“Carolers!” my mother cheers and hustles down the apricot stairs to swing open the front door. Her gold charm bracelet jingles, her curling-ironed hair stiff from Aqua Net, and she is wearing a two-piece satin blue ensemble that flows and billows with her every move. She is like Dinah Shore welcoming her audience on her afternoon talk show. “Hi, girls!”

It is 1981, and the house is filled with cousins, aunts, and uncles. Evergreen, red velvet ribbons, and white twinkle lights lace the fireplace and staircase. Carved roast beef, a giant milk bowl piled with shrimp cocktail, and miniature cheesecake cupcakes drip with oozing cherries. A crystal bowl is stuffed with Russell Stover chocolates, and baskets of Bugles are flanked by my younger cousins as they place the pointy chips on their wiggling fingers.

The party voices crescendo and diminuendo—up and down—laughter, chatter, jokes, and stories pop throughout the house.  All are oblivious to the doorbell ringing and my mom greeting the three girls standing at our doorstep. The chilly air seeping into the warm house shifts the revery for me. These are the girls I stand beside at the bus stop five days a week.

“Mom … Mom …” I try to warn her at the top of the stair landing. These are not my friends. I yell again, “MOM!” but my voice is muffled by the party chatter. “Shut the door on them. Shut … the … door!”

“Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens …” the girls sing, little snickers between each of their favorite things. They are pitchy and tone-deaf. Jennifer, Lisa, and Theresa chuckle when their eyes register me, my arms folded in protest.

Lisa pulls Jennifer’s ear to her mouth, cupping her hand to hide her whisper while she stares at my long-quilted skirt.

Four months earlier was the first day of 7th grade, and I marched down to the corner of Rural Lane and Pilgrim Road, where Jennifer, Lisa, and Theresa stood. Their eyes rolled up and down my first-day-of-school outfit: a maroon skirt, a pink button-up blouse with little roses speckled on it. I could feel my left knee-high sock slip down my calf, noticing that the girls were wearing Jordache jeans.

“Hi, my name is Brenda. I live up the street,” I smile, swinging my tote bag stuffed with Trapper Keepers and my flute.

The three girls burst out laughing, and Jennifer mimics me, “Hi, my name is Brenda. I live up the street,” and in perfect synchronization, the three girls turn away from me and huddle—a wall of Jordache jean butts facing me.

Now they are at my doorstep, and in disbelief and complete mortification, I watch and listen as my mother invites the girls into the house to join the party.

“Mom! Stop!”

How could my own mother betray me? This was beyond holiday cheer and Christmas goodwill. These girls weren’t three weak little Tiny Tims. They were awful. They were the original mean girls — designer jeans, rainbow puffy coats, clogs, and feathers clipped to their permed hair. But now they were in my house.

My mom leads the girls up the stairs and into the living room.

“Everyone, come over. These girls came by to sing for us.”

The chatter hushes for a moment, random relatives politely saying hello. To my surprise, Jennifer, Lisa, and Theresa seem to have lost their swagger. The snickering subsides; their gaze focuses on the apricot carpeting.

My mom grabs a seat, settling in for a little concert. The room grows quiet, kindly and gently waiting for the girls to sing.

My mom’s bracelet jingles. “What about something simple like ‘Jingle Bells?’ Come on, everyone—’Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way!'”

The girls sheepishly mumble along while the adults laugh and ho-ho-ho. The carolers’ singing turns into red-faced embarrassment. Theresa takes a step back to hide behind Lisa and Jennifer.

They don’t look over at me, standing behind a wingback chair, wondering if they feel as humiliated as I do daily at the bus stop. I love the days when the girls aren’t there, probably getting a ride to school from Daddy, and I always feel relief watching the bus hurtling from the bus stop toward the school with me not riding in it. I look at my uncles, aunts, and cousins—their faces flushed, glowing with holiday cheer—studying these silly girls, interrupting our gathering for their foolishness. Was it a prank, a laugh, a joke to them? Was my mother naïve in thinking these girls were sweet enough to carol along the street, or was my mother wise enough to call their bluff?

“Jingle Bells” doesn’t lead to a second song. The party guests lose interest in the girls and return to their banter. I watch as my mother gesture for the girls to join her in the dining room, offering them each a Chinet plate to grab some treats from the table. She lovingly wraps each plate with aluminum foil. During all her fussing over the girls, none of them look toward me or say hi. They shyly say thank you and are soon out the door, likely done with their sad caroling attempt.

“Why did you do that?”

“Do what?” my mom asks as she preps a Manhattan for her brother, lobbing a maraschino cherry into the drink, its weight sinking beneath the ice.

“Let those girls into the house and then give them our food?”

“It’s Christmas!” she says, turning back to the party.

I think about that forty-year-old moment from time to time. I wonder why it still pops in my head. Over the years I ran into these girls. Lisa at the US Air gate check-in pre 9/11, bumping me up to first class with my frequent flyer miles and still refusing to acknowledge me, even after scanning my id. Theresa at a McDonald’s playland, our toddler sons teetering around together. She was very bohemian, cut off jean shorts, her belly button pierced and a Grateful Dead Dancing Bear tattoo on her lower back.

“You’re Theresa right, lived on Pilgrim?” I asked and this time she smiled, “You do look familiar to me.” We swapped mom stories for a bit, until we had nothing else to share other than good-bye.

Jennifer was a year ahead of us and once gave me a manicure. We talked about the old neighborhood, her six-year-old and her plans to start her own salon. She rubbed lotion on the tops of my hands and began to massage, “I miss those high school days. We had such a blast,” but I knew I wasn’t part of her “we” or “blast”.

I talked to my mom, a time zone away one Sunday and asked if she recalled the carolers.

“That big group of people that came by the house? I think it was the Landon’s two doors down. I didn’t know if I needed to invite them in or not,” she laughed.

“I guess I remember a big group, but there was that one time it was just three girls, Jennifer, Lisa and Theresa from down the street. They would tease me at the bus stop? You had them come in and sing a song. Gave them some food.”

“Why don’t I remember that? I would have never had them in the house If I had known they picked on you.”

“I know mom.”

The memory glows in my mind, filled with joy and abundance, a time of happy moments and the anticipation of something wonderful. Maybe my mom’s embrace of those girls with love and celebration was a lesson for me – a reminder that kindness, even to the mean girls down the street, would leave a lasting impact.