Christmas is a time for memories. I have two childhood memories that have stayed with me all of my “x” number of years, and they are as clear as if they happened a couple of years ago instead of six decades ago.
It was 1954. I was six, Nub was four, and Doug was two. We lived in a small house, a real house (a house built off the ground is a real house) next door to Mimi and Papa, here on Smithland.
Being a schoolgirl then, a big first-grader, I was pretend writing on the wall on Christmas Eve night, this message: “We live here, Santa Claus! Don’t forget us!”
Nub and Doug started to pretend write, too, when Mama said that someone was looking in our window. We all ran to see, and there stood Santa Claus, white beard, red hat, the works.
If ever a little girl could have fainted from fright, I would have hit the floor. I think my heart stopped, and I was surely struck dumb.
Nub and Doug, being younger, labored under no fears that Santa might decide that we weren’t exactly the best-behaved children, and would leave us only switches and ashes.
They stood at the window, smiling at Santa, while the big first grader peeped between her fingers to make sure it wasn’t all a dream.
Santa talked through the closed window for a bit, then left us, presumably to go scare some more little children into good behavior.
After he left, one of my brothers, probably Nub, said that Santa had glasses just like Papa. I, who had been too shaken to give old Santa a close look, suddenly knew that we had been visited by an imposter. Thank goodness.
I remember a feeling of great relief that it wasn’t the real Santa, for Papa would never tell Santa that we were sometimes bad, and endanger our chances for toys,
But Mama told us that all men wore glasses like Papa, and we couldn’t use that item to positively identify Santa. Relief turned back into doubt, but that house had three quiet kids until bedtime.
Real Santa or Papa Santa, I’ll never forget that heart-stopping moment when he peeped in our window, leaving me quite numb.
My second favorite memory came about five years later. Mama and us kids, now four with addition of little sister, Helen, were coming home from the Christmas party at Utility Baptist Church, on the night of December 23rd. The Reeves children, Shirley, Jackie, Virginia, and Pam, were with us, for Mama had picked them up to ride with us to the festivities.
There were eight children and Mama, who was in her element with all those little ones around her. The night was very cold, and our old Chevrolet took its sweet time about warming the air.
To take our minds off the cold, and because it was the season, we sang Christmas songs all the way home. We ended with the one that says…”cause Santa Claus comes tonight!” but changed the phrase to “tomorrow night” since tomorrow was Christmas Eve.
By that time we had reached the Reeves children’s home. When we got out of the car to let them out, the sky was ablaze with all the shining stars of the universe.
I don’t know if it was the cold or the brilliant sky or the excitement of all of us children on the eve of Christmas Eve, but I remember a feeling of absolute joy when I looked up at the beautiful December sky.
Perhaps it was that we eight children, poor by society’s standards, were united in our comradeship and anticipation of the coming day.
Perhaps it was a mixture of love, security, and hope. Whatever it was that made me so happy and thankful left me with a wonderful childhood memory that has stood the test of time.
There have been so many Christmas memories for me since then; the Christmases of a teenager, a college girl, a young wife, then mother of three daughters, and now the grandmother of a beautiful granddaughter and the three fine young grandsons, ages 12 to 16.
There have been some sad Christmas memories, too, when the loss of a loved one made the season not so merry. We are told that life goes on, and it does, and we learn to live with our losses, but our hearts are never the same.
A more recent Christmas memory comes from when all the daughters were at home, and that’s been a goodly while, too. I used to always buy a Christmas tree, and I had my share of disasters where the store-bought trees were concerned. There have been trees that looked fine until they were brought inside, and instantly they became one sided, crooked, and impossible to set straight in the tree holder. Artful placement of the tree could usually partially disguise the deformities and we would always think that our tree was absolutely lovely, once the ornaments and lights were in place.
Every year when buying a tree, I would put the tree in a five gallon bucket of water out in the carport. There it would stay for a couple of days before being brought inside. One year, after leaving the tree out for two days, I brought the tree in, and we decorated it, turned the lights on, and stepped back to admire our efforts. Something was wrong. The tree smelled funny, not a soothing evergreen smell, but an awful smell.
How, I wondered to myself, did I manage to select a tree that smelled that bad, and not even know it until it came inside. Sniff, sniff-what in the world is that smell?
Most of the tree smelled like a tree, but one certain spot was the source of the trouble. Suddenly, I knew what had caused the stinky tree: it had been marked by every dog that came into the carport.
I sprayed the tree with lysol, clorox spray cleaner, and finally evergreen air freshener. Small improvement. I considered cutting out the offensive part, but I would have had a seriously disfigured tree. Finally, I just rotated the tree so that the worst part was next to the wall, so that passersby would not notice the odor. Also, a little pine oil cleaner was added to the water in the tree holder so that the tree smelled more like a housecleaning project than a Christmas tree.
I kept the source of the smell from my finicky daughters for as long as possible, for I knew they would want to throw out this already paid for tree, and get another one to replace it. By the time I admitted to knowing the truth of the tree, it was too late to change trees. Anyway, we were used to the strong pine cleaner smell by then, so we just toughed it out.
On December 26th, the tree came down, and was quickly taken to the field and burned. Since that year, each Christmas tree has spent its soaking time in the pool house, safely out of the reach of dogs. Crooked it may be, stinky it will not be.
Now, I have artificial trees that stay in the attic until December, when they come down, fully decorated, for another Christmas. They suit me and the dogs just fine, and we are more thankful now for food and a good fire than anything else.
A Merry Christmas to all our readers of the ever excellent American Free News Network.
If you enjoyed this article, then please REPOST or SHARE with others; encourage them to follow AFNN. If you’d like to become a citizen contributor for AFNN, contact us at managingeditor@afnn.us Help keep us ad-free by donating here.
Substack: American Free News Network Substack
Truth Social: @AFNN_USA
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/afnnusa
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/2_-GAzcXmIRjODNh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AfnnUsa
GETTR: https://gettr.com/user/AFNN_USA
CloutHub: @AFNN_USA