The Crab Chronicles

Ghosts of Christmas Past

When I was about ten years old my mother was really sick over Christmas. I think she had the flu. I was still young enough to be very excited about Christmas. Gifts were everything.

I cannot tell you a single gift I got that year, but I can tell you this: Christmas was a somber, depressing day that year. Dad tried to cook us dinner and we had cold hamburgers and canned soup. With Mom out of commission the holiday just wasn't fun. I learned a valuable lesson that year.

I learned that gifts have nothing to do with Christmas joy.

Other Christmases that stick out on my mind are ones where things were unusual or just plain bad.

The first year my brother was on active duty in the military was awful because he was in Texas and couldn't get leave to come home for Christmas. My mom was stoic about it but Dad just cried most of the day.

The first Christmas after Dad died it was just me, Mom and Bruce, and the whole holiday was "off." Dad loved Christmas, like a child. With him gone, there was just no energy there, no spark.

Of course, there were the traditional Christmas fights each year.

Every Christmas when I was a kid, I always wanted my brother's presents. He got cool stuff like Hot Wheels and I got girly stuff like clothes. There would usually be at least one meltdown before lunch.

When I was a kid we always had a real tree, and Mom and Dad would have a big fight about the cost of the tree, who was going to water it, etc.

Every year Dad would watch us decorate the tree after he had put on the lights and helped us put the decorations at the top [he was 6'0 tall]. Then he would make himself a drink and say "I believe that's the prettiest tree we've ever had!" Every year.

On Christmas Eve, Dad would always say "Let's all just open one present! Just one!" and Mom would remind him we always open presents Christmas morning. A brief argument would ensue.

My grandparents usually came over a few days before Christmas and left Christmas around noon to drive home to Atlanta so they could spend the rest of the day with Memaw's siblings.

The Christmas after 9/11 my mother gave me and my brother each an expensive chafing dish from William Sonoma, so if we ever lost power for an extended period of time, we could cook over sterno. When I told my uncle about it he said "Why didn't she just buy you a camping stove?" and I had to remind him my mother never in her life went camping and had no idea such a thing existed.

My mother also loved Christmas too, in a big way. Below, an excerpt from her memoir, Singing to the Cows:

With the exception of the World War II years, we were always in Georgia for Christmas. The Butler family (my mother's family) always spent the holiday together. We always spent the night of the 24^th with my Aunt Hazel or her family with us. Often, the Dan Butler family was in the mix too. Kids often slept on blanket or quilt pallets, on hardwood floors … and I do mean HARD wood! Sofas were a luxury.

         It always seemed to me that there were huge amounts of food. The sisters (my mother had 6 of them!) would talk and plan ahead, mostly deciding about the meat. Think they brought the sides they wanted to bring…. Veggies and salads and my mother always made cakes. There would be sweet tea and coffee, but never alcohol. At Aunt Hazel’s, kids ate at the big kitchen table and some of the men ate at the big table on the screened porch when the weather was nice.

         There was always a big tree with half a room of wrapped presents around and under it. They would be given out after the big noon meal. They drew names by family, but every family had a present for Granny Butler, usually in addition to some money.

         During those years, Uncle Dan and Aunt Estelle plus Danny, Jack, and Jeannine spent holidays and other times with us. Carol was born after or near the end of World War II. I loved that family and loved the time they spent with us. They lived in Largo, Fla. where Dan worked with Stelle’s family -- they owned orange groves. They always arrived with big bushels of wonderful, tree ripened fruit.

         In later years, the war years, we lived in South Carolina, and partly because of severe gas rationing and difficulty finding good tires, we did not travel much at all.

         Guess that’s when I learned about Santa. Don and I were sometimes left with Bobby to babysit. As soon as the folks left the house, Bobby and Don would start looking for their hidden presents -- and would find them. That year, Santa brought the boys real nice toy tractor sets which they took out and played with. By the 25^th , the toys obviously showed wear and tear. They showed me my doll once but wouldn’t let me play with her.

         One Thanksgiving when we lived in Georgia, the folks decided we would spend the day driving through the mountains, then stop at one of the hotels and have dinner. Well, we did that, but the dining room was closing. Thankfully, one of the men recognized Dad and served us the delicious leftovers! Then they got autographs and visited with the folks. Later, as we were driving home, they spotted a pretty pine tree, stopped, and cut it down. They tied it to the roof of the car, for our happy Christmas tree. Can you imagine doing that in a national park these days?!

