(p. 180) WHAT ARE SOME THINGS FROM YOUR CHILDHOOD THAT YOU ARE THANKFUL FOR?

Growing up in Miami Springs - a pretty safe little town, easy to get around. Other families looked out for me because mom was one of the few working moms

My bike and the freedom I had with it.

Going to Bryson City in the summer.

Miami Springs Methodist Church.

My innocence.

(p. 181) WHAT CHILDHOOD MEMORY FIRST COMES TO MIND WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT WINTER? HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO THAT MEMORY?

I don’t have any vivid winter memories when I lived in Virginia before age 7. In Florida there was no winter. I remember at Christmas the kids were outside playing, riding their new bikes or whatever, as soon as they had opened their presents. I kinda wished for snow.

When we moved to Dallas, there was a brief winter. The first time it snowed, I got angry, freaked out in fact, when someone ruined the beautiful white stuff with footprints. Andy was born on January 21, 1972. We had a very mild winter. The day we took him home was in the 50’s; we walked around outside. the first snow of his lifetime happened over a year later when he was walking. Forsythia was in bloom. We have pictures.

(p. 182) WHAT ARE YOUR CHILDHOOD MEMORIES OF GOING TO CHURCH OR INTERACTING WITH OTHER CHRISTIANS?

Think I’ve covered this.

(p. 183) WHAT FAMILY CUSTOM WOULD YOU LIKE TO PASS ON TO YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN ?

Quality time together.

Sometime it would be cool to do a Destination Christmas.

(p. 184) WHAT NEW TRADITION WOULD YOU LIKE TO START IN THE FAMILY?

For all the years your Dad and I have been married, Bruce, Katherine, and Laurie, and in recent years, Alice and Aunt Ann, have all come over at the same time to celebrate Christmas. Since Andy has lived in Japan, and since you have lived in Georgia, you haven't been here for Christmas every year.

This year I am going to have each of your Dad's older kids and their families over separately, so I can have more quality time with everyone, and so we can actually see everyone giving and opening gifts. It's been way too overwhelming for me in recent years.

As far as you are concerned, it would be fun to go somewhere after Christmas when you can take time off. I am thinking about going back to having a natural Christmas tree, with much less emphasis on perfection. My tree has become too much of an idol. Christmas is about the birth of Jesus.

(p. 185) SHARE A FAVORITE THANKSGIVING OR CHRISTMAS RECIPE

That would have to be snowballs. It's written in GrandBear's handwriting in the old red checkered cookbook. The silver cookie barrel in the china cabinet is where she always kept snowballs at Christmas when I was growing up.

Cream together: 1 cup soft butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Add: 1 cup finely chopped pecans
2 1/2 cups sifted flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
Chill. Roll into 1" balls. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in 400 degree oven 10-12 minutes. Roll immediately in vanilla bean-flavored powdered sugar. Cool. Roll a second time.

Another one we liked was candied grapefruit peels. You and I made them in 1996 but I don't think you were too impressed.
At this moment there is some frozen snowball dough in the freezer from last Christmas. Sort of like Bill Cosby's famous snowball comedy routine, and the hailstones you saved one summer.
There is a plastic container filled with vanilla beaned powdered sugar in the cabinet next to the refrigerator.

(p. 189) TELL ABOUT SOME CHRISTMAS RITUALS IN YOUR FAMILY AND HOW YOU FELT ABOUT THEM.

Christmas Eve - we went to 11pm church service (I liked), we ate oyster stew ( I hated) then we hung up our stockings and went to bed. Oh yes, before church we got to open one present.

When you were young you learned about Hanukkah. Opening presents for eight days. You loved it.

I like opening each present with the person who is giving it, giving each other full attention.

(p. 190) WERE YOU EVER IN A CHRISTMAS PROGRAM? HOW DID YOU RESPOND TO THE EXPERIENCE?

I sang in school choruses in junior high and high school, and in church choirs in high school and college. We gave Christmas programs every year.

In college I belonged to the West End Methodist Church. Their choir director/organist was into classical music. He taught us Handel's Messiah, Brahms's Shepherds Farewell, and many other great choral works.

