Nancy Thayer - Hot Flash Holidays

Table of Contents

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO Mary Lethbridge, Eileen McGrath, Nina Murray, and Emma Rusch

AND IN MEMORY OF Ethel Anastos, Barbara Andrews, Grace Grossman, and Margherita Sutro

Praise for Nancy Thayers Hot Flash series

Readers who loved the previous books as well as those new to the series will enjoy the adventures of these spirited women navigating family, love, and aging during the holidays.

Booklist, on Hot Flash Holidays

Who could fail to root for [these] five as they face aging with honesty, determination and a lot of help from their friends?

Publishers Weekly, on Hot Flash Holidays

Women of a certain age... will chortle knowingly at her all-too-vivid [depictions] of the multiple tolls that age takes on the female face, form, sex life, and self-worth. Thayer lays it all out with perverse relishaches, pains, incontinence, hormone surges, sagging this and bulging that.

The Boston Globe

Time after time, [Nancy Thayer] makes me laugh, makes me think, makes me appreciate that she understands what women want to express. Thayers writing often reminds me of Elizabeth Berg, Jeanne Ray, and Anne Tyler....

Womens Lifestyle

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Wisdom is hope and knows no age.

My gratitude is immense for the wisdom of my editor, Linda Marrow, and my agent, Meg Ruley.

I couldnt have written this book without the gifts of inspiration, anecdotes, humor, chocolate, wisdom, and oh, yes, an ankle bracelet, from my friends, younger and... older. Enormous thanks to Deborah Beale, Mimi Beman, Jill Burrill, Laurie Chatfield-Taylor, Jennifer Costanza, Martha Foshee, Tina Gessler, David Gillum, Kim Guarnaccia, Gilly Hailparn, Charlotte Maison, Joan Medlicott, Margrethe Mentes, Elena Murphy, Robyn North, Letitia Ord, Tricia Patterson, Jane Patton, Pam Pindell, Selma Rayfiel, Susan Sandler, Laura Simon, Josh Thayer, and Sam Wilde.

And Charley, thanks for being better than chocolate!

CHRISTMAS

ON THIS EARLY DECEMBER DAY, SNOWFLAKES SPARKLED down to earth like granted wishes from a magic wand.

Inside the handsome lounge of The Haven, Yule logs blazed cheerfully in the fireplace, while Presley, Sinatra, and Springsteen sang Christmas carols. Near the long casement windows, five women were looping lights around a Norway spruce so tall they had to use a ladder to reach the highest branches.

Okay, thats the end of the last string, Marilyn called from behind the fat tree.

Plug them in, Shirley told her.

Marilyn knelt to fit the plug into the socket.

Oooooooh! Shirley, Faye, Alice, Marilyn, and Polly sighed with delight as dozens and dozens of multicolored miniature lights twinkled to life.

Now, Shirley announced, for the fun part. How shall we do this? Shirley was the director of The Haven, but the four other women were her best friends, practically her family, and she wanted to please everyone.

I think we should all hang the ornaments we brought where we want, Polly suggested.

But keep in mind, Faye added, it will look better if the heaviest, biggest ornaments go on the bottom boughs, with the smaller ones on the higher branches. She was an artist, with an artists eye.

Yes, but we dont want it to look too perfect, Alice insisted. We want it to look real.

Good point, Alice, Shirley agreed. Perfection, as we all know, isnt real.

Sometimes it is, Marilyn disagreed, in her thoughtful, vague way. The horseshoe crab, genus Limulus, for example, is perfect. Its design hasnt changed since the Triassic period, thats two hundred forty-five million years.

Lovely, Faye said gently, amused. Still, we really dont want to hang a horseshoe crab on the Christmas tree.

I suppose not. Although one year we did. Marilyn smiled at the memory. She was a paleobiologistthe others teasingly called her a pale old biologistand her grown son and her ex-husband were molecular geneticists. Teddy was nine, and fascinated with crustaceans and fossils, so we bored holes in lots of shells, slipped colored cords through, and hung the tree with crabs, mollusks, and gastropods.

Alice snorted with laughter. You are so weird!

Oh, I dont know, Polly chimed in. David told me that he and Amy are hanging only homemade decorations on their tree. And my daughter-in-law is such a purist, shell use only vegetable dyes, natural wood, straw, and such. Afterwards, theyll probably carry the tree outside and feed the entire thing to the goat.

The others laughed. As they talked, they moved back and forth from the tables and couches where the boxes of decorations were set out. Occasionally Shirley dropped another log on the fire.

The spacious room, with its casement windows, high ceilings, and mahogany paneling, seemed to glow with contentment. Once built to house a private boarding school, this old stone lodge had been abandoned for a few years. Then Shirley, with the help of her friends and a few investors, had bought it and opened The Haven, a premier spa and wellness resort with a burgeoning membership and second-floor condos for staff or friends.

She had staff (she had staff! Shirley, who had struggled financially most of her life, got a thrill every time she remembered that). But she hadnt wanted her staff to decorate the Christmas tree, and neither had her friends. Theyd wanted to do this together. Theyd agreed to bring three boxes of decorations each, and theyd agreed to do it without advance discussion or collaboration, so their choices would be a surprise.

Now they worked quickly, climbing the ladder to adorn the top, stretching left and right, standing back to appraise, kneeling to the lowest branches, murmuring to themselves, exclaiming at what the others had chosen.

Shirley was a sucker for whimsical creatures with smiling faces: elves, snowmen, Santa Clauses, cherubs, fat angels with crooked smiles and tilted halos, fairies with freckles and yarn hair.

Faye had selected expensive glass ornaments: gorgeous faceted stars, elongated teardrops and iridescent icicles, extravagantly striped or translucent balls in gleaming gemstone colors.

Polly loved to cook. Shed baked dozens of gingerbread men and women, sugar-cookie stars, leaping reindeer, trumpets and drummer boys and crescent moons, the absorbing, familiar activity bringing back memories of Christmases when her son was little. Shed decorated them with colored icing, silver balls, and sprinkles of colored sugar, and glued ribbons firmly on the back, for hanging. Shed also strung cranberries and popcorn on fishing wire and bought boxes of candy canes.

Alice, less sentimental and more practical, had chosen thirty of the skin care, cosmetic, and aromatherapy products on sale at The Haven, and tied their lavender boxes with glittering gold and silver bows.

Marilyns contribution was a boxed set of antique ornaments from the Museum of Fine Arts, and a handmade collection of brass and enamel stars, sun, moon, and planets purchased from an Asian gentleman selling them from a rug on a sidewalk in Harvard Square.

When every ornament was hung, the five women stepped back to admire their handiwork. The mixture was eccentric, aesthetically enchanting, and wildly cheerful.