How to Tell It's Christmas

 “Is it Christmas today?” I ask again.

It was hard to tell then. There was no snow in Alabama like on the cards and in the movies. No mittens and hats and snowballs fights. No horse-drawn sleighs.

Winter comes to Alabama in damp browns and blacks and grays. It was hard for a young child to tell when Christmas is coming in 1966.

            But this is the year I have just learned that Christmas can't come until after Thanksgiving. The turkey that has lurked around the chicken yard all summer, terrorizing me, has disappeared suddenly. Something else to be thankful for.

            And my mother and sisters and I have been to Mama Clark’s to buy fabric and trim for Christmas dresses. My sisters take a long time to pick out fabric. They like new clothes. I don’t like  the the feel of new clothes. I like old clothes. Mama picks out my fabric.

That day, my mother and my sisters and Mama Clark spend a long, boring time considering ways to adjust last year’s patterns for this year’s fashions and so save us the cost of buying new ones. I pretend up Darlene and Elvis, and we play together awhile.Then I fall asleep on Mama Clark's back porch swing.

            My mother is spending more time than usual at her sewing machine. Its whir is a background noise in the house, even as I fall asleep at night. And I spend time every day before my afternoon nap, spilling my mother’s full button jar onto the table, raking through the contents for buttons to set off the red or gold or russet cloth of our new clothes for when they are finished.

            My mother spends more time than usual in the kitchen, too. The heat has been turned off in the spare room to store the extra food. That room is filling up with fruit cakes, tea cakes, tipple cakes, and all kinds of good things to eat, along with the supplies for baking to come that has overflowed the kitchen cupboards. The black walnuts we picked up in the fall or the pecans my grandfather brought us, or the apples my mother has dried. When I follow her in there, it smells like a gingerbread house. We cannot have any of it until Christmas.

            Lately, in the middle of sending me to fetch something for her, my mother will stop herself.

 “Mama needs her house shoes” she’ll begin, or “sweater” or “scissors. Will you run go look under my bed,” or  “in the hall closet,” or  “in the spare room . . .”

 Then she’ll stop and put a finger to her mouth.“Oh, never mind, honey,” she’ll say, “No. No, don’t you go. Mama will get them herself.” 

It will take me years, slow child that I am, to properly understand this one.

            Sunday a while back, just before the service was over, the deacons passed the plates around a second time, and everyone in the church, young and old, drew out a name to buy a gift to put under the tree for the Christmas Eve service. My mother says I can have three whole dollars to spend on a present, and that I can’t tell anyone but her that it’s for little Bette Griffin.

My Sunday school teacher has taken me aside and measured me for a set of wings, a gown, and a halo. She has showed me how to walk down the middle aisle of the church sanctuary; step, pause, step, pause, looking very serious, as The Angel of the Lord should do. I have to learn a new Bible verse.

Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

It’s a lot of words to remember. Instead of learning my nursery rhymes, I practice it with my mother every day. I tell her, “This is a lot of words. I would rather just say, Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater.”

 My mother says. “This is not that hard. You already know all your nursery rhymes. If you can learn all that, you can remember this.”

“But they rhyme,” I say. 

 “Nevertheless,” she says, “you can do it.” She turns her chin down and looks right in my eyes.  “And if you stand up in the church on Christmas Eve with those wings and that halo and say Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater to the Shepherds, there will be a spanking waiting for you when we get home. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I say.

 “Now,” she says, “say it again from the beginning.”

So I have to remember all the words. And I have to remember to walk slowly. And I have to remember not to say Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater. And not to reach back and scratch at my wings. Or to bend over. Because then the halo falls off. Every time.

One day, my daddy and I go into the woods and pick out a tree. We find it in just a few minutes. He lifts me way up to tie an old rag around the top of it so we can spot it when we come back for it later. My daddy sets me back on the ground and looks down at me. He is very, very tall.

He teases, “Look at those long arms and legs sticking out from your coat, girl. I’m going to have to put a brick on your head to keep you from growing so quick.”

Then we take a walk in the woods and call to the birds there. My daddy can call just like a bird and you can’t tell the difference. We hunt mistletoe. We go to the lake and skip rocks. We row around the lake. When we get home, Daddy tells Mama that it took so long because cedars are getting hard to find. And he winks at me.

