My Favorite Christmas Memory
I suppose most people have fond memories of the Christmas season; blankets of snow covering the ground, the sound of sleigh bells, ice-skating on a frozen pond. Well, thatÕs what the movies and the songs say, but I grew up in a small town in Northwestern Arizona. Although we children hoped, wished, prayed and sang about a ŅWhite ChristmasÓ, we only once had snow on Christmas day and like nearly all snowfalls in Kingman, it melted by noon. But I still have fond memories of the Christmas season. Most of my memories seem to center around my fatherÕs hands and my motherÕs voice.
I
can still see my DadÕs large hands as he thumbed through his motherÕs tattered
and scorched copy of the FarmerÕs WifeÕs cookbook. And I can see him holding
onto the bottom of the old pressure cooker, the one that the handle had broken
off of, as he stirred bits of pecans into the hot sugary mixture that would
become penuche, a German candy that is cut into squares like fudge but tastes
like a praline. The pecans came from the trees in the city park and were about
all the bonus a city employee could count on at Christmas. I can see him
cutting up apples and adding the little pieces with some golden raisins and
spices to the mincemeat he had bought.
I
remember feeling so grown up when I was deemed old enough to help make pies
with my father. He was famous for his pumpkin and mincemeat pies. IÕd make the
pumpkin mixture (DadÕs secret was to use brown sugar to sweeten the mixture and
to make sure it was hot enough that it was beginning to thicken before it was
poured into the crusts). As I stirred the pumpkin pie filling, IÕd watch him
make the piecrust dough from shortening and flour without any measuring cups at
all, just a spoon for the shortening and his hands for the flour. Then heÕd
throw some flour on the kitchen table and take a piece of dough from the bowl
and beginning rolling out the crusts with Grandma DePoyÕs rolling pin, which
had no handles and was also slightly scorched from when Mom had turned the oven
on not knowing Dad had put the rolling pin in there to dry and had forgotten to
take it out. When it came time to put the top crust on the mincemeat pie Dad
would use a knife to cut a slit in the center of the top crust that ran nearly
all the way across and then he would add 3 shorter diagonal slits to either
side of the long slit until the slits resembled a leaf. This was his motherÕs
familiesÕ way of identifying the pie as belonging to them. First time I saw a
pie made by someone who wasnÕt taught to cook by Grandma DePoy or one of her
children I thought they had made a mistake!
My
memories of Momma and Christmas are about singing the Messiah with her when I
was older and of getting her to teach me to sing Adeste Fideles (O Come All Ye
Faithful) in Latin. But most of all I remember her stories about ŅThe HomeÓ.
My
mother and two of her three older sisters were raised in a Catholic orphanage.
Like most of the 250 girls at Mother CabriniÕs School for Girls they werenÕt
really orphans. Their parents had given them up for adoption during the
depression rather than watch them starve in New York City, they did however
stipulate that they girls could not be adopted separately and so they were
never adopted. When Momma talks about ŅThe HomeÓ one doesnÕt get the image of
Oliver Twist but more of Shirley Temple, in fact my mother is about the same
age as Shirley Temple and except for having black curls she was much like
Shirley when she entered the orphanage. She was only 4 years old and so small
for her age that she was always called Teeny. The nuns would sometimes arrange
for the girls to go to town to see a Shirley Temple movie and then go to the
townÕs ice cream parlor afterwards. For weeks after the girls would do scenes from
the movie and Mom always got to play Shirley TempleÕs part because she looked
like her and could sing and dance. Mom was somewhat of a favorite of the nuns
and they would spoil her with extra treats and naps (of course the naps might
have been to make up for letting her stay up late to help with sewing - born
blind in one eye she can sew the straightest seams youÕve ever seen!). Every
Christmas Momma would tell me The Story of the Other Wise Man as the nuns had
told her - it wasnÕt until the mid eighties that she and I learned it was a
made up story[1] and not some
legend that had been passed down through the ages.
But
my favorite story Momma would tell me about Christmas was of her first Christmas
away from the home. When Mom finished eighth grade the nuns reluctantly sent
her back to New York City to attend Cathedral High School and to live in a
convent while she was there. Mom was only twelve years old and still very tiny.