In Junior high, I remember trying out to sing solo O Holy Night for our Christmas concert.
Our chorus would go out caroling too. I've loved singing Christmas music from childhood, and love listening to it now.

In 11th grade, I remember my hero Ronnie Nelson was in a different chorus class than I was, but we both sang in the same concert. His chorus sang Carol of the Bells, which I'd never heard before, but has always brought back this memory since. After the concert, he came over to our house. Mom got out makings for a styrofoam ball Christmas tree, which the three of us had a great time putting together.

(p. 191) WHAT FAVORITE CHRISTMAS TREASURES HAVE YOU KEPT FROM YEAR TO YEAR? SHARE THEIR ORIGINS.

Christmas tree ornaments. Grand Bear gave me the first ones, and you kids (including your dad's big kids) have kept it going. 1974 is the first year from which I have ornaments. That was the year Andy and I were separated from Allen and living in Dallas. There are still three Raggedy Andy ornaments dated 1974. They are hanging right now on the tree in 2005 with a Raggedy Ann and Andy ornament that Joseph Wray gave us.

There are lots of ornaments from your dancing days. From Andy's airplane days. There is a silver ball engraved with our names and anniversary date that your dad and I got for a wedding gift. There are four silver ornaments that Grand Bear gave me in the 70s. There is a picture of you in a felt wreath, that you made. I wish I had more of the ornaments you and Andy made. We wore them out, I guess.

There is a 1994 picture of Chomp, and the dog angel ornament from 1998 after she died. Now there is a growing angel collection. Coolest of all are the two identical and beautiful Hallmark angels that you and your dad gave me. I asked for it and you both got it for me. Such treasures!

(p. 192) TELL ABOUT A MEMORABLE CHRISTMAS VISIT WITH RELATIVES.

I've already written about Christmas 1989 in Dallas, when we were all there with Aunt Mary Nell. So I'm going off track now to talk about a Christmas party last night, December 3, 2005, with my nurse friends. I emailed to you earlier in the day, Beth, that I would not make them listen to the labor and delivery story again, and I didn't.

The party was originally December 10th, then was moved up to the 3rd. Usually I shop around for a cute gift to bring. We play the gift grab game, you know. Real success at this game is defined not by what gift you end up with yourself, but by whether the gift you brought is stolen the maximum three times. Having less time and energy for shopping than previous years, and wanting to support my Bethany, I went to Barnes & Noble and bought a gift card.

Well, before my gift was opened, someone opened a different Barnes & Noble gift card! I about flipped out. Later, mine was opened by my friend Gloria, who had just had her Polar Express DVD stolen. Then someone stole her gift card, so she stole the first gift card, and the serious stealing started. Both gift cards were stolen three times!!! I told everyone it was your 23rd birthday, what you do, and thanked them for shopping at Barnes & Noble. Hope you enjoyed your birthday as much as I did!

(p. 193) WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CHRISTMAS CAROL? WHY?

In the order they come to me -

O Holy Night - sang in Junior high chorus. I love Celene Dion singing it too.

Joy to the World - the message, the wonderful harmony. It has more verses that any other Christmas carol.

We went to a Christmas Eve midnight service at Temple Hill Presbyterian one year before we were flying to Dallas the next day. Joy to the World was the recessional out into the cold night. We sang it until everyone was outside, which took them more than the usual six verses. I could still sing then.

I taught sunday school there for a year, trading off with Ms. Anne Leyssier, when I had to work. I never really felt I fit in there or found God there but became friends with Kathy, Jessies’ mom. We started going there when Grand Bear came to visit in April 1988 after my hysterectomy. I wonder whether Beth associates the church with my outburst in the hospital that caused her problems for years. I’m so sorry.

(p. 194) DID YOU HAVE A CHRISTMAS STOCKING AS A CHILD OR A SPECIAL ORNAMENT? WHAT DID IT LOOK LIKE?

