The Christmas Pins

The pin. The brooch, the breast pin, the circle pin, the cluster, the bar. A hallmark of dressed-up midcentury women from sea to shining sea. Not unlike a precursor to the late Madeline Albright, my mother collected pins and more pins. No outfit was complete without a pin, and her Christmas pin collection was unrivaled.

In his customary sentimental fashion, my father ritualized the giving and owning of Christmas pins. Every year, on the day after Thanksgiving, he and I would get dressed up and go Christmas shopping. (This was long before “Black Friday” was institutionalized as a monument to greed and boorish behavior. Roads and stores were crowded, to be sure, but people seemed to agree on a code of behavior. Everyone waited politely in lines, greeted sales staff, chatted with those around them and extended good wishes for the season. I admit I’m biased, but I like to say we were more civilized then.)

Toward the end of the daylong shopping excursion, Daddy would wander to the costume jewelry area – which in those days took up three or four counters in a large department store – and begin the painstaking selection of three Christmas pins. One was for my mother, one for my grandmother and one for me. No pin on display went unexamined and I stood by patiently as he described my mother’s red hair, green eyes and peaches-and-cream complexion to saleswomen who showed a genuine interest in selling him just the right thing. (I have no idea if they genuinely cared or just wanted to make a sale, and I don’t care. They made him happy.) Finally at long last, he’d select a rhinestone-bedecked Christmas tree or a jaunty gold reindeer for the love of his life.

My grandmother’s pin was harder to find. For 11 months of the year, she frankly proclaimed her dislike of pins and never wore them. But come December, she became a good sport, happily putting a pin on every blouse and jacket, in an effort to spare my father’s feelings. Her favorite color was red and she loved what we would today call “bling,” preferring the “aurora borealis” rhinestones that were popular at the time. I could feel Daddy’s frustration at trying to find the right thing for her coupled with his terror of anything he considered garish or gaudy, but he always managed to find something beautiful.

I was easy and relatively content with whatever he chose, and Daddy knew I favored slightly simpler, more youthful designs. The first pin I remember getting was a simple gold Christmas tree with tiny red and green rhinestones as its “ornaments.” But during the shopping trip, I never saw exactly what he got me – that had to be a surprise when we got home.

When, at long last, we finally arrived home, the house looked like Santa’s village. The 12-foot vaulted ceiling in the living room hosted a tree that was probably 11 ½ feet, with not a needle unadorned. Most of the lights were the old C-9 bulbs with only a few “twinklers.” In the family room was a silver aluminum tree trimmed in red and gold ball ornaments and ONLY red and gold ball ornaments. That was a rule that no one dared violate, lest the incur the wrath of two exhausted, hardheaded women. There was a large Styrofoam church with a music box that played “O Come, All Ye Faithful” on a small table in the entry hall and four decorative felt stockings hung over the fireplace. I’m embarrassed to admit a lighted Santa face smiled down on people as they . . . uhhhh . . . used the bathroom. The kitchen was decorated, the bedrooms were decorated . . . not a surface was left blank in that whole house.

Daddy would hastily rush to a hall closet, designated as “his” for the season, so he could hide most of the presents he’d bought that day. But there was always a small bag in his hand, usually from Marion and Toni’s gift shop at Knott’s Berry Farm or Robinson’s before the May Company merger. With a great air of mystery, he’d ask us all to gather at the “breakfast nook” in the galley-shaped kitchen (yep, the bench was upholstered in turquoise Naugahyde). Mother and Neenie took this as a signal to eat leftover Thanksgiving pie. We all knew what was going on but we all feigned surprise as, one by one, he took the pins out of the bag, presenting them with great flourish “to my girls for an early Christmas.” Mother’s always came first, then Neenie’s, then mine.

They’re all gone now, my three dear ones. But the pins remain, a glistening reminder of the love and warmth of our family Christmases. I wear them proudly, occasionally cursing the failing pin mechanisms and missing rhinestones. Each time I put one on, I’m a young girl again for just a minute, loved and loving and full of anticipation. Call me a sentimental fool, call me a heretic, but I like to believe they see me wearing those pins and know how much comfort and joy they bring me.

Those are the crown jewels of MY realm.