First Published 12/24/2014
I’m growing old in a place where I grew up. Growing up I plowed headlong through life making memories. Growing old, I don’t plow so much anymore, but I do enjoy most of those memories. I remember Christmas hunting with Pap. That lasted until he could trust me with an axe. After that I picked out, cut and carried our family Cedar trees alone. If I got lazy and first effort didn’t suit, I’d be sent back to find another. Shapley Cedars of proper size were plentiful on our farm back then. Tree stood wedged with rocks and broken bricks in a ten or twelve quart bucket of water at Big House’s front living room window. We had two or three short strings of multicolored lights. Lights in series, I think, so that when one bulb burned out, the whole string went out. Sis and I spent fussing moments successively testing every light on the tree with a new bulb until we found the offender. It got to be sort of a contest to see who could find it. Every year we broke a thin bright colored glass ball or two. Either we’d drop them while hanging or the dumb things just fell off of their own accord. Every brush of the tree might cause an explosion of thin colored glass shards to be swept up. Always, the broken ball was one most prized. Ice cycles. Thin aluminum foil strips. Sis was a devout hanger. I was a perverse thrower. Pestered me some when Mom sided with Sis’ slow careful hanging method rather than my fast flings. We heated big living room maybe twice a year. Pap fired up our largest wood stove to “take the chill off” about the time tree went up. From then for perhaps eight or ten days, that stove chewed major holes in Big House’s wood pile. I wheelbarrowed from main pile out front to a neat stack on Big House’s back porch every day. From back porch we carried in chunks as needed. Besides Christmas, we’d fire big parlor stove for a couple days whenever Mom’s Bridge Club met at our house during cold months. Christmas morning Pap fired stoves early, then went to milk. I followed soon after to help feed. Mom and Sis took care of family food preparation and Christmas comforts at Big House. Animals got special Christmas feed. Best alfalfa for sheep, good hay and sweet feed for Sadie, our milk cow, extra corn and hay for Tobe the mule and whatever horse Pap had at the time. Sally, our Yorkshire sow and all the barn cats enjoyed most of Pap’s bucket of fresh warm milk. All barn stables were bedded with fresh straw thrown down from the mow. Most Christmases found lambing season started and early feeding took extra time while we tended to newborn. There’s something special about new lambs on Christmas morning. Maybe because Jesus was born in a manger and every picture I’d seen showed sheep and lambs there at the beginning. Ewes muttering to their new born as they licked them clean just felt right and proper. Pap and I might pause together watching. We’d be sure lamb had a first feeding of colostrum before we left the barn. Corn meal pancakes with eggs and syrup or maybe buckwheat cakes with puddin, fresh from recent butchering led most Christmas morning breakfast menus. Occasionally fresh sausage, cured ham or thick cured bacon made the list with cackle berries from our farm flock. Pap refilled stoves, Mom ate and washed dishes, Sis and I checked the tree for burned out bulbs before everybody went in to open presents. Opening didn’t officially start until Pap’s pen knife opened preparatory to carefully slitting each piece of tape so papers could be reused again next year if Mom liked it. This year, my son James and I couldn’t find a suitable Cedar near Big House, so we went afar to find, cut and haul one home to Moorefield. Instead of Sis and me squabbling over decorations, we’ll sit watching my children decorate our cedar Sunday evening. I sold all our sheep to a new home soon after Pap died, so Mom wouldn’t fight winter weather to tend lambs and I tore the big barn down years ago when it was damaged by a bank cave-in. Mom and Pap are gone now, but Sis is still here to remember with me. Come Christmas morning we’ll all go in to presents. Opening will begin when my pocket knife clicks. Once again, I say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all, my loyal readers. I’ll try to be back with more columns next year.
