned about hygiene and smelling good for the ladies. This is where the smell of English Leather comes in. I remember buying him a big bottle of the stuff, in a cedar box. There must have been six or seven ounces of the concoction, enough to supply a whole Polish disco. He might have never used it, but the smell of it permeated our dresser for years. besides, it was enough to have the feeling that I had nudged him a little along maturity by buying it for him (it was probably my failsafe present for him for years, regardless of whether he ever opened the bottle.)

Many of the other gifts of that time also had a distinct counter-culture vibe to them. Designs were getting bolder, sleeker. The Panasonic Ball radio was pretty “boss”, and lasted a surprisingly long time. Puzzles like SOMA were much cooler than the board games we used to get. Even the jigsaw puzzles in our stockings were getting cooler, in round shape with fantastical characters on them like giant Mer-men. We received macracmé belts and string art kits, because we were a pretty crafty family.

(Evidence of 1960s Christmas crafty: angel figurines made from turning down the pages of Readers Digest and spray-painting the books to make cone-shaped stand-alone items. Evidence of 1970s Christmas craft: Candles, candles, candles!)

And late at night, when everyone was asleep, I got to stay up late and watch “The Tonight Show”. It seemed like a swinging time back then. The men, including Johnny, were wearing sideburns and flashy jackets. The women were dressed up as if they were headed to a party, and everyone smoked and told double entendres that even my juvenile imagination thought were hilarious and naughty. (A year or two later, I found my first “Holiday” issue of Playboy, and enjoyed a full mental assault on what I thought grown-up Christmases would eventually be like: lascivious office parties, jazz concerts, slick cocktails, and naked women playing pool in my wood-paneled study.)

Innocence at Christmas? Sorry, it never grabbed my attention.

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