Family tradition is alive and well at the Jones’. Every holiday season a 25-foot artificial Christmas tree goes up at the Sutton Place digs of Worth Media CEO Randy Jones and his wife Connie. It takes three days to erect using a cherry picker, and for decorations boasts 1,700 nutcrackers collected by 18-year-old son Cole, many inherited from his grandmother—also a nutcracker collector. Then Connie ties 1,500 red bows on the tree herself. Talk about a family tree!

The Jones’ holiday soul food supper—with mouthwatering treats like fried chicken, sweet potato soufflé, black-eye peas, collard greens, cornbread, and desserts like rum cake, pecan squares, and peach and blackberry cobbler—was the perfect Southern hospitality party to put close pals into the season spirit. And family friends like Chappy Morris, Mort Zuckerman, Nancy Holmes, Jonathan Farkas and Somers White, Patricia Duff, Georgette Mosbacher and sis Lyn Paulsin, Kenny Lane, Ivana Trump, and Joan Collins with beau Percy Gibson savored every minute of it.

When I asked 36-year-old Percy about his attraction to an older woman, he replied, “It’s not about age, it’s about Joan. She’s ageless.” And Joan (68) kept introducing him as “my husband”—while at the same time denying they were married yet, as British tabloids had claimed … Go figure! I asked her, why bother to get married? Her answer: “When you meet the right person you want to be married, and Percy is the right person. He’s very mature for his age.” He must be—Percy is one year older than Joan’s artist son Sasha Newley. They were certainly touchy feely and gazing continuously into each other’s eyes.