Reflections on My
Southern Childhood Christmases
(A True Story)
The Magic of Christmas
Christmas Sounds
When I was a child, Christmas was wondrous and magical time.
It was a time in which to believe in a Santa who effortlessly visited
every child in the world and left them gifts from their Christmas
wish list.
Now, as an adult, it's still a special time, but I will never be
the same, and I will never be able to recapture those same feelings
of anticipation and excitement and sheer delight as seen through
the eyes of a child.
When you think of the sounds of Christmas, you typically think of
sleigh bells, Ho-Ho-Ho's, the sounds of laughter and delight, and
Christmas carols. But there are other sounds that I remember...
the sounds of my Grandmother Saxon's Christmas tree stand which
was a music box that revolved while it played "Silent Night"; the
sounds of fireworks going off before dawn; the sounds of the crinkle
of paper as gifts were unwrapped, the tinkle of ornaments as someone
brushed up against the Christmas tree; and, most memorable of all,
the sounds of Santa Claus.
Yes, I really did hear him!
On Christmas Eve, I would be so excited that I hardly slept
a wink! It seems like I would lie in bed all night wide awake and
never be able to go to sleep. I was so full of anticipation, trying
so hard to go to sleep, because children are always told that Santa
never comes while children are awake.
My parents were wrong. I was awake when Santa came lots of
times.
I would try my best to go to sleep, but the harder I tried, the
more awake I became. It was a miserable feeling - wanting to sleep so
morning would come, and also wanting to wait for Santa!.
I could hear Santa when he set out our toys -- the rustle of
paper, the sound of the front door opening and closing (Santa going
to and from his sleigh? We didn't have a chimney, and when I was
very small, I was afraid he wouldn't come since we didn't.), Santa
talking to someone (Who?) Santa always seemed try our toys out to
see if they worked properly before he left. I heard him doing it
lots of times.
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One year I had asked for a doll that walked and talked.
That Christmas Eve I heard a doll talking, although I couldn't
distinguish the words, and I could imagine her walking.
I couldn't wait to walk her!
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The dancing ballerina doll on top of the
pink plastic music box I got one year must have spun around
and around when I heard the music "Some Enchanted Evening"as
Santa checked it out.
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One year, when we spent Christmas at my Grandparent's house,
I couldn't sleep there, either. I heard my baby doll crying (one
that took a bottle and wet) .
Another year I heard my brother's toy robot saying "I am Robby the
Robot, the mechanical man; drive me and steer me wherever you can".
To this day I have not forgotten that phrase. I could hear Santa
playing with him as he rolled around on the floor, speaking his
robot-sounding phrases.
How could any child sleep after he or she heard Santa??? I know
I couldn't! Yet I must have finally drifted off, only to wake way
before sunrise, usually around 5:00 or so. I got paid back for that,
because my own always got up early, too, and I had usually just
gotten to bed a few hours before they woke up.
To this day, I find myself up very late on Christmas Eve, going to
bed only after I'm totally exhausted from Christmas Day preparations so
that I can quickly fall asleep. I still feel the anticipation.
The Smells of Christmas
The smells! I remember the smells of Christmas as if they were
yesterday. The smells of fruit, chocolate, candy, cakes, and turkeys and
hams roasting in the oven.
I remember the fragrance of a freshly-cut cedar Christmas tree
-- the ones that we trekked through the woods for, looking for just
the right one to cut. Trees from the commercial tree lots these
days can't hold a candle to the way the trees from my childhood
smelled.
There were the traditional scents of cinnamon and peppermint.
Ah, peppermint.... those peppermint canes that my little brother
always gave me.
When he was very little, all Robert got me was a small peppermint
candy cane. Each year, as he got older,
the candy cane got bigger and bigger, until it became an actual
"log" at least a foot long and about two inches in diameter. It
turned into a family joke. Long after he was old enough to get a
real gift, I still got the candy cane log. I had to chip pieces
off with a knife in order to eat it. They don't make them that large
anymore. I continued getting those candy cane logs until a few Christmases
after I got married!
Chocolate. It couldn't be Christmas without chocolate. Those
wonderful chocolate drops with the white centers that came in the
paper containers. They still make them, and they are only available
during the Christmas season. I buy at least one bag each year to
this day. Then there were the chocolate covered cherries, the rum
balls dipped in Chocolate, and the homemade fudge!
I remember making fudge the old-fashioned Hershey's Cocoa recipe
way. We boiled it until it formed a soft ball, and then beat it
until our arms felt like they were falling off. It was delicious
stuff -- and licking the pan was the best part. Sometimes it hardened,
and sometimes it didn't, especially if the weather was too damp,
or if it wasn't cooked long enough, or if we didn't beat it long
enough. When it didn't, we just poured it in a platter and scooped
it up with a spoon and ate it anyway.
Divinity and date nut rolls were made every year, as well as
Fondant-stuffed dates, and handmade mints. I was the candy maker
at my house, starting at a young age. Occasionally we made pralines.
Christmas cookies of various types also tantalized the senses.
We always made homemade sugar cookies and cut them out with various
Christmas cookie cutters and decorated them.
The aromas wafting throughout the house were fantastic.
There were other scents that I will never forget. As we went
into the living room, I could smell all of the fruits in our stockings.
The fruits weren't coated with all of the waxes that are used to
preserve them nowadays, and you could smell every different one
of them.
It was always freezing cold on Christmas Morning. I remember
the smell of the gas heaters that Mother and Daddy lit before we
all went into the living room to find our toys (usually before the
sun came up!). It took a long time for the rooms to warm up, and
I shook for what seems like an eternity, probably from both the
cold and the excitement.
We always got the biggest, reddest apples and the biggest oranges
you could imagine. The grocers must have gotten in special stocks
just for Christmas. And the bananas - they were gigantic! Except
for the dwarf ones we got one year... they were miniatures, yet
fully ripe! I've never seen any like them before or since. I'll
always wonder where Santa got them. On the coffee table would be
a tray of apples, oranges, grapes, bananas, nuts, kumquats and raisins.
Back then you could get raisins that had been dried on the stems.
Mixed in with the smells of the fruits would be the acrid smells
of fireworks that were always sticking out of the top of the stockings.
Fireworks? In my stocking?
Probably only in the South.
These memories are wonderful memories, and they will always
be with me. I realize that my childhood Christmases can never be
recreated, for we can never go back except for in our memories.
I tried to make wonderful Christmas memories for my children, too,
and I hope they keep those memories with them. They are grown
now and don't have any children of their own. .
Unfortunately, it just isn't the same when you get older without
children around, so the memories of bygone years will just have
to do.
I hope this story has brought back some of your own childhood
Christmas memories.
Please visit my other Christmas Pages:
The
Christmas Gathering
1998
Christmas Card
Merry
Christmas Around the World
Hilarious
Drunken Fruitcake Recipe
Visit the Christmas pages of the Women of Worldnet
-
A Christmas Page for each day in December...
(Sorry - some links no longer work, but some do)
To December 4
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To the WOW Christmas Calendar
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This page uploaded November 18, 1999; updated
11/11/04..
I got my graphics from these sites:
Get more fine chocolates at Chocolateofthemonth.com
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All sounds and graphics
not credited to others (or created by me) are considered to be in
"public domain". If you see something that is not in public domain
that you created, please let me know and I will either give you
credit or remove it.
Thanks. |