One morning, Mama tells me in a couple of weeks on Christmas Eve, Santa will visit our church and I can tell him what I’d like for Christmas. I can ask for one thing, politely. One thing only. Because it is not good to be greedy. Greediness will make children grow up crooked.

“Can I ask him to turn me into a horse?” I ask.

“No,” she says.

“Can I ask him for a monkey?”

“Absolutely not.”

            Then what is the point? I think this to myself, but say nothing. I look out the window at the damp, black and gray landscape. It looks just like the pictures on the tv set.

            “Can I ask him for snow?" Mama thinks about this.

            “Yes,” she says, “but don’t be surprised if he can’t work it out for you this year. He’s very busy.” She looks out the window, too. “You should probably ask him for a new coat.”

“Oh,” I say. “Yes, ma’am.”

I would much rather have a monkey than a new coat.

“Would you like some coffee?” she asks, “and a piece of pie?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I say.

My mother pours a dollop of coffee into my cup of milk and cuts off a nice chunk of sweet potato pie for each of us. I know that I’m getting pie for breakfast to make up for the fact that she won’t let Santa Claus bring me a monkey or turn me into a horse. There is no question about it, now.  I am completely certain that my mother runs everything. Even Santa Claus.

After pie and coffee, we sit at the kitchen table with construction paper, scissors, and a rubber-tipped bottle of mucilage. I love the way it smells in here. Coffee, cinnamon, lemon cleaner, and glue. My mother cuts longs strips of red and green paper and shows me how to make them into a chain. At first I count them, but when we get past ten, my mother helps. There are twelve. We hang them on a nail in the kitchen.

Mama says I can take one chain off every night before I go to bed, and count them every day.

“You mean after all this work we’re only going to tear it up?” I say.

“Yes,” she says, “and when we get to the last chain, you’ll know that it’s Christmas Eve.”

I think about that for a minute. I have an idea. “If we take a bunch of them off every day, will Christmas come sooner?”

“No,” she says.

“So Christmas is coming in that many days no matter what I do?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a lot.” I say.

“We have a lot to do,” my mother said then. “The days will go by quickly.”

And she was right again.

Still waits all year for German Chocolate Cake

Thanks for coming. Come again soon.

Leann

You Never Know

When I was a very young child, I believed that leaves turned into birds and flew south for the winter. Back in those days, when I was trying to figure out how the world works, I got a lot of convoluted ideas about life.

Surrounded by mostly adults out on our farm, I listened to and interpreted their conversations the best I could. My parents and siblings often talked about seasonal changes, of the birds flying south for the winter in autumn, and of the leaves falling. Those two things especially got mixed together in my mind. The next step in belief only required a bit of magic.

And the world then was full of magic, it seemed to me.

 One autumn morning in about the third year of my life, I sat on the front step of our house while my mother sat on the porch shelling corn.

I should have been helping her with the shelling, but mostly I sat there with an ear of dried corn on my lap and an empty bucket at my feet, watching the wind blow. A strong blast shook the oak tree in the front yard. That tree was a close and favorite friend of mine. A couple bales of leaves drifted down to the ground below.

But as I watched, it appeared to me that instead of all drifting down, some leaves drifted up and sailed over the cornfields and the trees, with beaks and wings silhouetted against the wide, gray sky.

 So I thought that special leaves, maybe the most colorful ones, get to turn into birds and then fly south for the winter. Kind of like going to heaven. It made perfect sense to me at the time.

When I told my mother what I had discovered,  she smiled and continued with her corn.

A year or so later on the same porch, again shelling corn, this time with one of my big sisters, I watched the scenario play out with the oak tree in much the same way I remembered from before. Sitting there idly with ear of corn in my lap, I told my sister about how leaves turn into birds and fly south for the winter.

My sister put down her ear of corn, sucked the blister on her thumb, and regarded me with a scowl.

“That’s the craziest thing I ever heard a four-year-old come up with,” she said. “There must have already been some birds roosting in that tree and they flew away when the wind got sharp. You’re too dreamy. Everybody with any kind of sense knows that leaves are leaves and birds are birds.”

