Christmas in the House on the Hill

Christmas was a happy time for Mary's family. The children and their families came home Christmas Eve or early Christmas morning. Thelma and her children came a week early. The commonly cold kitchen became warm and cozy. The days were filled with the aroma of cakes and cookies baking. Daddy, not to be outdone, would make a secret trip to town and return with apples, oranges, nuts and hard candy. The house was filled with the fragrance of Christmas.



The dining room, now fridged in winter, was turned into a walk-in "ice box". The dining table was soon covered with goodies; at least ten cakes, candies and the latest "you just have to try" new found recipes. But all these temptations were off limits until Christmas Eve.



The Christmas tree was set up in the "girls' room". The ordinarily cold room was heated by an oil heater or by the pot bellied coal stove in the front room. That old cast iron stove glowed red with extra heat, spreading it's warmth beyond those four walls to the magic room beyond.



The Christmas tree was a fresh cut cedar, not easily found in the boot heel of Missouri. But, somehow Daddy or one of the boys would find one. It was decorated with ragged garland, bare in places, glass ornaments, with peeling paint, hand made ornaments from school projects and a tattered angel for the top. It was beautiful, absolutely beautiful, in the eyes of two little girls.



Santa always visited the house on the hill. We knew he was watching the children inside because he always made a visit sometime during the weeks approaching Christmas. One night, when least expected, there he was, peaking in the window! It seemed that his face filled the whole window. His big blue eyes peered over a tattered white beard and a white fur lined cap covered his head. "Ho, Ho, Ho", announced his presence and just as quickly as he came, he was gone, but his ambiance remained for days filling the children with hope and wonder. Could it be there is someone , someone who loves me enough to over look my faults and mistakes? Could there be someone like Santa Claus, who forgives and loves me no matter what and wipes my slate clean for another year? Does he love me even though he has no obligation or duty to love and care for me?



Santa's visits to the house on the hill were fun and funny to the adults, but to us children, he was real. He was faithful. He was kind. Belief in Santa Clause taught us to hope, to trust, to believe in things unseen, undeserved, unconditional. That belief readied tender hearts to unquestionably accept Jesus. Jesus, one unseen, but very present; one unconditionally offering everlasting life, the ultimate gift, to an undeserving child. But, you must believe.

Mama's Apron

Mama's Apron

It hangs in my kitchen, limp, sagging, unnatural; a blue gingam hand made apron. The bib is faded and there's a three cornered tear in the skirt, but it is a prized possession, my mother's apron. A thread still hangs from the hem, snapped off with her fingers. She was too hurried to take the time to cut it with scissors. The top stitching is far from perfect and the small pocket on the left hand side is a little askrew.

Mama didn't change dresses every day, but she put on a clean apron every morning. She'd step outside and load that apron with wood to make a fire in the big wood cook stove to cook breakfast. Gathering the skirt of that apron in a wad, she'd grab the handle of the big iron skillet and push it to the cooler side of the stove. The skillet was full of milk gravy, the bubbles popping and splattering her apron.

Swalking and cackling from the hen house announced that one of the hens had laid an egg. Later in the morning, Mama would check the nests, pushing some of the hens off their nest to retrieve the fresh warm eggs from the nest. She carried them back to the kitchen in her blue gingam apron. In the early spring she would carry select eggs back to the hen house to set the old hens. In a few weeks she filled her gingam apron with fluffy baby chickens from that nest and carried them to a fenced pen, all the time being flogged and scolded by the mother hen.

Mama kept an eye on the garden. It was down the path, through weeds and grass and just beyond a crooked gate held shut by a rusty wire hooked over the fence post. Bobbie and I followed her, anxious to help with the first vegetables from the garden. She grabbed the file used to sharpen hoes and began digging in the soft earth. Soon her apron held enough king-marble size potatoes for dinner. By now she was bent over the young green peas, snapping with eagerness and keeping watchful eye on four little bare feet, lest they trample the tender plants. Soon Mama's apron was filled with potatoes, peas, onions and radishes, the first meal from the spring garden. Later in the season that apron was perfect for holding snap beans or peas to shell. A quick trip to the back yard and she had enough peaches in that apron for a couple of cobblers for her large family.

Children took precedence over everything with my mother. I've seen her dry her hands quickly on her apron and run outside when one of the children yelled, "Mama" or "Mammie". Her apron has wiped away a million tears and soothed many a hot cheek or broken heart. And as she proudly rocked the latest new baby, she would wrap the baby's feet snugly in her apron or use it to wipe away a dribble.

I've seen Mama shoo flies from the kitchen screen door with her apron. I've seen her wrap her arms in her apron to ward off the day's chill. She would stand out in the back yard and wave her apron to let her family, who was working in the field, know dinner was ready.

My mother's aprons were made from anything she could put together. She loved a big apron with a bib. Nothing fancy, just something to catch the spills and keep her dress clean. When it came time for Mama to hang up her apron forever, she looked strangely under dressed.