By E. Graydon Carter

Christmas came early for New York Artist James Steinmeyer: last July, to be precise. That is when he got a note from an admirer of his interior illustrations for House & Garden asking him to design her family's Christmas card. Steinmeyer, 32, was only too delighted to comply, since his hopeful patron was Nancy Reagan. Steinmeyer's gouache of the White House Red Room was mailed last week to some 60,000 of the First Family's friends, relatives and political supporters. Paid for by the Republican National Committee, the card carries the message, "The President and Mrs. Reagan extend to you their best wishes for a joyous Christmas and a peaceful New Year." And so does Jim Steinmeyer.

The fifth annual Kennedy Center Honors gala had the sort of black-tie, stretch-limo elegance that faintly evoked eras past, when the honorees hit their professional strides. Receiving this year's ribbon and gold-plated medallions was an illustrious quintet of long-lived achievers: Director-Writer-Producer George Abbott, 95; Actress Lillian Gish, 86; Bandleader Benny Goodman, 73; Dancer-Choreographer Gene Kelly, 70; and Conductor Eugene Ormandy, 83. Top-banana stripes went to First Trouper Ronald Reagan, 71. Warmly addressing each of the honorees, he came to Abbott, who is currently reviving his 1936 Broadway show On Your Toes, and addressed him as "Mr. Abbott." (Pause.) "I'm not sure enough about calling him George," said the President, "since I'm temporarily between engagements."

In the early years of their marriage, they were the new young couple of Camelot--he a restless freshman Senator with a brother in the White House, and she a Washington wife with retiring but winning ways. Last week, nearly five years after Joan Kennedy, 46, first moved out of the McLean, Va., home she shared with Senator Edward M. Kennedy, 50, the couple filed for divorce, declaring that there had been an "irretrievable breakdown" of their 24-year marriage. At one point during the brief hearing in Barnstable, Mass, (where they both stillvote), Joan appeared to be near tears, according to Court Clerk Robert Farrell, but "Ted put his hand on her shoulder, and she seemed to regain her composure." Under the terms of what Joan called a "very generous" agreement, she will get alimony, child support, a lump-sum cash settlement, their apartment on Boston's Beacon Street and their Hyannis Port home. They will share legal custody of Patrick, 15; Edward Jr., 21, and Kara, 22, are no longer minors. Said Joan in a written statement: "I share with my husband a strong sense of dedication to our children, who have been the greatest joy in both our lives. Divorce can not alter that, nor can it alter the love and affection I have had, and always will have, for members of the Kennedy family." The Senator, whose decision not to enter the 1984 presidential race was partly based on the pending court action, had no public comment. The divorce will be final in a year.

It's not easy trying to establish your identity when you are the wife of protean Writer Norman Mailer, 49, especially when you're an artist in your own right. A former art instructor from Russellville, Ark., Norris Church Mailer, 33, has hardly been hurt by familial connections, but her oils are better than many a skeptic would expect. Last week the artist's work went on display in a one-woman show in Manhattan's SoHo district. For her depiction of down-home folks sitting on front stoops or ambling along Main Street, Church uses family, friends and even herself as models--just about everybody around her, in fact, except her husband. Says she: "I'm scared to. I don't like to be kind to people in my paintings."

--By E. Graydon Carter

On the Record

Les Aspin, 44, Democratic Representative from Wisconsin, on the House refusal to fund production of five MX missiles: "It doesn't mean the MX is dead. If you give Congress a chance to vote on both sides of an issue, it will always do it."

Peter De Vries, 72, novelist, on being named to the American Academy of Arts and Letters: "The day I got the notification telegram, I happened to be thinking of all the big money passed around to some authors. I started to draft a telegram of acceptance: 'Thanks a million. Make that a million-five.' "

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