Christmas at the Club

by Jim Kleefeld

Early in my career I was working one of my least favorite venues—a country club
Christmas party. These affairs are usually a challenge for kidshow magicians because
the children are dressed to the nines and wired for excitement while the parents are
overdosing on the plentiful alcohol and practicing their one-up-manship with the rest of
the rich and elite.
As usual, the adults all gathered at the far back of the room, talking loudly to each other
and completely ignoring the kids who had been sent up front to watch the lowly hired
help (that was me) perform a magic show. I was fairly seasoned at the time, but still a bit
young and naive. I was determined to do everything in my power to amaze and
entertain the kids while showing off my skills and prowess to the adults.
I had brought a roll-on table and set up everything perfectly. Some small and ashy
tricks, lots of noise and color, interspersed with some cute and clever longer routines
lled with delightful stories to amuse and entertain. My climax was to vanish a full
pitcher of milk inside a paper cone and then produce a glass of milk from an open
frame, followed by yards and yards of colored silks. Yes that’s right — this was back in
the era of the Milk Pitcher and Square Circle. My square circle was about 10x10 inches
and packed with dozens of silks in a rainbow of colors increasing from 12x12 up to
36x36. I had the device set up on the oor right in back of my table because it was too
large to put on a table shelf. Besides, the shelf held the milk pitcher.
The show was actually going quite well. The children were polite and attentive, though
the adults continued to make much more noise than was necessary. Not even half way
through the program, a two-year-old toddler, all decked out in fancy green velvet shorts
and dress shirt with bow tie started wandering through the scattered crowd. He came
into my staging area (this was on a at oor), walked past me, behind me, around the
table, in front of me, over to the side, toward the back of the room and out of sight. Just
a wandering toddler. “There’s a cute little guy up here looking for his Mommy,” I
announced into the mic. No parents, no adult, nobody paid any attention. As I
proceeded with the show, a few minutes later I spotted him again. He continued to move
all over the room aimlessly with absolutely no adult intervention or supervision for
another fteen minutes.
He came forward again and reached up to take a piece of rope from my table. I moved it
out of sight and he wandered away. “Maybe Mom wants to come and help this little guy
out,” I announced again. He walked away out of my sight for a few minutes, and then he
came back a third time, went behind my table and started to reach for my props. I took
his hand, brought him around to the front and announced loudly once more that the lost
toddler needed to see his mother. Nobody came forth. I asked again if anyone wanted
to claim him. No response. I let go of his hand and he wandered away.
The traveling toddler was nowhere to be seen for about ve minutes. Then all of a
sudden, he was right in front of me running with his arms outstretched. He plowed into
my table full force. I caught sight of him in time to grab and hold the table to keep it from
tipping over. He stopped short and turned and left, expressionless.
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 I kept calm and returned to the script to go on with the show. That’s when I spotted the
sopping silks. When the tot had hit the table, the milk pitcher had overturned on the
shelf, spilling its entire contents into the Square Circle full of silks.
No more Vanishing and Reappearing Milk trick. No more silk production. No ending, no
climax. My 45-minute show had just become 30 minutes. Plus, I was really ticked!
Where is Mom? Doesn’t anybody care that a two-year-old is running around doing
whatever he wants? Who’s going to reimburse me for those silks?
I did not really have an ending to the show any more. I had run out of tricks. I just
stopped. I nished up the trick I was on and packed up and left. I was really hot and
wanted to say something to someone, but I didn’t. On the way out several parents
stopped their conversations to tell me that I was great - the best entertainer they’d ever
had. The clubhouse manager gave me a check and a tip and said that the children had
enjoyed it “immensely,” and that they de nitely wanted me back next year. The thing is,
none of those adults had even watched the show. The manager was in the kitchen the
whole time.
The check covered about half the cost of replacing the silks I lost, and that day I vowed I
would never do a trick with any kind of liquid ever again.
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