Christmas Memories

Nothing induces nostalgia quite the way Christmas does. As a child, Christmas was my favorite time of the year, as I’m sure it is for most children. This morning I awakened early and lay in bed remembering some of my favorite Christmases. Every Christmas was special, but some stand out more than others – like the year Daddy got the Christmas spirit.

I got my love of Christmas from my mama, who always went over the top in celebration of it. She decorated and baked and played her old Andy Williams and Perry Como LP albums on our record player. (Remember those?) Daddy had two major roles to play each Christmas. One was to chop down a cedar tree from somewhere on the farm or on land he managed as a forester. The other was to pay Santa for all the gifts he brought us. Yes, even when we believed in Santa, Daddy told us he had to pay him for all those toys! He wasn’t about to let some little man in a red suit get all the credit!

Once Daddy had brought the tree in and got it to stand straight in the stand, he would put the large colored lights on it and then sit down in his recliner while Mama and my sisters and I decorated the tree. The lights were hot enough to burn you if you chanced to touch one, so we had to be careful. Cedar limbs aren’t very sturdy, so our decorations had to be lightweight, usually just colored balls and tinsel. One thing we always did, though, was sit down together and string popcorn on black thread to put around the tree. One year we got together small toys and other little household items and spray- painted them to put on the tree.

While all the preparations were going on, Daddy played the scrooge. He loved to Bah, hum-bug and act like he wasn’t the least bit interested in what we were doing. But one year, things were different. Daddy was out marking timber one day when he came upon a bounty of huge, perfectly-formed pine cones littering the forest floor. He was always one to appreciate the beauty of nature, and so he gathered a large sack of cones and brought them home. He was so proud of his find! He painted the pine cones gold and silver and placed them all around the living room. And that was just the start! Soon he was bringing in greenery and stringing up more lights and decorating everything that didn’t move. We loved it! To this day, we refer to it as the year Daddy got the Christmas spirit.

Of course, there were Christmas gifts that I remember to this day. (No Red Rider BB gun, but we did get BB guns one year!) One year Mary Jane and I got new bicycles. It was one of those exceptionally warm Christmases with highs in the 70’s, so we had a wonderful time riding our bikes around the farm and up and down nearby dirt roads. Another year, we got a large Barbie doll house and a little plastic car, a snazzy convertible, for Barbie and Ken to ride around in. I loved my Barbie dolls and played with them until I was almost fourteen. Another memorable gift was the child-size kitchen set Daddy struggled to assemble one year. It was made out of pink cardboard, with a stove that actually lit up when you turned on the burners, and a faucet with running water in the sink. We certainly got our parents’ money’s worth from that gift!

A big surprise one year was a small chord organ. I had always wanted to learn to play the piano, and begged to take lessons, but Daddy had been forced to do so as a child, and had acquired a pure hatred for piano music. No way was he going to allow a piano in his house. I was quite disappointed, but Mama ordered the chord organ from Sears and Roebuck that Christmas. It arrived several weeks early, in two very large boxes, one for the organ and one for the stool that went with it. How could she hide such large gifts? The solution came courtesy of Daddy’s bumper crop of butternut squash. And I do mean bumper! Daddy had been bringing in the huge, orange squash daily and piling them up on the enclosed porch that was at the side of our antebellum house. The porch was where we kept a large chest-type freezer and anything else that needed storing. The squash pile grew higher and wider and soon became a joke. Well, the organ arrived one day while we were at school, so Mama moved all the squash aside, put the organ in its place, and then piled the squash around and on top of it. We never knew it was there!

Remembering the organ reminds me that one of my favorite things about Christmas is the music. I soon learned to play several carols. As I mentioned earlier, the sounds of Perry Como crooning “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” and Andy Williams singing “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” filled the air whenever daddy was not at home.
( If he was home, a football game was on.) But my favorite music was the music I made with mama and my sisters when we were in the kitchen washing and drying dishes. We would all sing Christmas songs together, and those were some of my happiest childhood moments.

Perhaps one Christmas stands out in my memory more than all the others. That year we had opened gifts, and then Daddy and I went to check on a heifer that was about to give birth. When we got there, we found her in trouble. The calves’ hooves had emerged, but the heifer was apparently in great pain, and never having experienced birthing before, panicked. She was running around in a state of sheer terror. Daddy knew the calf probably wasn’t going to come on its own, so he would have to pull it. That meant getting a very frightened young cow into the corral where he could work on her. Daddy and I both chased her, but she was in no mood to cooperate. Daddy always got angry and upset when a cow was in trouble, and this day was no exception, even if it was Christmas. When her water broke, we knew there wasn’t much time to save the calf. Then, to escape us, she swam across the pond! By the time we finally got her into the corral, she collapsed on her side, and Daddy attached the chains to the calf’s hooves. He pulled so hard and was so agitated, I feared he would have a heart attack. I stood by watching and praying that the calf would live. Finally, the slimy, wet calf flopped out on the ground, looking completely lifeless. Daddy checked for breathing, and when there was none, he started blowing into its nostrils. When that didn’t work, he picked the calf up by its hind feet and shook it with all his might. He dropped it hard on the ground, where it still showed no signs of life. My heart sank. Then, we heard the faintest little “maahhh.” A miracle had occurred! There was life! Daddy and I started laughing and whooping in relief and happiness at what we had just witnessed. Slowly the calf gained strength and finally struggled to get up on its long, spindly legs. We watched quietly. About that time, we heard the honking of geese, and looked up into the blue sky to see a flock flying overheard in perfect V formation. At that moment, I was overcome with the realization of the beauty of that Christmas day. It was one of those magical moments that you can’t produce; it just happens once in a great while. That Christmas probably stands out in my memory more than any other.

I just remembered something else. I was always somewhat artistic, even as a child, and one year I decided to make a nativity scene out of Paper Mache. I spent hours molding newspaper and glue into a small Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus, and then painted them with tempera paint. Finally, I shellacked them for preservation. Then I cut three rectangles from Styrofoam and put them together to create a triangular-shaped stable. I spray-painted it gold. (It was a very “modern” stable.) I made a paper star to hang from the center of the triangle and attached a Christmas light behind it to give light to my scene. I was quite proud of my handiwork, and Mama just loved it. Daddy, however, laughed and referred to the little holy family as the Christmas ghouls! That is what they were called for the next few years, as Mama lovingly got them out and put them on the long counter in the family room, surrounded by greenery. She would always tell Daddy they were her favorite Christmas decoration! After many years, the little figures disintegrated, but I can still see them in my mind to this day.

I guess Christmas is all about memories, and memories are what ground us. The world is too fast, too much, and too overwhelming at times, but at each year’s end, we stop our regular routine and remember. We remember Christmases past, family, and friends, and we remember that God came to be with us in the form of a small baby in a small town called Bethlehem. Merry Christmas.