I recall several Christmases when I was a child. One was nearly a nightmare. On Boxing Day my mother decided to place parts of the old Christmas tree in the fireplace. She didn’t recon on it being quite so dry and between needles and branches burning, the house was nearly burning also. That Christmas I vividly recall.
Our house got a proper decorating at Christmas and the thing I miss most are those tiny glass candles that took the place of lights and used to bubble. Fascinating!
I also remember us three little girls standing on the stairwell to our bedrooms. We thought it was Christmas morning. Mom took one look at us and started laughing. “Upstairs now you three, Christmas hasn’t started yet.” It was all of 8:30 p.m.
The Christmas Harry and I put up our first tree is a bit hazy, but I still have one decoration left. It is now 60 years old and is stored in its own separate box between Christmases.
Rather than special Christmases I recall little bits and pieces…like cutting up fruit for the Christmas cake (and sneaking some…oh such divine pleasure)…going outside and bringing in small branches from the holly tree. I recall years later meeting a girl called “Holly” and thinking of those prickly little branches, every time I bumped into her. She wasn’t prickly, the branches were.
Of course there was Christmas music. I always felt “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear”, kind of spooky, when I was small. But oh, how I loved to sing and the house was full of my youthful voice belting out all those Christmas carols. No radio was left on all day in those years and there was no TV; so there was no competition. I had the whole house to myself. I often wonder what my mother thought of this little girl who couldn’t stop singing.
God knows us so well, and it was music that led me to the church and kept me there. Along the way the Lord and I became the best of friends and that has never changed either.
And it was music today that got me remembering all these things that I just had to share with you. Today I decided to drag out my old record player and put on some old fashioned Christmas carols. It no longer cooperates and I have to put the records on one at a time. I had an 8-track player too but it kept eating the tapes. I tried to fix it but after taking it apart I couldn’t put it back together again. (What a fascinating piece of equipment it was, no wonder it cost us so much…that of course was back in the dark ages.) I finally realized that even if I put together I’d probably electrocute myself, so it has been laid to rest.
What tickled me most about all this music organizing was the fact that I ran into a record. On it was written “Linda, 7B”. That was a long, long time ago. She must have taken it to school. My Linda is a grandmother now but for a little while today I remembered a much younger Linda with blue eyes like her Daddy’s,wanting to share her love of Christmas music, much the same as I did so many long years ago.
Photo:”12242008 ChristmasEve00028” by DR04 – Own work. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
