Angel Eyes...

“You want to party, buddy? I can make that happen.”

It scarcely seemed real. Big yellow taxi gliding through a Central Park winter dreamscape, its passengers heading for life’s biggest adventure at the most wonderful time of the year.

Our baby was supposed to arrive early in 1985, but I have always thought that since he was going to grow up to be a storyteller, he just couldn’t resist making his grand entrance in 1984. How very Orwellian.

We had set aside some time before his due date to decorate his room and buy all the stuff you need for a newborn, but we had barely begun. We had a baby bed, but that was about it. No diapers on our shelves. No formula. No bottles.

Not even a copy of “Goodnight Moon.”

We had figured we would have plenty of time to get all that.

On December 22, I was rudely awakened at 7 a.m. with the news bulletin that Barbara’s water had broken. We had taken Lamaze classes, so I knew what that meant. You couldn’t fool me.

We had all the things that you’re supposed to have ready to grab as you race for the hospital, such as brown paper bags to breathe into to help with anxiety, but we hadn’t organized it yet, because, well, you know.

I collected what items I could find while Barbara got dressed. She was calm, I was not.

It was still dark as I stepped into West End Avenue to hail a taxi. Barbara remained in the shadows, because Lamaze had warned us that New York taxis wouldn’t stop to pick up a pregnant woman, fearing the worst.

Once we got in and the doors were closed, we told the driver to head for the hospital. He asked if he needed to speed, and Barbara said that shouldn’t be necessary.

Saturday, early, no traffic. Christmas shoppers hadn’t yet clogged Fifth Avenue. Blustery winds gusted above 20 miles per hour, but we were cozy.

Barbara was right that the taxi didn’t need to speed. Christopher finally showed up at 7 p.m., exactly twelve hours after the water broke. We could have walked to the hospital, stopped for waffles and hash browns, and still had plenty of time to spare.

Months earlier, when we had learned that Barbara was pregnant, I had serious doubts about whether I could handle being in the delivery room. Today, wild horses couldn’t have dragged me out of there.

Following the miracle of birth, they got Barbara settled in her room.

A nurse showed us how to swaddle an infant. She did a beautiful job, but he still managed to stick his tiny fingers out of the blanket. The doctor came in to see if everything was okay. He asked what I liked to drink, and I said gin.

“Go home and have a big martini,” he said. “That’s what I’m going to do.”

When they took Christopher away from us for the night, I set about calling parents, siblings and in-laws, with the welcome news. About 10 p.m. they threw me out and said Barbara needed her sleep.

As she drifted off, the exhausted new mom asked if I would bring her some chocolate chip cookies when I came the next morning. They sounded good.

Cookies? That’s it? Hell, I would have brought her the Plaza Hotel.

I walked through the hospital lobby and climbed into a cab. I was wrung out.

For my first time in six years as a New Yorker, a taxi driver offered to hook me up. “You want to party, buddy? I can make that happen.”

I burst out laughing at the absurdity. There was already a party going on in my head, and it wasn’t anything like what the cabbie had planned.

When I got home, I began calling everyone else. Close friends, casual acquaintances, random wrong numbers. I called our Lamaze instructor. She reminded me there was still one class left in our course, but she guessed we didn’t have to come.

When it became obscenely late in the United States, but I still wanted to spread the word, I called a friend in Beijing. The connection wasn’t great, but I’m pretty sure he was happy for us.

The enormity of the day’s events still hadn’t hit me. I knew a trebuchet load of emotional wallop was hurtling my way, I just didn’t know when to expect it, or how to duck.

About 1 a.m. I mixed that martini the doctor had prescribed. I couldn’t remember when I had last eaten.

At 5 a.m., still riding my emotional high, I walked to the all-night supermarket half a block from our building to buy ingredients for the cookies.

I assembled them on a butcher-block table in our tiny kitchen. These needed to be some great cookies. The best cookies ever made. I used a cleaver to hack bars of Ghirardelli Chocolate into generous chunks.

But something was missing. Oh, that’s right, Christmas was missing. I realized it was now December 23. The next day would be Christmas Eve, and suddenly I was doing “A Christmas Carol,” full throttle.

I was like, “Lad, here’s a farthing, go and fetch me a fine, fat goose!” Not the exact quote, I know, but close enough.

Where was the holiday spirit? I needed music. I remembered that a friend had lent me an Emmylou Harris Christmas album which I hadn’t yet listened to.

Dropping the black vinyl platter onto my turntable, I cranked up the speakers and returned to my dough. The first couple of songs were okay. Familiar stuff.

The next one, “Angel Eyes,” was new to me, and it resonated mightily. Before I could even stop to think about it, there I was, mixing up gooey gratitude in a stainless-steel bowl as tears cascaded from sleepless red eyes.

Angel eyes, stardust nights
The blues you can live without
It's not what your song's about
Angel eyes, angel eyes
Tell me what would we do
Without, the light from angel eyes?

I know that my wife and son will never get what that song says to me, or hear it the way I hear it, but that’s fine. It is my own personal one-man Christmas tradition, and I understand. It carries me back to a frosty December morning when a solitary baker lost it, six floors above the icy Hudson River.

I listen to it every December, in private, and it always ends the same. It ends in joy.