Blue Christmas

by Mary Kay Andrews

  For years our neighborhood sponsored a “holiday decorating” contest. And for years, tasteful, tiny white lights and Williamsburg-style natural decorations, with pine boughs and cranberry and orange wreaths, dominated our neighbors’ seasonal greeting displays.

  But one year, I’d had enough of tasteful. I wanted tacky, I wanted tasteless. I wanted fun. I wanted…Elvis.

  My Blue Christmas was born from that one crazy idea. I started with yards of lights—big-bulb light strands. All blue. And they were racing. Like the kind you see in a roadside used-car lot. I strung them across our front porch and along the roofline. I added blue lights to the small potted evergreens on either side of the front porch steps. At the point of the porch gable, I fixed a gigantic silver-foil wreath wound with blue satin ribbon and a big poofy bow. Shining out from the middle of the wreath was a blown-up photo of the King. Elvis.

  My kids loved our Blue Christmas. My husband wanted to change his name and address. Needless to say, we didn’t win the contest that year. But some of our neighbors admired my subversiveness, and for years referred to us as “The Elvis House.”

  When my editor asked me to write a novella set in Savannah at Christmas, I knew I’d write about antiques picker Weezie Foley, and that Weezie would have her own version of a Blue Christmas. Way back in 1977, when I was a newbie reporter at the newspaper in Savannah, I’d covered Elvis’s last concert there. So I knew Elvis would return—at least in spirit—for Weezie’s Christmas story. As a child of the fifties, I collect vintage midcentury Christmas decorations, so I knew Weezie would share my passion for these dime-store treasures from the past. I also knew there would be a vintage Christmas-tree pin involved in this stor—one similar to the brooch we found in my mother-in-law’s home after her death a few years ago. And the one thing I knew for certain was that this would be a very special Christmas for Weezie and her boyfriend Daniel, and the rest of her nutty but loving family.

  I hope you’ll love reading Blue Christmas as much as I enjoyed writing it. However you celebrate your own holidays this year, I hope yours will be full of love, light, and warmth—and maybe, just a touch of tackiness.

  Mary Kay Andrews

  MARY KAY’S TIPS

  for Keeping the Happy in Holidays

  • At family gatherings, do try to find something nice to say about your brother-in-law’s new girlfriend—even if it’s only that all her tattoos are spelled correctly.

  • The holidays call for cheerful, uplifting conversation. So remember—Christmas dinner is probably not the optimum time to announce a divorce, pending indictment, or gender change.

  • When hosting a large family get-together, tactfully suggest that your guests leave firearms at home.

  • Gift-giving should never be an occasion for helpful hints about the recipient’s lack of hygiene, questionable morals, unfortunate taste in clothing, or recent huge weight gains.

  • Remember to update Christmas-card addresses on a regular basis. Nobody likes getting a card addressed to Mister and Missus after the Mister has taken another Missus.

  • If you must re-gift, make sure the new recipient lives in a different zip code from the previous giver. And always check to make sure you’ve removed all those pesky little gift cards that might have slipped down inside that root beer–scented candle given you by Aunt Gladys.

  • Fruitcake: Just say NO!

  Mary Kay’s Cool Yule Playlist

  Merry Christmas, y’all. I hope you’ll enjoy my Christmas playlist. If you’ve already got a copy of the all-time best Christmas compilation ever—A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector, which Weezie listens to in her shop in Blue Christmas, you might not even need my playlist. Still, there are some goodies here. And some great trivia nuggets connected with them.

  Enjoy!

  Number one on my list, of course, is Blue Christmas, by the King, Elvis Presley. Did you know that when this song was released, Irving Berlin, the composer of “White Christmas,” was so infuriated he mounted a letter-writing campaign to radio stations across the country, suggesting that they ban it? Didn’t work, of course.

  I love Darlene Love’s version of White Christmas on the Spector album. Did you know that Darlene, of the Blossoms, and then later of the Crystals, was a backup singer for the televised Elvis 1968 comeback special? And that she had an uncredited role in Change of Habit, Elvis’s 1969 movie costarring Mary Tyler Moore as a nun? Watch for Darlene to appear on The Late Show with David Letterman in late December, as he usually has her on to sing his favorite, Christmas (Baby Please Come Home). She also appeared in all four Lethal Weapon movies as Trish Murtaugh, Danny Glover’s wife.

  Did you know that Ronnie Spector, of the Ronettes, had a disastrous (and violent) marriage to Phil Spector? Just adore that trademark wall of sound on their version of I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.

  Lots of artists, including Madonna, have covered Santa Baby, but my favorite version is by Eartha Kitt, who was one of several actresses who played Catwoman on the old Batman television series.

  Novelty songs are great, but occasionally I like a maudlin holiday tune, and for me, nothing fills the bill as well as Judy Garland’s achingly sad Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, which she first sang in the 1944 movie musical Meet Me in St. Louis. Garland, who later married the movie’s director, Vincente Minnelli (Liza’s dad), refused to sing the original lyric of the song, which had her singing to child actress Margaret O’Brien, “Have yourself a merry little Christmas. / It may be your last.”

