On the Tenth Day of a Feminine Christmas

Before the internet and cell phones, videos games, and DVD’s and having only one television in the house with just three channels and 6 people, if you wanted to be alone with your boyfriend, you went for a walk.  And it didn’t matter if it was sweltering or stormy, you stepped out with your beau.

The song Winter Wonderland will always remind me of a certain high school boyfriend.  Together, we stomped for miles in the snow, all through our town, laughing, talking and holding hands.  Except for an occasional movie or a birthday dinner at the one fancy restaurant for miles, our “dates” involved a promenade or two each week.  No one had money back then either.  At least not how it seems today.

What I remember about our promenades were the romance.  We bundled up in wool coats – mine, a pastel pink one, belted at the waist with matching popcorn-knit scarf, hat and glove set;  he, in a military-style pea coat, skull cap and jaunty plaid scarf.  There were no sub-zero down-filled coats – we wore bulky wool and cloth like everyone else.

We were our own Christmas Chanel 5 perfume ad but still young enough to “play”.  I would let him catch me after he pretended to chase me in a barren parking lot under foggy streetlamps.  Snow bit at our noses when he went in for a kiss or two, both of us out of breath, laughing and frozen.

Our walks always led us back to Mom’s kitchen table for cocoa and a cookie or two with all the others milling about.  There was just enough time for his coat to drip-dry into an icy puddle out on the back porch, much to the family dog’s delight.  His curfew was 9:00 PM sharp and no matter how much fun we had, he didn’t want to disappoint his folks.  But before he headed back out into the snow and if no eyes were prying, he left me with another kiss.