CHRISTMAS MEMORIES

A stiff, bristly, good smelling cedar tree, cut from Papa's woods. Shiny red and green punch-out ornaments from a sack of flour.

A string of lights, red and green and yellow and blue, and some spotted where the paint had peel off from the pointed bulbs. When one blew they all went out.

Each bulb unscrewed, replaced with a new one, and suddenly the connection is made and the lights, filling your lap and trailing on the floor, light up with the magic of Christmas.

A crate of apples, each in its nest of green paper. A bag of tangerines, so easy to peel. A box of chocolate covered cherries, mama's favorite, Pecans and walnuts to crack on the hearth.

A box of dried grapes, they were awful, your teeth grated on the seeds and your hands got dirty holding them, but mama always bought them.

Fat, rough skinned oranges, with holes cut in the top to squeeze the juice through.  The acid from the peel made our lips and around our mouths, red.

Daddy showed us how to use peppermint sticks for straws to suck the juice through, until the sticks became hollow and filled with little caves.

Cakes, lop-sided layers turned out to cool on brightly printed feed sacks. Coconut and chocolate and buttermilk filling decorated with pecan halves, carefully arranged on top. And always, an apple sauce cake for Daddy.

A red cellophane wreath hung in the window. It's light didn't burn and it was dusty and torn from spending the year on top of the chifferobe but it was Christmas and the old wreath was beautiful to me.

There were presents, a book, two tiny dolls in a blanket, a head scarf printed with dancing ballerinas, a play telephone and a wind up freight train that spit out sparks in the dark.

Christmas meant a visit from Uncle I. L. and Aunt Hattie. My uncle laughed and told his funny jokes. He always told me I looked like Eleanor Roosevelt and that my feet were so big they breathed and had guts in them.

Mama playing Christmas carols on the piano, Silent Night, O Little Town of Bethlehem, Hark the Hearld Angels Sing and my favorite, Away In A Manager.

The ride downtown in back of the truck, wrapped in old woolen army blankets, our excited breath looking like cigarette smoke in the cold air, on our way to see the Christmas lights.

And the Merry Christmas's came and went. And then one came bringing death, like a crushing hammer blow and all the bulbs went out at once and destroyed the magic of Christmas.