Room at the Inn for a Yule Party

Santa Claus and his wife will greet the children of La Quinta and the surrounding Coachella Valley in the Grand Sala of La Casa. Built in the mid-’20s, La Casa stands on the grounds of the La Quinta Hotel and was a favorite vacation spot of Greta Garbo, an angular Swedish actress who was supposed to have said, “I want to be alone.”

One of her retreats was this more-than-50-year-old Spanish Colonial house. The huge house is a hollow square, centered around a courtyard where Christmas festivities will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. on Tuesday.

I’m sure the rotund and amiable Clauses would be startled to encounter the shadow of Greta Garbo at their party.

Pete Cooper, a security guard, drove me over to the Sala in an aged golf cart. He is a former United States Marine, a movie aficionado who can recite every line of dialogue from the motion picture classic “Casablanca.” He even knows that the Humphrey Bogart character’s last name was Blaine.

“It’s Rick Blaine,” he told me. “I saw it so much I finally picked up his last name. I think it’s only mentioned once.”

Pete is on the committee for the pre-Christmas celebration and invited me to a preview of La Casa.

Every room in La Casa will be opened for a Christmas role in the festivities. In the library, there will be Santa’s scribes helping kids write letters to Santa Claus. There will be a Nativity scene with real people and animals. All of the characters in all of the scenes, including the jolly, round, fat man himself and his wife, whom I always imagined smelling of cinnamon and sugar cookies, will be played by employees of the hotel. Santa is Arvie Mills and this is his fifth year. He is the chief engineer of the hotel. Mrs. Claus is Inge Vorderwinkler, who is director of housekeeping.

Some of the shorter employees will be elves. I offered to be an elf, but Pete said he thought they’d make do without me. The elves will be available for picture taking with the kids.

Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph will be there, and outside the courtyard will be small barnyard animals for petting--matronly sheep, lambs, real reindeer, two burros and one disgruntled bantam rooster who hates Christmas.

Mickey and Minnie Mouse will be there all the way from Disneyland and so will wooden soldiers, the kind from “The Nutcracker.”

In the Nativity scene, Paul White, the controller of the hotel, is a wise man. There will be no camels. The poor things have acquired such a terrible reputation for having morning mouth all day long and for spitting that they are very seldom invited to Christmas revelries.

Scrooge will be there, Ebenezer himself, enacted by a jovial man who is director of food and drink for the hotel. He has developed a raspy snarl during the last six years, since the La Quinta Hotel did its first Winter Wonderland.

Christmas carols will roll sweetly through the desert air in the courtyard. There, kids can play carnival games and have hot dogs, popcorn, cider and seasonal treats.

I met Judy Vossler Woodard, who is the general manager of the hotel and looks as if she had been allowed a weekend at this historic hotel with her parents for getting an A in geometry.

She’s obviously a brilliant young woman and prettier than absolutely necessary. She is also head of the Christmas committee and has promised me a cup of cider if I’m good.

The crescendo of the two-hour celebration will roll around when Santa Claus pushes a button that will light the 60-foot Christmas tree in the lobby of the hotel.

The children and Christmas party-goers won’t notice because the rooms will be festooned with Christmas garlands, but the 70-year-old tile work I saw during the preview with Pete is notable. The tiles look as if they might have survived Pompeii. One bathroom has a teal tub and the walls and sinks are made of yellow and turquoise Spanish tile.

The Clauses will receive the boys and girls across from a giant crackling fireplace flanked by terra cotta twisted pillars. Chandeliers in the room are huge wrought-iron ones, large enough to light a castle. The wooden shutters over the windows hang at a slant, held together only by their ancient dignity.

The entire Christmas celebration will be graced by the Coachella High School band.

The La Quinta Hotel’s Winter Wonderland Carnival is co-sponsored by those jolly Santa’s helpers, the La Quinta Chamber of Commerce and the Soroptimist International of La Quinta. Best of all, the profits from the $5 tickets will go to the Boys and Girls Club of La Quinta.