“And you need to get busy,” she added, indicating the empty bucket at my feet. “You’re old enough to shell more corn than that.” She grudgingly went back to her work.

I looked down at the empty bucket as devastation washed over me. My sister was a senior in high school. She could tie her own shoes. She could read a book to herself. She knew just about everything there was to know about everything.

I looked back up at the oak and wondered, if leaves don’t turn into birds and fly south for the winter, how could I even be sure that the stories that old tree had told me all summer were true? Or that the tooth fairy could find my house? Or that someday, if I worked at it hard enough, I could grow up to be a horse? And marry Elvis Presley?

I figured it would be better not to mention things like that anymore. And so I haven’t. Mostly.

Fall is and always has been my favorite season. As an adult, and a homeowner, I’m now almost completely certain that the leaves on our trees don’t turn into birds and fly south for the winter. Or at least, the majority of them don’t.

The majority of the leaves from our trees, after a great deal of effort on the part of myself and my husband, spend the winter at the bottom of the garden, turning into homemade dirt.

Which is not a bad end for a leaf. It’s a nice spot down there, surrounded by hickory trees and oaks. I go down there myself to sit in a little patch of sun that finds its way in, Scout and I, and the Devil Herself of a morning sometimes.

Cup of coffee. Toast and jam. It’s a nice place to sit and watch the wind blow when I should otherwise be working. I can listen to any stories the trees might care to tell. And its a good place to keep watch in case any of the leaves get enough gumption to magic themselves into birds and fly south for the winter. You never know.

Any excuse will do.

 Happy Thanksgiving.  Watch the leaves.

Leann

With him, still

Not so long ago and far away in another life, I was a storyteller. Here’s one of the stories I often told this time of year:

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, I was a little girl in Alabama. Some things were the same then. Mamas and Daddies loved their children. Spring came every year. Elvis was the King of Rock and Roll. Some things were different. Little girls almost always wore dresses. My mother made all of my clothes. Everybody we knew went to the same church every Sunday. Twice.

I was the youngest child in the family by many years, almost as young as a grandchild. I was not unappealing to look at, with blonde hair, blue eyes and a ready smile. Unfortunately, I also had a busy brain and a mouth to go with it, and was forever asking inconvenient questions at inconvenient times.

            My mother, God bless her, loved dressing me up for church on Sundays. So did my teenaged sisters. I guess they thought they might as well have some kind of fun out of me in exchange for putting up with my behavior for the rest of the week.

So on Saturday nights they picked out my dress and slip and shoes and socks and underwear. They bathed me and washed my hair. They slathered my hair with Dippity-Do and filled my head full of itchy, pokey brush rollers. It was all more of a trial than any four-year-old should ever have to endure.

            But on the Saturday night before Easter, these ridiculous rituals would go into overdrive. My mother would have been working for weeks by then, making her idea of the perfect Easter outfit for her baby. One that that bristled with lace, embroidery, puffed sleeves, ribbons and bows. My mother and sisters would turn me into a pastel petit four for the day, an overly frosted little pink and white cupcake with blonde hair. An Easter confection.

            Of course, I did not want to be a little pink and white Easter confection at that time in my life. Back then, my goal was to someday, eventually, grow up to be a horse and/or marry Elvis Presley. His magazine photos were plastered all over the walls of the bedroom I shared with my big sisters.

To that end, I got together with my imaginary friend, Darlene, every day. And when Darlene arrived, it was the easiest thing in the world to pretend Elvis up for a visit to our house, as well. Once there, he would very obligingly play whatever game Darlene and I had gotten going, with my dog, Chipper, and my pet chicken, Irmengarde in tow. Darlene and I could always count on Elvis to liven up an otherwise dull afternoon.

But, oh, those Easter weekends! The newness of those clothes! I hated the scratch of lace. I hated the binding of ribbons and elasticated puffed sleeves. And the unforgiving white patent leather shoes. And white cotton gloves, for goodness sake. And a straw hat with an elastic strap under my chin. Horrors.

I failed to understand how the wearing of castoff boy's britches and tennis shoes and a t-shirt to church on Easter Sunday could prevent the Easter Bunny from coming or Jesus from rising from his tomb. It was all very confusing.

