A Very Drama Major Christmas

It was December 1980.

That summer, I had moved into a large 5-bedroom house with my four best fellow University of Texas Drama Major friends - Margaret, Lannyl, Becca and Randy.

To say that this house had fallen into disrepair is a serious understatement. Wallpaper peeled from all the walls and half the kitchen tiles were missing, We had no air conditioning and open-flame gas heaters.The entire house listed drastically to the west.The electricity was so tentative that we blew a fuse every time we turned on more than 2 electrical appliances at the same time.

We had spent the entire 100 + degree  summer fixing the place up. We peeled off the 50-year old wallpaper, painted where we could, scraped the ancient linoleum off the kitchen floor and replaced with with peel-and-press tile and basically made the place inhabitable.

And I must say, the house was cheap. I remember that we paid $500 a month, which we split 5 ways.

But most importantly, it was OURS. We christened it "The San Gabriel Estate" (it was on San Gabriel St.), but it soon became known as simply "The Estate", and was destined to become part of  UT Drama Department folklore. "The Estate" quickly became the center of all drama department social functions. That's right, Party Central.

When Christmas rolled around, we decided to host a Christmas party. But not just any Christmas party, a Christmas Cotillion. We were, after all, in the South. We even wrote out elegant(ish) invitations and hand delivered them. Everyone was asked to don "formal attire". I'll never forget the dress I wore - a vintage '50's ballgown with a sweetheart neckline and a hoopskirt made of layers and layers of bright red tulle. Fabulous.

To prepare for the Cotillion, we felt we needed to decorate our home in a festive way. Unfortunately, we were all poor. I mean really poor. Becca had been selling plasma for months to have enough money to buy Christmas presents for her family. We were eating nothing but ramen noodles (4 for $1 at the Kash 'N Karry) and washing our hair with Ivory Liquid. It was sad. We seemed to have spent all of our money on beer and vintage ballgowns.

We scrounged around and swiped as many old Christmas decorations from our parents as we could. I remember Mama letting me take a box of old gold tinsel garland, and we covered the living room with candles and tinsel...

But we needed a Christmas tree. So we all piled into my old pickup truck and drove to my parents house. I grew up on 16 acres of land just west of Austin. We took off into the woods and chopped down a small cedar tree, which I must admit was more of a bush, and we dragged it home with us. We didn't have a tree stand, so we just kind of leaned it in the corner.

We popped popcorn and made popcorn chains, and decorated the tree with our pilfered lights and ornaments. But it just didn't seem complete. Suddenly, Becca ran upstairs with glee. She came back down with an old plaid taffeta skirt she'd worn in high school. We proceeded to rip it into ribbons and tie it into bows all over the tree. And voila...

The Christmas Cotillion was legendary. Much, MUCH fun was had by all.

The next morning, we all came downstairs and found out that some smartaleck had added extra decorations to our beautiful "tree' - a bunch of condoms and tampons! Hardeeharhar.

For those of you who keep up with things around here, you know that a couple of years ago, I had an amazing reunion with all my old college friends. Our precious Becca had died, and we all felt we HAD to find and embrace each other again. The theme for the Saturday night of our reunion? The Cotillion! Aren't we all fabulous...

A plan for another reunion is in the works for next June. I can't wait!

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This post was inspired by

Prompt #4: Share a story from your college years.

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Comments

[Natalie]

What fun memories! Looks like that was a special time and, being a sucker for older photos, I loved your post.
Over here from MamaKat's!

[JDaniel4's Mom]

It sounds like you had a blast putting the party together. I love your tree.

[Kim]

How great that you could get together for the reunion! And it looks like you survived the beer, the um, cigarettes and ramen noodles just fine!

[Sweet Mama Jones]

I LOVE THIS! And you guys are just as gorgeous now as then!! A cotillion?? I. DIE. pure fabulousness :)

[adventures in alyssaland]

My favorite part, To prepare for the Cotillion, we felt we needed to decorate our home in a festive way. Unfortunately, we were all poor. I mean really poor. Becca had been selling plasma for months to have enough money to buy Christmas presents for her family. We were eating nothing but ramen noodles (4 for $1 at the Kash 'N Karry) and washing our hair with Ivory Liquid. It was sad. We seemed to have spent all of our money on beer and vintage ballgowns."

Anyone who was poor in college has some variation of this.

[SUPAHMAMA]

I just lived vicariously through you! What an awesome group of friends you had and STILL have!

[VandyJ]

Those kind of memories are what Christmas is all about.
And, yes, I do remember being that poor as a college student.

[Lynn]

Yep, me too, poor college student in the same era, '79 to '82. My weekly food budget was $10, with which I could make a quiche, mac and cheese, meatballs and a meatloaf; once, I made half of that by picking up candy wrappers for a $5 rebate! Those were the days...

[Elizabeth]

That tree is something else! And so are your fashions and the glasses and the hair, etc. Good, good times...

You look so gorgeous in that photo at the bottom -- as do your friends. Wowza.

[W!]

I remember that tree with great glee. I was also told by Anna Gangai's husband that we adorned it with condoms during the Cotillion of years gone by.

[Sprite's Keeper]

Was it really a couple of years ago that you wrote about that? I remember it so well!

[Suzanne]

I love this! I was a Drama major for a while too, and they definitely had the best parties!

Stopping by from Mama Kat's

[Keely]

Love it. I had a similar 'first' christmas on my own, where we decorated the tree with silver Coors Light cans.

Ok, so not as classy as yours.