We each had a Christmas stocking. I think they were the usual red plush with a white top with our names written in glitter. I don’t remember having special ornaments or collectables. You know what an ornament freak I am today. I hope you too will know where to put all the ornaments you will have! And the disastrous 3 piece 70 lb plastic prelit tree.

This is spring 2005. I’ve had that tree for 2 Christmases. I know it’s convenient. You can leave it up longer and the lights are already on. But I’d much prefer having one or both of you and your families here with a natural tree! Especially since reading about Beth loving the scent wafting through the house. Possibly this Christmas we’ll go back to real.

(p. 195) DESCRIBE THE CHRISTMAS THAT HAS BEEN THE MOST MEANINGFUL TO YOU.

Christmas is first of all about the birth of Jesus into the world. He is God in human form. God created us to live in love, but He saw we were messing up really badly - hurting and killing each other, being promiscuous, lying and stealing. So He came down here to show us how to live simply, obediently but with strong personal integrity, and to prove that no matter how horribly we are treated, if we live in love, we will be victorious. That is the "gospel", or good news.
Christmas has been secularized and commercialized. That's not all bad. We give gifts because the Wise Men did, and to give pleasure to one another, and to help those in need. We have happy memories of food, fun, music, beautiful fragrant Christmas trees - all these things bind us together in love, which is what God wants for His children.

Both you children were born around Christmas time. Beth, especially I associate you with Christmas, because it was still the height of the season. Your birth announcements were Christmas cards. You wore a dress with a red and green plaid taffeta skirt for your first birthday. It made me glad you were two weeks late, to have you be born close to Christmas.

Sometimes we flew to Dallas on Christmas Day, because the flights were less crowded, I had limited time off from work, and we could be in two places for Christmas. One year I remember, we were still in PG County, going to that Presbyterian Church in Temple Hill, so it was either 1988 or 1989. I'm going to guess 1989, because I know we went to Dallas that Christmas. Yes, that's the year Aunt Mary Nell was there. Grandmother Leatherwood had died, she had come to meet you for the first time that spring, then went to Europe and brought us gifts from her trip.

Anyway, we went to the midnight Christmas Eve service at church, and we were getting up at some awfully early hour to get to BWI the next morning. At the end of the service there was a recessional hymn, Joy to the World, one of my favorites. It probably has more verses than any other carol, at least six. We sang them all, and I knew them all! That's my last memory of being able to sing, because we stopped going to church after that, and by the time we went back, amyloid had done its dirty work on my voice.

That was one of my favorite Christmases, but they've all been good.

(p. 196) WHAT WOULD BE THE MOST WONDERFUL GIFT YOU COULD RECEIVE? WHY?

Always feeling close to you and Andy. Being included in your lives but not wanting to make decisions for you.

OK - living near enough to you to see your children be born and grow up.

(p. 197) TELL ME ABOUT A TIME WHEN GOD ANSWERED A SPECIFIC PRAYER FOR YOU.

There have been a few Duke basketball games.

The prayer that never fails, you know, is “Thy will be done.”

I pray a lot to know God’s will.

I prayed the 23rd Psalm when I had to got to the hospital in February 2003. I was really scared, but it turned into a great experience.

(p. 198) WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE HAPPEN IN THE NEXT TEN YEARS?

People will stop hurting one another.

(p. 199) WHAT HAD BEEN THE HAPPIEST TIME OF YOUR LIFE?

Among many happy times, my pregnancies.

(p. 200) WHAT WORD BEST DESCRIBES YOUR LIFE? EXPLAIN WHY.

In college I had to take some personality test that asked for a one word description, and I said “Methodist” Honest to God, but not meant in in vain.

I would like to say “Learning.” But then I’d have to say “Slow.”

(p. 201) WHAT ADVICE ABOUT LIFE DO YOU WANT OTHERS TO REMEMBER?

Seek God’s purpose - Matthew 6:33

(p. 202) NOTES

You are arriving this evening to celebrate an early Christmas 2005. So I want to wrap this up for now. It isn’t finished, so ask me about anything you want to know that I left or didn’t leave blank.

Thank you for asking me to write to you.

I love and treasure you,

Mom

PREVIOUS CHAPTER ............. HOME