THE SANTA TIE
"Christmas is when I feel closest to his memory. It’s a showman’s holiday, after all...."
My grandpa Don was a showman. Speaking or singing, his voice filled a room. He started tap dancing when he was six, met my grandma in ballet a few years later, and they danced together the rest of their lives, trying their luck in New York theater in their early twenties, hitting Las Vegas with Mae West, then shuffling across stages around the country before settling in the San Diego theater scene and raising their family.
Even when we went camping, Grandpa liked to put on a show. He didn’t just teach us grandkids how to fish—he taught us how to perform nonchalance when we came away empty-handed. Around a campfire he’d tell stories about jackalopes and highway ghosts and the origin of fire, making it up as he went along, promising every word was true until you pressed him, at which point he’d quote Huck Finn: “mostly true, with some stretchers.”
He was a snappy dresser with a flair for the details that turned mere clothes into an outfit. He liked a brightly colored sock that matched his pocket square, à la his tap hero Fred Astaire. Once, five of us were waiting for a table at The Buena Vista in San Francisco. The restaurant was packed, but when the maître d' saw the guy in the red tie and wide-brimmed hat tipped just so, he conjured a place for us on the spot.
Whatever the occasion, Grandpa made you want to rise to it. In his presence, people smiled more, laughed harder. For years I wondered what the magic was, how he made everyone feel so special. When I got older, I realized it was simple: Pay attention, listen. That was it. And when it’s your turn, give them something to pay attention to.
After he passed, from cancer, in 2017, my grandma told me to take whatever I wanted from his closet. I chose this Christmas tie he wore every year. Grandpa loved Christmas. When he and Grandma walked through our door, his first words were always “Why isn’t there Christmas music playing?” His favorites were The Philadelphia Orchestra's Glorious Sounds of Christmas and Pete Fountain's Candy Clarinet. When something especially good came on, he'd take Grandma's arm and they'd do a little soft-shoe by the fire.
Christmas is when I feel closest to his memory. It’s a showman’s holiday, after all—the music, the colored lights, everything shiny and bright. The tie feels like it has some of that magic. I was wearing it at a dive bar the night a random Santa came through handing out chocolates. And the night I first told my girlfriend, now my wife, that I love her.
But the tie’s best trick is that whenever I wear it, people ask where it's from, and I get to tell stories about my grandpa. Like the time he was playing Harold Hill in The Music Man and Meredith Wilson himself sent his compliments. How he loved roller coasters, always shouting "Let's get this wagon train a-rollin'!" before they took off. Or the Christmas Eve when—wearing this very tie—he handed me a lighter and said, “We’re going to light every single candle we can find,” and after we were done with all the tapers and pillars and tea lights, the whole house glowed.
—Christopher Hermelin
Christopher Hermelin is a writer living in Brooklyn. His reading podcast, So Many Damn Books, has been running since 2014.
For a different reading experience, The Keepthings’ stories can also be read in their entirety on Instagram @TheKeepthings.
Have a story to share? See the complete submission guidelines, including photo guidelines, at TheKeepthings.com.
You both gave great smiles and I loved hearing about the good memories of Christmas with grandpa. Wagon train is not something we hear nowadays, I remember my grandpa calling the trains that passed near his home just that.
Great tie and I’m glad you wear it on occasion.
Made me smile especially when you realized that by wearing Grandpa Don's tie, it gave you the opportunity to share his story and his memory with strangers. Merry Christmas!