But my mother and sisters were on a mission. A mission to try to make me the cutest little Easter brat at Mamre Baptist Church. So, with my hair let down and combed out, they worked me into new underwear, socks, shoes, gloves, and confectionery dress. Then I was made to stand on the little bench in front of my mother’s dressing table, where I could see myself in the big, round mirror from head to toe, and be admired by all the females of the family.

So there I stood on the Easter Sunday morning of my fourth year, a successfully potty-trained human being who had left her high chair far behind. Stuffed into itchy, binding clothes, my stiff, sprayed hair in a perfect “flip” around my shoulders, I felt like some sort of sacrificial lamb to fashion. Oh, the indignity.

I stared in the mirror, feeling my pre-school gorge rise, until finally, I exploded. First I kicked off the shoes and wrenched off the gloves and socks. I threw the hat across the room and began to tug at the ribbon around my waist. Next I pulled the hated dress over my head, that object of all those hours of my poor mother's loving work.  As I tugged and wriggled and twisted off those clothes, I growled and whimpered like a caged animal.

And then there I was on the little bench, staring up at my mother, wearing only my little white cotton slip and panties. My face was blotchy, my hair enmeshed in tangles from the struggle to disrobe. Without a sound, my sisters melted out of the room.

From the doorway, my mother stared back at me, outwardly calm, inwardly seething. But she had been a mother much longer than I had been a child. She was much smarter than I was. And more patient. As she opened her mouth to say something, the kitchen phone rang.

“You stay right there and don’t you move, young lady. I’ll be back to deal with you in a minute.”

So I stood, sniffling and trembling with anger. Darlene appeared. I began to tell her my troubles. My mother soon returned and stood at the door, watching me talk to the empty air around me. My abandoned clothes had come to rest in various unlikely places around the bedroom she shared with my father.

Curiosity being one of my foremost character flaws, I turned my attention to her. “Who was that on the telephone, Mama?” I asked, still sniffling.

My mother’s expression changed then. Her eyes took on a shrewd look. She was wise enough to recognize an opportunity when one presented itself.

“Who that was on the phone, young lady,” she said, “was Elvis.”

I stopped sniffling. Darlene disappeared back from whence she came in an instant. My mother had my full attention now.

“Elvis heard about the outfit I’ve been sewing for you this Easter. He wanted me to take a picture of you wearing it.” Here my mother nonchalantly studied the nails on her left hand. “I told him I’d see what I could do, but not to expect too much, because you were cutting up such didoes about it.”

I exploded again, this time into action. Running around the room, I gathered up the hated clothes, talking a mile a minute about how I’d have them on before she knew it, how I’d comb my own hair and buckle my own shoes, and if she would just go get my brother’s camera, I would stand very, very still, and smile real pretty, and be good the rest of the day. No. I’d be good forever and ever. And ever. Amen.

Mother disappeared down the hall and shortly returned with the camera and my sisters. They made a couple of adjustments to my ensemble and took me outside. Darlene waited for me there in front of the camellia bush. And that’s where my mother snapped my photograph. For the King.

Then my family piled into the car and headed to church like every other Sunday of our lives. Darlene waved us all the way down the road to the turnoff.

I’m sure my Easter basket was lovely that year. I’m sure I hid eggs and ate candy and had a wonderful day. But what I remember most about that Easter is imagining the look on Elvis’s face, all the way up in Memphis, when he got my picture in the mail. At Graceland. Who really wants to be a horse when they grow up anyway?

I have lived through a fair few Easters since that one. I think about those years sometimes, of my family, and the world we knew then. I think about Darlene. She must surely be getting as long in the tooth as I am, these days. I miss her.

Not long ago, I visited Graceland. I did not see my photo there. I’m sure it must mean that Elvis carried it with him always, perhaps in his wallet. I like to think he could see Darlene in that picture with me. That Elvis Presley had the only existing photo ever taken of the two of us together, all those years ago. I like to think that somewhere out there in the cosmos, it’s with him, still.

Still hates breaking in new clothes.

Happy Easter. Thanks for coming. 

Come again soon.

Leann