“Oh, yeah, I know exactly what you mean,” says Hennessy, in her apron. And she is off to the third floor. Up one flight of worn wooden stairs. Up another flight. (Who needs to go to the gym?)
She flips through catalogues. And calls down stairs on the intercom to ask Bridger to take the customer’s name and tell her she will order the gumballs. They might not come in this year. Might be next year. But the wish will be fulfilled.
The 2011 Holiday Guide
Later, a tour group of women from Indiana fills the store. Pat Scott, from Princeton, Ind., is looking at the nutcrackers. She has traveled all over the United States searching for year-round Christmas shops.
Scott, 58, and her sisters have been decorating their parents’ house for years. They started back when their mother had a dinner for the ladies at the church. Their father said,“ ‘This is better than Homes and Gardens,’ ” Scott says. “So, it became a tradition.”
Gingerbread for the dining room and kitchen. Angels for the living room. “Snowmen for mom’s bedroom. Daddy has nutcrackers in his bedroom,” Scott says.
She is wearing a baby blue sweater, and her hair falls in tight gray curls. She is a bus driver. But for years she worked at Woolco, a discount department store.
“After Thanksgiving, I can’t stand to be in a store,” Scott says. “I can’t stand the hustle and bustle. Sometimes, people get rude because they are desperate.”
Desperation is an enemy of perfection.
Working at a Christmas tree, Husser, 63, digs into a box that has just arrived and finds a Santa disguise: a nose, black-rimmed glasses and a white beard. She digs into another box and finds a red Santa hat. But wait, it has a button. She puts the hat on and pushes the button, and the hat flops back and forth and sings “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”
“It’s alive. It’s alive!” says Maurisa Potts, 38, the store’s marketing person.
They are not far from a sign that says: “Masquerading as a normal person day to day is exhausting.” Yes, says Bridger, that sign is for sale.
Bridger, who began working here 10 Christmases ago as “Christmas Fluff,” or extra staff, is buzzing around the store. “I tell everybody this is a very physical job. You would think we would all be skinny.”
She explains that customers are particular about their ornaments. “Santa faces,” for example, “are very personal. Let me show you a good Santa face first.” She searches a Christmas tree decorated with Santas. “Look, he has cheerful eyes. But look at this guy!” She plucks another Santa with narrow eyes. “He looks like he has on guyliner. He has a nostalgic shape. But I think his eyes will be his downfall.”
On the front counter is a stack of cigar ornaments. “People will say, ‘Who would want a cigar on their Christmas tree?’ But I think people would be very pleased to find something as a gift for a man.”
“How much is that?” a woman in red lipstick asks just then, pointing at the cigar ornament.
“Seven ninety-nine.”
“I’m going to take that,” says Joan Argiro, who stops by weekly after getting her now-silver hair styled at the hairdresser on the street.
Argiro has been coming to the Attic for years. “Since her hair was black,” says her husband, Vincent Argiro, here with her.
The store brings back Christmas memories. In 1966, Joan Argiro thought she would get engaged on Christmas. “I was very disappointed I didn’t get a ring. But on New Year’s Eve, we had a big family party, and I got a box, which was very unusual, because on New Year’s Eve everybody brings champagne. When I opened the box, there was a big box and inside many, many boxes.”
Inside the last box was an engagement ring.
“I got so excited, I flipped my wig. And no one in the family had seen me without a hair piece. We got so excited, he forgot to ask me to marry him.”
They did marry in 1967. “And we have been very happy, too,” Vincent Argiro says.
* * *
Hennessy has a story of her own to tell. The Christmas Attic is all about stories.
The other day, an old woman dressed in all gray arrived, Hennessy says. The woman kept saying, “Honey, I need satin balls.” Hennessy told her the store doesn’t stock them anymore. But the woman refused to accept that and continued her story. “Let me tell you why I need satin balls. You see, my children, they expect them. ...”
“When you see the old lady coming in looking for ornaments,” Hennessy says later, “what she really needs is for somebody to be kind and talk to her and say, ‘I really care about you as a human being.’ ”
So, Hennessy listened to the woman talk about red satin balls. And even though she is not sure she can find them anymore, she will look one more time — until she has gone through every last catalogue. Not necessarily cost-efficient, but human. There are not many orders that can’t be filled. Besides, as the sign in the store says, “Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy marshmallows, which are kinda the same thing.”
DeNeen Brown is a Washington Post staff writer. She can be reached at browndl@washpost.com.
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