  I’ve always loved Booker T. & The MG’s, so I’ve included their version of Jingle Bells. You do know, don’t you, that “Jingle Bells” was written by James Pierpoint, who copyrighted the song in 1857, when he was a church organist living in Savannah? Pierpont’s grave, with a “Jingle Bells” marker, is located in Savannah’s historic Laurel Grove Cemetery.

  Baby, It’s Cold Outside has been covered by tons of duos, including Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, but I’ve included Dean Martin’s version because it’s so laugh-out-loud lascivious, and as a shout-out to my late dad, who sorta resembled Dino.

  THE LIST

  “Blue Christmas”—Elvis Presley, 1968

  “Jingle Bell Rock”—Bobby Helms, 1957

  “Santa Baby”—Eartha Kitt, 1953

  “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”—Charles Brown, 1965

  “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”—The Ronettes, 1963

  “White Christmas”—Darlene Love, 1963

  “Jingle Bells”—Booker T. & The MG’s, 1966

  “Little Saint Nick”—The Beach Boys, 1963

  “The Bells of St. Mary”—Bob B. Soxx and The Blue Jeans, 1963

  “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”—Judy Garland, 1944

  “Sleigh Ride”—The Ventures, 1965

  “Run, Rudolph, Run”—Chuck Berry, 1958

  “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”—Dean Martin, 1959

  Junior League Cheese Pennies

  The beauty of these lil’ darlin’s is that you don’t have to mess with those tricky cookie-press doohickeys. I don’t know about you, but when I try to make cheese straws, they come out “all whompy-jawed,” as my grandmother would say.

  ½ cup softened butter

  2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese

  2 cups all-purpose flour

  ¼ tsp. salt

  ½ tsp. cayenne pepper

  ½ cup very finely chopped pecans

  Paprika

  Cream butter and cheese together, using an electric mixer. Sift flour, salt, and cayenne, and then add the cheese-butter mixture and the pecans. Roll into 1-inch-diameter logs, wrap in wax paper, and refrigerate until firm. Slice crosswise into “pennies.” Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes, keeping close watch so they don’t burn.

  Dust with paprika before cooling.

  Chatham Artillery Punch

  ALERT! Chatham Artillery Punch (CAP) has been known to cause bad behavior in unsuspecti
ng victims. This behavior can include French-kissing your best friend’s husband (in front of her), goosing the minister at your cousin’s wedding, and dancing the dirty gator at your child’s junior high mixer when you were supposed to be the chaperone. The Chatham Artillery is the oldest military unit in Georgia. Legend has it that this drink started as a harmless fruit punch prepared by wives and sweethearts of the unit’s members, which was then spiked with a different variety of alcohol by each man who passed the punch bowl.

  2 cups red Catawba wine

  2 cups strong green tea

  1/3 cup rum

  ½ cup dark brown sugar

  ½ cup rye whiskey

  ½ cup orange juice

  1/3 cup gin

  1/3 cup Hennessy brandy

  1/3 cup lemon juice

  1 bottle dry champagne

  1 can pineapple chunks

  1 small bottle maraschino cherries

  A week in advance of your soiree, mix all the liquids and the brown sugar—except for the Champagne—in a large container. Refrigerate. The night before the event, add in the pineapple and cherries and refrigerate again. Just before serving, stir in the Champagne. And stand back!

  acknowledgments

  First and foremost, thanks go to Carolyn Marino, my amazing editor at HarperCollins, for the idea to set a Christmas novella in Savannah, and to Stuart Krichevsky, the best agent in the world, who convinced me I actually could write a story in less than four hundred pages. Thanks and hugs also go to Polly Powers Stramm and Jacky Blatner Yglesias, for their unfailing help and friendship, and to food writer and cookbook author extraordinaire Martha Giddens Nesbit, for her encyclopedic knowledge of Savannah foodways�and the inspiration for our family’s favorite crab cakes. Ed Herring at Seaboard Wine Warehouse in Raleigh helped with wine research, and Liz Demos, owner of my favorite antiques shop in Savannah, @Home Vintage General, showed me how Weezie’s shop should be run. David K. Secrest helped with sports info, and friends like Virginia Reeve and Ron and Leuveda Garner gave me shelter on Tybee Island. And as always, thanks and love to my family, Hogans and Trochecks, and now Abels, whose love remains the best Christmas gift of all.

  About the Author

  MARY KAY ANDREWS, a former journalist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is the New York Times bestselling author of Savannah Breeze, Hissy Fit, Little Bitty Lies, and Savannah Blues. She lives in Atlanta.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  ALSO BY MARY KAY ANDREWS

  Savannah Breeze

  Hissy Fit

  Little Bitty Lies

  Savannah Blues

  Credits

  Jacket Illustration by Helen Chapman

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  BLUE CHRISTMAS. Copyright © 2006, 2007 by Whodunnit, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  ePub edition September 2007 ISBN 9780061739484

  Version 01112013

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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