Treasured Christmas Eve memories
Every Christmas Eve, all 17 members of my extended family would gather at my grandparents’ home before we walked the four or five blocks to Oak Lawn Methodist Church for the 5:30 p.m. Christmas Eve service.
For us kids, it was often hard to pay attention to the sermon because we had visions of sugarplums dancing through our heads, but somehow we managed. I’ll have to admit, though, sometimes it seemed like our minister intentionally slowed down the pace of the service…on purpose!
By the time we had returned to my grandmother’s house, we were starving and had to wait patiently for my mom and her sisters to lay the table with a variety of finger buns, salads, fruits, cheeses and all manner of holiday breads, cookies and fudge.
Then came the talent show.
Those of us who could play an instrument performed duets. My sister Susan and I played a violin-piano duet. Others sang, danced, performed simple magic tricks or put on a skit. One year, two of my boy cousins donned coonskin caps and sang “Davy Crockett.”
But out of all the acts at our annual family talent shows, the one I have loved down through the years was my father’s reading of the poem, “Jes’ ‘Fore Christmas,” written by Eugene Field in 1904. Dad told us his grandfather read the same stanzas to him and his sister on Christmas Eve.
In fact, I memorized it at some point and would recite it to my children, even as it became outdated and obscure…and, of course, I still recite it too.
I’ve included it here, hoping you might experience some of the same mental holiday imagery I did, back so many years ago:
JES’ 'FORE CHRISTMAS
By Eugene Fields
FATHER calls me William, sister calls me Will,
Mother calls me Willie, but the fellers call me Bill!
Mighty glad I ain't a girl— ruther be a boy,
Without them sashes, curls, an' things that's worn by Fauntleroy!
Love to chawnk green apples an' go swimmin' in the lake—
Hate to take the castor-ile they give for belly-ache!
'Most all the time, the whole year round, there ain't no flies on me,
But jest 'fore Christmas I'm as good as I kin be!
Got a yeller dog named Sport, sic him on the cat;
First thing she knows, she doesn't know where she is at!
Got a clipper sled, an' when us kids goes out to slide,
'Long comes the grocery cart, an' we all hook a ride!
But sometimes when the grocery man is worrited an' cross,
He reaches at us with his whip, an' larrups up his hoss,
An' then I laff an' holler, "Oh, ye never teched me!"
But jest 'fore Christmas I'm as good as I kin be!
Gran'ma says she hopes that when I git to be a man,
I'll be a missionary like her oldest brother, Dan,
As was et up by the cannibuls that lives in Ceylon's Isle,
Where every prospeck pleases, an' only man is vile!
But gran'ma she has never been to see a Wild West show,
Nor read the Life of Daniel Boone, or else I guess she'd know
That Buff'lo Bill an' cowboys is good enough for me!
Excep' jest 'fore Christmas, when I 'm good as I kin be!
And then old Sport he hangs around, so solemnlike an' still,
His eyes they seem a-sayin': "What's the matter, little Bill?"
The old cat sneaks down off her perch an' wonders what's become
Of them two enemies of hern that used to make things hum!
But I am so perlite an' 'tend so earnestly to biz,
That mother says to father: "How improved our Willie is!"
But father, havin' been a boy hisself, suspicions me
When, jest 'fore Christmas, I'm as good as I kin be!
For Christmas, with its lots an' lots of candies, cakes, an' toys,
Was made, they say, for proper kids, an' not for naughty boys;
So wash yer face an' bresh yer hair, an' mind yer p's and q's,
An' don't bust out yer pantaloons, and don't wear out yer shoes;
Say "Yessum" to the ladies, an' "Yessur" to the men,
An' when they's company, don't pass yer plate for pie again;
But, thinkin' of the things yer'd like to see upon that tree,
Jest 'fore Christmas be as good as yer kin be!
Hanukkah is upon us and Christmas is a week away.
Happy holidays all!