Dripping Life

We’ve decked the halls and hung the outdoor lights. The yard is decorated and the stockings are hung. Christmas vacation comes in a few days, our collegiate big sis is home for the holidays, and from the sights and sounds around our home, the holidays are just around the corner…and like most families, we’re in the final stages of preparing for guests and then sneaking in a holiday trip.

As I recall from childhood, when we prepared for guests, we began by cleaning the house – stem to stern – even cleaning the closets and straightening the drawers, especially if Aunt Mary, my mother’s older sister, was coming because she was a snoop and would check out every drawer and closet…and would comment (to Mom’s chagrin) if something wasn’t Good Housekeeping Seal perfect.

Over the holidays, I loved going to my Dallas grandparents’ home because being with them was always special for me and because our whole family would be together. The Christmas tree in the living room was 12-feet tall and when all of us brought in the packages to be opened, they would pile higher than the bottom of the tree. 

My grandmother cooked three huge meals a day, beginning with a farmhand’s breakfast of bacon, eggs, potatoes, biscuits, grits, orange juice and fresh milk and butter from the farm. As soon as the table was cleared, dishes were washed, dried and put away, it was time to begin work on lunch – typically meat, potatoes and plenty of vegetables, like corn, okra, green beans, spinach, squash or whatever came out of the garden.

At Christmastime, there were sugar cookies, pecan pralines, fudge drops, peanut patties, divinity and several kinds of cake. My favorite was my mother’s fruit cake, topped with whipping cream (that was long before Cool-Whip)…and for someone like me, born with an abnormally large sweet tooth, this annual experience was truly a heavenly memory.

We usually all walked to church on Christmas Eve. I remember praying as hard as I could for Divine Intervention --guiding our pastor to, just this once, cut his usually lengthy sermon short so we could go home, jump into bed and close our eyes. 

Then FINALLY, the last amen was said and we would walk the three or four blocks back home, scanning the skies in hopes of seeing the sleigh with eight reindeer darting among the clouds.

After what seemed like an hours-long breakfast on Christmas morning, we would line up – by age – outside the French doors, dividing the living room from the dining room, For what seemed like ages, my uncles took their positions with their 8 mm cameras and Granddaddy took a stroll around the living room “checking”  to make sure Santa had, indeed, visited, then FINALLY we were allowed to march in (still in line) and find the chair or couch where Santa had deposited our gifts. 

We observed these traditions for all the years of my childhood and into my teens, until after I went off to college. We’ve transferred those 8mm home movies into new media and each year we watch them, remembering those no longer here and being thankful for a treasury of cherished Christmas memories.