The Season

Holiday leer

'Tis the season to be . . . sexy?

by Robin Vaughn

While I was growing up, even before I knew exactly what sex was, I knew that lust was among the dominant sins of the holiday season, and I was well aware of its mysterious, deliciously illicit allure. Undoubtedly, this sex-consciousness had a lot to do with the era. In the 1960s -- my gloomy Catholic-school days notwithstanding -- sex seemed to be fun, free, and everywhere. It was naughty but not evil, more cocktail-oiled innuendo than anything scary and vulgar. It came across in Dean Martin and The Golddiggers, in swingy Herb Alpert specials on television, in miniskirts and the humor of Mad magazine, and in peeks at Playboy magazines tucked facedown under the sweaters in my father's armoire -- the December issue always loaded with cartoons of curvy nudes in Santa caps and jokes about office-party smooches in the supply closet. I knew that mistletoe -- the plastic variety -- was an excuse for kissing secretaries.

I grew up in an apartment in the North Bronx. To my knowledge, they didn't sell real mistletoe in my neighborhood. Nobody had a fireplace to roast chestnuts in, and we weren't the kind of family that sang carols or went ice skating together -- even if there had been a pond down the street. We had much flashier, sexier Christmas accouterments, beginning with an excessively tall tree -- it nearly had to be sawed in half to fit in our living room -- draped with tons of gaudy tinsel icicles. Because my parents grew up poor and were determined to do better for us, Christmas morning was like a child's bacchanal: we always had way too many presents, and it took hours to open them amidst a chaos of ribbons and gift wrapping.

The Sisters of Charity nuns who glowered at us all week through their chalk-dusty black habits could prattle on endlessly about the Virgin Birth, but for me this had nothing to do with Christmas. Sure, there was heightened goodness in the season. We went to church more than usual, donated old toys to needy children, brought canned goods to school, and sold candy for charity. On shopping trips to the big, decked-out downtown department stores, we dropped coins into the buckets of every sidewalk Santa. And I was duly enraptured by the story of the birth of Jesus in a manger after Mary and Joseph were turned away at the inn and all that. But memories of my parents' Christmas Eve cocktail parties also stand out. Ice clinking in glasses, roaring laughter, rock and roll pealing out of the record player long into the night -- these sounds continue to warm my heart at Christmastime.

It wasn't until the late 1970s, when my family moved to the predominantly Protestant, plaid-pants-wearing, duck-obsessed, carol-singing-at-the-pond suburbs, that I was introduced to the sexless, preppy version of the American Yuletide. Suddenly, trashy tinsel was banned from the tree; it was replaced by little wooden toys from the women's-league store. The new neighbors who attended my parents' Christmas Eve parties still drank like pirates (the era of counting everybody else's drinks was still years away), and no doubt some of them sneaked an extramarital Christmas-party snog. But in general, holidays in the suburbs seemed pretty prudish to me. Eggnog, tartans, endless talk about kids' colleges -- it was all so corny and obvious and unsexy.

When I moved to New England years later, I would become increasingly familiar with this "Ye Olde Holiday" business, and eventually I would come to appreciate some of it. First Night is strictly for children (and, since I don't have any, I prefer to avoid it at all costs), but I have been charmed by the families and couples skating together at Kennedy Plaza.

All around, I've come to understand that wholesome Christmas traditions can coexist with sexier seasonal pleasures, which I no longer associate with bawdy sexism à la vintage Playboys. As an adult, I can appreciate that some of the sexiest things about Christmas have nothing at all to do with decadence and debauchery (that's for New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day). Waking up on Christmas morning with someone you love is a whole lot sexier than acting sleazy at some office party, for one thing. And the kind of man who takes turkeys to homeless shelters or stays up all night putting together a bike for a kid is infinitely more sexy than his ass-grabbing brethren.

Going bankrupt isn't sexy either, really, nor is bitching and bickering over how much to spend and on what. But making some sacrifices by spending a little too much money can be incredibly sexy, whether you're spoiling children or each other. My mother, who came of age in an era when mink coats were glamorous, maintains that the sexiest thing about Christmas is a man giving a woman expensive presents. I tend to agree with Holly Golightly that diamonds are tacky for any woman under the age of menopause. But I've felt some amorous gratitude to boyfriends who've proffered guitar effects pedals I couldn't afford to buy for myself: the compliment of acknowledging my music was sexier than the gift's expense. I'd have to say that unwrapping something as sinfully extravagant as a pair of overpriced Italian high heels might warm me up pretty nicely, but a humbler gift that demonstrated real knowledge of me, or memory of some little hint I'd dropped months ago -- that would be a sure thing.

The social permission to drink at virtually any time of day during the holidays can open up some sexy possibilities for singles, surely. But you don't have to get tipsy, you don't have to buy out the stores, and you don't have to wrap your naked self up in a bow to have a super-sexy Christmas. All the traditional, bell-jingling, Christmasy stuff can be intoxicatingly romantic, too. Crackling fires, walks in the snow, shopping in crowds with all the Santas and the lights and the genuine goodwill that fills the air -- if you're not in love already, it's a pretty sexy time to meet someone. When you are in love, it's just magic.