Will You Come With Me?

Let’s take a little visit to Christmas Past. I wanna go to Mamma’s again on Christmas Eve. She will have her little bag ready to come spend the night with us in town. Grandaddy Davis will stay there with the dogs. He was always a loner anyway and loved his quietness. I might’ve gotten some of that from him.

We drive across the city pulling out of our little neighborhood in Columbia, TN and onto the main highways through Columbia and take Hwy 99 out to the Bear Creek area. A couple of different ways we could go, either route takes us on an old chert road, on the old Route 1 in Spring Hill, which later came to be Lasea Rd off Joe Brown Road.

The trees get thicker and we’ll pass by the brick house that had air conditioning, and we’ll turn left at the cemetery and take a right into a long driveway and come up to a weather worn old grey house built around the 1900’s. It was later painted white and that gave it some glory. But today we’re picking up Mam-ma and bringing her to our house because Santa comes later and Mam-ma entertains me while Mom and Dad “help Santa a bit” b/c we don’t have a chimney and Santa has to land on the roof and somehow manage to come down from the attic. I never did figure how a big fellow could get in our attic like that but he sure made a lot of noise every Christmas Eve and he never would come til I got in bed, which Mam-ma would encourage so she could tell me some bear stories as we fell asleep.

But I’m getting ahead of myself because we just pulled into Mamma’s driveway and walk in the old heavy wooden doors. The air is very cold today and when we walk into Mamma’s she has the wood stove in the front room going and the warmth fills the air. We immediately take off our coats. I notice there is a Christmas Tree in the corner. It’s a Cedar tree. No lights but it has a string of popcorn around it and Mam-ma has made paper chains and decorated it making her own ornaments and decor.

She greets us with a box of fudge. It’s not on a platter.

My Mam-ma did not have silver and she needed the dishes that she did have for herself, but she always had a gift box of fudge. No one can make fudge like my Mam-ma. The fudge was my favorite. It’s like no other. She could make divinity too and she did make it a lot. My Dad liked it especially. She also made peanut butter fudge. And sometimes our box would have all 3 kinds. She made a coconut cake every year and gave as a gift to my other grandmother, best that I can recall.

Mam-ma is bringing a gift for me too that I will open on Christmas Day. (It was usually one she ordered through a magazine, like a little purse, a little doll, or something put together in a box like crayons, pens, writing papers and office type things. To this day I love giving office gifts too – things to write with, color with, make lists with. Sometimes she gave me scrap books).

We gather Mam-ma and her little overnight suitcase – remembering it from years ago- it might have just been a little bag instead. I love having Mam-ma spend the night. We tell each other stories that we make up about the three bears – they go to town, go fishing, go to church, etc. lol. We also play the rhyming word games. I say a word, or she does, and then we each think of words that rhyme until we can’t think of any more. Whoever thinks of the last word wins.

We listen for Rudolph and the reindeer. I hear them. Mam-ma chuckles when I tell her that because well, I guess she is excited for Santa to come too.

Sleep comes and soon enough the sun is coming up and Mom cheers at us that Christmas morning has arrived. She calls my other grandparents – her parents, Nanny and Grandaddy, who live only about a 2 miles away. While they travel over to us, I look and see what is in my stocking – it is oranges, nuts, and a few things to play with and a little bit of candy. I don’t care much about the oranges and nuts, (I would love that now days, lol). But Nanny and Grandaddy arrive and we open all the gifts around the tree at our house and I see what Santa brought me.

My memories: One year Santa hid the stereo so well, I didn’t think I’d gotten it. I wanted one so bad. But finally I saw it. My room was forever changed after that stereo and shouts from Mom to turn it down, etc. But anyway, Mom hid one gift in a tree and forgot about it but I was like, where’s my 14 kt necklace? I was a teen then and had picked it out in a special sale and Mom had it canned. You could get it canned into a decorate Christmas can and so Mom hid it in the tree and everyone forgot about it until Breakfast when I remembered. Then Mom remembered and all was good and we got the can opener out. lol.

After the gifts are open, Mom fixes a country ham breakfast, scrambled eggs, biscuits and red eye gravy, and has some kind of jam – usually blackberry or strawberry. I think maybe sometimes Mam-ma brought in homemade biscuits. I always like molasses and butter on her homemade biscuits. There might have been grits. I can’t remember exactly.

After breakfast, let’s get out of our PJ’s. We are young now so the fact that we had our PJ’s on is totally ok! But we have to put on clothes and we will go open the gifts at Nanny and Grandaddy’s house. There is no need to transport gifts from one house to the other – you just transport the people! So off to Nanny’s tree we go.