She said the girls at the home where divided into the babies, the middle girls
and the big girls and that she never got to be a big girl. When one of the nuns
suggested that because of her age she be moved up to the middle girls they did,
but for a few years she still had to go back down to the babies to get her
clothes. Momma had started first grade when she was 4 because the home didnÕt
have anything like a kindergarten or preschool, but she did have to repeat it
because as she said, she only spoke Spanish at the time and she slept through a
lot of the school day. Later she took third and fourth grade together which
made up for having done first grade twice and so there she was at the age of
twelve starting High School in New York City. As always MommaÕs voice made her the
natural leader of the choir and as she had done for years she lead the girls in
singing at Midnight Mass. When the mass was over Momma asked where the wine and
cookies were. The nuns asked her rather sharply ŅWhat wine and cookies?Ó Momma
innocently replied that the sisters at the home always gave them cookies and
wine after midnight mass. I suspect there were some changes in store at the
home after that.
But
my favorite Christmas memory is of shopping for and giving a special Christmas
present to my Mom. Now Christmas shopping in our small town was an interesting
problem in logistics for my family for several reasons. First, Mom doesnÕt
drive and second, all the stores in town were pretty much between the townÕs
two main streets along Fourth Street. Sounds like that would be quite a bit,
but you see KingmanÕs two main streets - Beale Street and Andy Devine Avenue,
also known as US 66 (yes Route 66) and US 93, run parallel to each other and
are only one block apart. So the shopping district of Kingman when I was a
child consisted of ten stores, if you counted the two drugstores. There was AlexÕs Toggery Š MenÕs
Clothes and Family Shoes where Dad belonged to the Suit Club, Mode OÕDay -
WomenÕs Clothes, Sprouse-Reitz also known as the 5 and Dime or Dime store,
FetrowÕs Jewelry Store, RobertaÕs Card Shop, the smallest J C Penney youÕve
ever seen, Mohave Electric- an appliance store and Central Commercial an old
fashioned mercantile. You could buy your groceries there (but we never did - we
went to the Market Basket which wasnÕt much bigger than most modern convenience
stores) or you could buy furniture or clothes or most anything else you wanted.
Old timers used to talk about how before McCarthy put in a car lot, old man
Gates would even take their orders for cars. The Gates family had owned the
mercantile since the 1880s. Central Commercial was a big white stone building
and one of the few 2 story buildings in town. I was in love with the wooden
banisters of its central staircase and the brass pneumatic tubes they used to
send money and messages from the main office to the cashiers. The tenth store
was this little place two doors down from Central Commercial between the
barbershop and the big drugstore, the one with the soda fountain. This little
store had been at various times a bookstore or an antique store, but in the
year of my best Christmas it was a gift store.
As
was our Christmas tradition Dad drove us all to town one Saturday a few weeks
before Christmas. We shopped together as a family for our extended family.
There was Aunt Ruth, the third oldest of my fatherÕs twelve older siblings and
her husband Uncle Harrison. They were the closest things I had to grandparents.
In fact once when I was quite small I asked my mom if Aunt Ruth was my Grandma
(all my cousins called her that) and when Aunt Ruth heard that she said no, but
you can call me that if you want to and some times I did. Anyway every year we bought
handkerchiefs for Uncle Harrison and, if we could find a unique pair, a salt
and pepper set for Aunt Ruth. In the good years, we also got presents for Aunt
RuthÕs grown children and sometimes for their childrenÕs children. There was
Aunt RuthÕs oldest son Gene and his wife Willadean and their children Jamie,
Kelly, Judy and Genie-my cousins once removed who were my playmates. Then there
were Aunt RuthÕs daughters who lived in Kingman, Saretta and her husband Milo
and their son Darryl and Carol and her husband Gene. Carol was one of three of
my girl cousins who were teenagers when I was born; they helped my working
parents raise me.
Then
there was my MomÕs family - her sister, my Aunt Connie and her husband Uncle
Gus. Uncle Gus, my wonderful schoolteacher uncle who gave my family an
encyclopedia! There were always presents for Wibit (Mary), who was another of
the cousins who helped my Mom and Dad with me, and her husband Jim. Jim was
this wonderfully talented man who was always making things for us-jewelry,
leather goods, and most of all beautiful pottery.
