Christmas in the Country

Did you ever stand close to the fireplace to warm your blanket then wrap it around your shoulders and run, run, run upstairs to an ice-cold bed? That's what we used to do at my grandparents house at our Christmas eve family gathering.

You'd snuggle down with a cousin and grand ma would come and tuck us in the feather tick. Then we would wait for sleep to overtake us. We'd lie there and hear the "house sounds": the wind blowing that loose roof shilgle, Grandpapa's yawn, "Ho, Ho, Hummy" resounding throughout the old house and in a very few minutes the sound of a steady stream hitting the bottom of Grandpapa's "slop jar."

My grand father and grand mother had eight children: four boys and four girls. When they all gathered with their offspring at the home place next door to the school in Gordonsville it was an experience to be remembered and treasured.

The ceilings were about ten feet high, but invariably the tree, always a cedar, was always too tall. There was never an angel adorning the top so we thought it only natural that the tree bent over at the top.

On Christmas eve everyone gathered around the piano and my Grandpapa snatched up his fiddle: carols and hymns were robustly sung. Aunt Daisy always sang the soprano along with aunt Linnie and my mother Anna and aunt Nellie took the alto along with Grandma. The men just sort of sang the melody or chimed in a base line.

I never saw my Grandpapa play the fiddle except at Christmas, but when he played I sat so near his feet, he was trapped. I was charmed! I still have his fiddle and played it in college: I got an A!

After all the carols were sung all the kids would warm their blankets by the fireplace and race upstairs to snuggle within our feather beds. The sheets were always cold but the blanket made us warm until our warm bodies began to warm the feather tick.

The tick rose high above our faces and bodies, and with the weight of three or four quilts on top we were "snug as a bug in a rug."

Then on Christmas morning we were coaxed downstairs from our warm beds to see what the "Jolly Old Gentleman" had brought. The socks (we didn't know anything about stockings) were filled with an assortment; usually an orange, an apple and two or three small toys. Of course, there was always something special under the tree.

I thank God for those rare times and for the wonderful family I was lucky enough to be nurtured within.

There is something about getting older, your yawns get louder and more expressive. I've noticed lately that mine are much like my Grandpapa's. When a yawn comes upon me I find that Ho, Ho, Hummy feels just right. After all, I’m a grandpa now!