The Red Pantsuit

The other morning, on my way into the city, I was listening to the radio. An elementary school choir was singing a collection of Christmas songs. And I started to reminisce.

I started thinking about when I was in elementary school and we would begin rehearsing for the Christmas concert.  Every year, from grade 1 through to grade 6, my class, along with the other elementary grades in our little rural school, would begin the practising in earnest, likely right after Remembrance Day.

And every year, just before the evening concert, I would be thrilled to get a brand new Christmassy outfit for the performance.

For the school concert in 1973, when I was in grade 4, I wore a bright red pantsuit. It had been ordered from the Sears Christmas Catalogue. I was so excited when Mom brought the parcel home that year and I was able to try on the girls' size 10- 2 piece pantsuit. The pants had an elasticized waist. The top had a tie that tied at the back. It had white trim around the edges of the short sleeves and the collar. The collar was a Peter-pan collar. My pantsuit was a polyester fortrel blend. I felt so grown up in my red pantsuit. I thought that perhaps I should have been the model that year in the Sears Christmas Catalogue - that's how confident and beautiful I felt in my Christmassy red pantsuit. Never mind that my very fine hair, that had been cut, by Mom, in the very popular short shag style was likely full of static electricity, and my teeth, that had yet to be straightened by braces over the following years, were fang-like- I was the epitome of high class and high fashion in my red pantsuit. And I'm sure that when our class stood on benches and ladders to form a Christmas tree, and held our flashlights covered with differing colors of crepe paper, and turned the lights off while our flashlights came on, and we sang "O Christmas tree" in English and in German- I'm pretty sure that back then, on the darkened stage in the school auditorium, all eyes were on me in my beautiful  red pantsuit.

I've liked the color red ever since. It's my favorite color to wear. And I'm thinking that I have that Christmassy red pantsuit to thank for that!