And
last but not least Peter. Peter was my favorite cousin. He was a few years
older than my brother who is five years older than me. My mother had lived with her sister
(PeteÕs Mom) from before Pete was born until she married my Dad, it was almost
as if Wibit and Peter had two Moms. When my brother Mike was born Mom would
often mistakenly call him Pete and so for a time people teased that MikeÕs name
was Repete. Pete was as tall and slender as Mike was short and round. He had
wonderfully wavy dark hair that he wore in a pompadour and his eyes were so
dark you could hardly see his pupils. I thought Pete could walk on water and so
what ever he said was good I figured was great. If not for him IÕd probably
never have been a Star Trek fan because he was visiting us when the series was
very new, it might even have been the premier episode. Mike wanted to watch it,
so naturally I figured it was some dumb boy thing, but since Pete wanted to see
it too, we let the guest watch what he liked and I fell in love with Star Trek.
The
year of my best Christmas the little store that had had so many owners selling
so many different things was a gift shop and it was like a gold mine for our
family. We found presents for Aunt Connie and for Aunt Ruth. Dad found
something that was just right for his Christmas Exchange at the city offices
where he worked. And I found the perfect gift for Mom. She had seen it first, a
little pewter music box shaped like a piano and lined with red velvet. It
played her favorite song ŅSomewhere My LoveÓ LauraÕs Theme from Dr. Zhivago.
When I saw how much she liked it, I longed to get it for her and could think of
little else as we purchased the other gifts and had them wrapped. ŌHow can I
buy it with her right here? If I donÕt buy it soon someone else will buy it.Õ
After
we finished shopping for our extended family, we split up as we always did. Mom
and I would go to shop for presents for Mike and Dad, while they went to get
gifts for Mom and me Š a nightgown for Mom and pink fuzzy slippers for me. IÕm
not sure why the guys bothered to shop separately from us when they got us the
same thing year after year! Later we would meet at the Northwest corner of 4th
Street and Andy Devine next to JC Penney. Mom and Mike would now go to get
presents for Dad and me and Dad and I would get presents for them.
As
soon as I thought Mom and Mike were out of earshot I said, Ņ I want to go back
to the gift shop.Ó ŅWhy?Ó Dad
asked. ŅThereÕs a music box there that Mom wants.Ó I told him. DadÕs face lit
up with one of his patented grins and he said, ŅWell, letÕs go get it.Ó We
hurried across the broad street and down the sidewalk to the little store. I
was so anxious to see if the music box was still there I could hardly stand it.
Once inside the storeÕs door I went straight to the display table I had seen it
on and there it was, just as pretty as I remembered. I took the music box up to
the sales clerk so we could buy it and she asked if we would like her to wrap
the present for us.
I
was suddenly devastated. If the clerk wrapped it in the same paper that had been
used for the other gifts we had bought there then Mom would know where the gift
came from and what it was, but if she didnÕt wrap it then Mom might see it
before Dad could help me wrap it. As I wailed about my predicament and Dad
tried to soothe me, the sales clerk came up with the perfect solution. She had
a small piece of wrapping paper of a different pattern. She said she had set it
aside as being to small to be useful for wrapping most of the gifts in the shop
but she thought it might be just big enough to wrap the little music box. I
held my breath as she put the paper around the box, oh yes there was just
enough!
IÕll
remember that package as long as I live, the wrapping paper was red with brass
bells and French horns on it and the clerk used gold ribbon and a gold bow.
Every time I walked into the living room that Christmas season I would look at
that little package nestled underneath the Christmas tree in amongst the works
of art that were the boxes my Dad had wrapped. I would smile and imagine the
look on my MomÕs face when she opened the box and found the little music box
inside. Now IÕm not exactly sure when we opened presents that year, you see my
Mom was a registered nurse and often times she had to work on Christmas, so we
had all gotten use to celebrating Christmas whenever we could all be together.
But I do recall that my MomÕs look of surprise and delight when she opened the
box was just as wonderful as I had imagined. So you see my favorite Christmas
memory isnÕt exactly what movies and songs are about nor is that memory of a
present I received but rather of one I gave.