We walk into a little cottage style green tinted house with a little sidewalk that has ivy down both sides. We walk in the door and immediately smell ham that has been pulled out of the oven and a bazillion casseroles: potato casserole, squash casserole, and little jellied salads with mayo on top sit at each plate. Christmas decorations sit about. Nanny’s style is very English and very Victorian. Blue Boy and Pinky are on the walls. Lots of crystal and glassware are about. The Statler Brother’s Christmas Album are playing on her stereo. There’s a fish aquarium in the corner at the end of the sofa and I want to sit there so I can watch the fish. There are homemade fudges sitting around for us to munch on until after gifts are opened. Gifts are passed and opened. Nanny opens her gifts and finds lots of red birds to put in her red bird collection in her curio cabinet and of course she gets a bull every year too because she told Grandaddy not to get the bull for the farm but he did it anyway. I’m not sure who started the bull gift but she got one every year as a funny gift.

After presents we sit down for a fine southern meal as mentioned along with sweet ice tea and lemon and dessert – Mamma’s coconut cake or fudge pie with a big meringue. There is a lot of conversation. Usually about people they know, various happenings in the community, etc. We leave Nanny’s table in both misery and delight. We’ve just had the finest of southern meals and it’s over. And everyone immediately gets sleepy.

We head back home to Mom’s and have a lazy afternoon. I look at and play with gifts and I’m too wound up to be sleepy.

We have some leftovers when we finally get hungry after the sun goes down. We sit in the dark and stare at the Christmas tree. Dad is there with us. I tell him “Wow that all went fast”. He says “Yeah, it always does. It was a nice day. And we look forward to it next year.” I tell him, “yeah, but I’m gonna miss the tree”. I wish we could keep it up all year. He says, “that’d be nice as it’s pretty”.

The tree and the decorations stay up until the 1st, and we’ll go back to school and get in our normal routine until the snow comes and it will. We will have a few days off school and we can look forward to sliding down the hill on trash bags, eating snow cream, and drinking Hot Dr Pepper with lemon. We will work a puzzle, watch a TV Sit Com, write in our journals and keep warm and yeah- we’ll get any homework done before the next school day and then we will wish for spring and maybe go to FL on spring break. We’ll have to see. But it’s been fun this little trip back into my childhood.

I’m so glad you got to join me.

Now the house on Lasea in Spring Hill, is all torn down and the property sold, and the road is paved, but I know someone who has/had the wooden floors. I wish I’d been old enough to have money to buy the old house on the land and rebuild. I wish I could buy the land now and build a house on it. Wouldn’t that be awesome? I suppose all it would take is money right? lol. A trailer sits on the property.

The house on Alpine where I grew up and spent many Christmases is still there. It is no longer groomed and kept. The neighbors have died or moved on. The trees are taller. And there is a driveway blocking the hill we used to sled down.

My Nanny’s house no longer has pretty green ivy down the sidewalk, no longer green, no longer as pretty and neat on the outside, but a few years ago, real estate photos show a dramatic redo of the inside. Funny I don’t remember the house being so small. Nor the house next door being so close. And there are rumors that sometimes drugs are occurring down the street here.

Nanny and Grandaddy moved to another house a lot bigger when I was in my 20’s. So did Mom and Dad. And Mam-ma had to live in town and where she could have help. Both grandmother’s were in assisted living at the end. Mom is left and now she has a new home near me and I suspect assisted living will soon be in the cards for her as well.

It’s all so strange but yet normal – how it all changes – life eats at and erodes away at everything over time. Everything changes and evolves into something new or different. It doesn’t have to be sad, we can still be filled with joy as God still provides. The houses decay, our bodies decay, but He gives us hope of restoration for all of it. One day we will have new houses, new bodies and will be with our loved ones – no death, no crying, no sickness. God keeps His promises for believers who follow and it’s our unbelief that will keep it from happening.

Our bodies change, our ideas change, and how we look at everything changes. Just a little bit every year.

I don’t want this entry to be morbid or a downer. It’s just part of life. It’s very impactful (is that a word?, it is now) to look back where we have been, to be able to say “I miss you” or “Thank you” or “Look at what we did” or “remember that”. To remember celebrating with our loved ones that are no longer with us and to remember the details of the places that we celebrated our Christmas Eve’s and Christmas days. The smells, the food, the love, the cheer. It’s those things that bond us, make us smile, or cry if we miss it too much. But it gives reason to rejoice the here and now, because it too will one day be just a memory, hopefully, in someone’s Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.

What Memories do YOU HOLD on this Christmas Eve?

Merry Christmas to you! And on this Christmas Eve present time – we are having a lasagna dinner here at our house with Mom and Aunt Martha and Uncle Ken.

Love you guys!