The Sheltered Islander #428

Flying Fingers vs. Frozen Feet

By Sally Flynn

Well, it’s official. I did all of my holiday shopping by Internet this year and everything is being gift-wrapped and sent straight from the source along with a printed gift card from me, limited to 100 characters.

It’s wonderfully convenient to shop by Internet. At the same time, I recognize the end of an era for me, one that my kids will never know... the Christmas (and Hanukah, relax...) shopping days at a big mall.

I recall when I was young, listening to my mother, grandmother and aunt coordinate what day were we going shopping. Next, came the car decision. My aunt had the most reliable car, my grandmother had the one with the biggest trunk and my mother had the one with the best heater. Biggest trunk usually won out. We all brought blankets and piled into my grandmother’s old Buick. The heater had broken years earlier and my grandfather, who courted my grandmother on a horse drawn buckboard, saw a car heater as an unnecessary luxury. The back seat of the Buick was huge and my mother and aunt discussed building a small fire there for warmth. But the idea was vetoed because the ring of stones would surely shift while Grammie drove. So we toughed it out.

The goal was to get there early in the morning and if you could hear the mall music from your parking spot, you did well. But my aunt was (and is) notoriously late, so we always parked within sight of the mall. In that day, women never left the house in slacks. We were all in dresses. As a kid I got to wear leggings under my skirt, but my Mom, Aunt and Gram had to endure the cold with only nylons to keep their legs warm. Gram had a sealskin coat, but she was still frozen by the time we got to the front door of the nearest store.

The mall music blared with seasonal standards. We, and everyone around us, would softly sing along. It was crowded. Our coats were now a heavy encumbrance. We waded through people who were wading through us. We shopped for hours and piled our cart high. We waited in long, long lines for checkout. Everyone in line struggled to maintain a good attitude despite tired feet and crying kids.

After the shopping we schlepped all our big, colorful, bags to any place in the mall where we could sit and have hot chocolate, a final warm-up before we braved the cold again. My Mom, Gram and Aunt would try to remember exactly where we had entered the mall and try to figure out if there was an exit closer to the car.

Global warming was nowhere in sight then. Winter was freezing cold everyday from mid November till March and that was that. The post-shopping walk, tired and package laden, was a real killer, with icy winds whipping up your skirt, like getting goosed with freezing fingers. It was not unusual for my Grandmother to carry a flask of Baileys and add a shot to everyone’s hot chocolate (except mine, I was still under 13) as a bracer to the cold. Today, that would be outrageous, but it was not an issue at all when I was young. People had a shot to warm them up. They didn’t get drunk and they weren’t alcoholics. It was even the custom on our street to leave a shot in the mailbox on Christmas Eve for our mailman, Mr. Brady. Poor Mr. Brady. He was probably crocked by the time he got home, but I guarantee he wasn’t cold...

After we got home and hid everything in Grammies’ attic. My grandfather, who liked to cook, would have some hearty soup and Irish soda bread ready for us. He made hot buttered rum and smell of it was sweet and comforting. Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole records were stacked and playing on the stereo while we ate hot soup and reveled in our gift choices.

My grandfather grilled my grandmother on how much she had spent. Grammie was able to show him the sale prices marked in red on each tag. My aunt and I used different red pens to carefully mark down all those tags on the ride home... I knew I was growing up when I was trusted to maintain a poker face when Pop looked at the price tags.

Holiday shopping together is a bonding event for women. Like men who hunt together. There is something about braving overwhelming odds and surviving that unites people.

Here’s to all our Moms with frozen legs and feet, bad mall music, and hot chocolate with Baileys!