Family Is the Key to Christmas
“Material things don’t matter. It’s happiness and tranquility in the family that count.”
A surprising holiday sentiment from someone who holes up on Linda Isle, deep in the heart of nouveau riche country?
Not if you’re Dee Wambaugh, wife of author Joseph Wambaugh, best-selling author of such books as “The Onion Field” and the soon-to-be-published “The Golden Orange,” a cop thriller played out in Orange County.
Sure, Dee kicks up her social heels with the best of them, happily tipping bubbly here, diving into caviar there, dressed to kill everywhere.
But, like many of the stars who regularly shine on the local scene, Dee knows that the bottom line for happiness is family.
Case in point: She and her pen-wielding hubby are hitting the road for the holidays, leaving glittery Newport Bay for the desert, where she’ll cook up a turkey on Christmas Eve with son David, 25, daughter Jeannette, 21, and grandparents Emma and Frank Hendricks (“Can you believe someone my age is lucky enough to have grandparents?”).
She says it again: “It’s happiness and tranquility in the family that count. I’m hoping for some the rest of the year.”
So is Gep Durenberger. The effervescent director of the Center for the Study of Decorative Arts in San Juan Capistrano, site of many a sophisticated splash, is heading for his old homestead in Le Sueur, Minn.
The house where Durenberger was born was built in 1859, the same year the house belonging to the famous Mayo family of Minnesota was built. “It sits on a hill,” he says. “And, of course, an old-fashioned Christmas tree sits in a huge bay window, covered with old-fashioned ornaments.”
Durenberger, a pal of such social front-runners as television producer Norman Lear and internationally acclaimed interior designer John Saladino, will open his favorite front door on New Year’s Day for a familial love-in. “My cousins will come, and we’ll dine on old-fashioned cooking--baked apples, bread pudding, that kind of thing. It’s wonderful. I get renewed and come home with both feet on the ground, ready to do battle.”
Even the bustling Amen Wardy, owner of the thriving boutique in Newport Beach that is patronized by such glitz-loving luminaries as Jackie Collins, is leaving it all behind for the holidays. “I’m on my way to my house in Montecito,” says Wardy, who turned a car garage into a mirrored a la Versailles boutique and made millions. And he’ll do the cooking for Christmas Eve, which he will enjoy with his beautiful daughter, Soffia. On the menu? “I don’t know yet. I don’t decide until I go to the store!”
Social heavyweights Al Baldwin and his wife, Deeann, are heading to their ranch in Wyoming, returning to their Emerald Bay home for Christmas and then zipping to Wyoming again.
The reason for the zig-zag, Deeann says, is “parental pressure.”
“Mine and Al’s parents want to see us and our four children on Christmas, and we want to see them.”
But, Deeann admits, she prefers Wyoming for family holiday celebrations. “My Emerald Bay tree is beautiful, but it’s really a designer tree.
“In Wyoming, I take a tree and throw all the ornaments on it I can find. And I pop popcorn, make apple pie and settle down with Al and the kids to play board games. There’s no television, so the kids have to talk to us. And there’s no phone, so the kids don’t get any calls! It’s heaven.”
Heiress Joan Irvine Smith, who stages Orange County’s most lavish brunch when she tosses her Oaks Classic horse-jumping event each spring, will spend Christmas Day in her San Juan Capistrano ranch house with her mum, Athalie Clarke, and a slew of relatives. Everybody helps with the cooking, says Clarke, who is proud as punch of the guest list since it will include her grandchildren, Lt. Commander Russell Penniman, a graduate of Annapolis (“one of the best pilots the Navy has,” she says); James Swinden, and Morton Irvine Smith. “And a new great grandson, Russell Penniman V,” she adds.
Since the 6-month-old will be on the scene, Joan and Athalie have decided to make it a “children’s Christmas” celebration, Athalie says. “Little Russell will get a rocking horse, and Joan is putting miniature horses all over the tree.”
There will be eggnog, turkey and plum pudding, Clarke says. “What’s more fun than dining with family?”
As for yours truly, someone who hits an average of 120 bashes sans family per year, well, it’s time to toss a party. A family party, of course. On Christmas Eve, I’ll set out the champagne (something you learn to love when you’re a society writer) and my husband, Bob, and I will toast our blessings with our five children: Robert, Michelle, Christa, Rick and Michael.
Then we’ll head into the dining room for a sit-down dinner where I’ll serve lobster that Bob has prepared (dining on something someone else has prepared is another thing you learn to love when you’re a society writer) and drive everyone nuts when I ask the same old question: “What are you most thankful for this Christmas?”
High on my list will be the fact that I’ve gotten to know so many family-oriented social types in Orange County.
They know the bottom line. And I do too.