In summary, what makes any Christmas special is not gifts, but people. Family and friends. Swapping stories. Eating a communal meal. Relaxing together. Praying together. Loving each other. That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

Labels for Children

As a child, I was a female nerd, long before I ever heard that word. I was also a tomboy, a bookworm, Miss Priss [Mama's nickname for me], The Dee Dee [Dad's nickname for me], Doll [my grandfather's nickname for me] and An Early Bloomer. My mother and my memaw were constantly on my case about being a Little Lady, but eventually they gave up on that. I preferred playing in the dirt to being ladylike, any day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We love to label children. My teachers told Mom and Dad I was precocious, conscientious, creative, and sometimes my attention wandered. Newsflash: my wandering attention was a result of me not being challenged in school. (I learned by 4th grade to always take a book to school so when I finished my classwork I could just read.)

I was also a bedwetter, for many years. It was embarrassing, especially when visiting someone else's house. At my own house, I woke up wet, got up and cleaned myself off and put on a fresh gown, and got in bed with my parents. I was reminded of that reading Sean Dietrich's column, Sleepless in Nashville.

I had stopped wetting the bed around age 11 but I was very sympathetic to the child who wrote Sean. It's super embarrassing. It's also, though, an instant barometer of the adults around you. Mothers tend to be sympathetic and kind, but fathers aren't always so nice, at least in my observation.

I wet the bed for the last time at age 15, while trying to sleep in a hotel room with both parents, who snored like crazy. Thank goodness I was on a cot.

Being a bedwetter also, I am convinced, makes for a more compassionate adult. If you are a bedwetter you feel intensely sympathetic to the child who is nerdy, or who wets the bed, or the little bookworm who hates being the last chosen for a sports team.

I always felt self-conscious and freakish in elementary and middle school. I could never feel good about myself except in the spelling bee or sometimes when onstage singing or doing plays. I grew fast and was taller than all my classmates until 8th grade. Then some of the boys started sprouting, so I didn't feel like She-Hulk by the time I got to high school. 

Parents, if your child wets the bed, trying to make them feel ashamed does.not.work! Set an alarm and get the child up to tinkle in the night. Or restrict liquids before bed. or whatever works. Children need to feel empowered and safe in their worlds. Shame and humiliation don't work.

Being a kid is tough, but being a nerdy kid, a bedwetter, a giant -- those make childhood a real trial by fire. I was also chubby so I got those labels too, which hurt.Try to always speak to your child with Love -- that's the quickest was to effect change.

A Celebrity Encounter

Before anyone carried a cell phone around in their pocket, encountering a celebrity meant asking for their autograph or perhaps just chatting with them for a few minutes. My grandmother Cordelia Henderson Thompson encountered a very famous singer/actor when she was going through a very difficult time in her life in the late 1950's. Her husband, my grandfather, had developed emphysema and was an invalid for about the last ten years of life.

I was scrolling through looking for a movie to stream the other night and I saw that White Christmas was an option. One of its stars was Bing Crosby, who was a huge movie star starting in the early 1930's. He almost always sang in his movies. He sold tons of records. Even though he had pretty much quit making movies when I was a kid, and his records weren't charting any more, I watched his Christmas specials every year. I loved his smooth baritone voice. He sang easily and seemingly effortlessly but I can tell you as a trained singer myself, making it look easy is the toughest trick to pull off.

I didn't know until I was in my 20's and my mother and I were watching White Christmas on TV that Bing was the all-time favorite singer of Grandmother Cordelia.

I also never knew any details of the death of my grandfather because Dad would never talk about it. Dad was only 27 when Grandaddy died, and it haunted him.

My mother knew a great deal about it because she was there when Grandaddy passed and she had watched Cordelia struggle to nurse her husband. Mom was only married to Dad a couple of years when Cordelia died but they had become great friends and Mom talked about her often, to me. I am named for her, in spirit. My name is a shortened version of "Cordelia."

Mom said the love story between Cordelia and Thompson was extraordinary. They didn't meet until Grandaddy was 35 and Cordelia was about 31. At that time she was considered an old maid, certain to never marry, according to the standards of the day. Grandaddy had never married likely because he sent money home to support his mother after his dad died.

They married in 1922 and had my uncle Lewis in 1923 or 24. My grandfather was not an education man and he had always struggled to find work. Cordelia came from a prominent family and had attended college and was a successful teacher. Despite those differences, it was true love match.

When Thompson was hospitalized sometime in the mid 1950's Cordelia sat with him all day in the hospital. She told my mom years later that she was coming out to get into her car one day and saw two golfers walking along on the adjacent golf course, and she realized it was Bob Hope and Bing Crosby! They were friends in real life as well as co-stars in the movies. They were both golf fanatics. They saw her and they walked over and chatted with her for a few minutes. She said they were really kind and friendly. She was going through a seriously difficult time in her life -- Grandaddy would die just a couple years later -- and both those superstars took the time to chat with her. I love that story. I now think of it every time I see a mention of Bing or Bob or White Christmas, one of my all-time Christmas songs. You can sing along with the song if you click here. 

#bingcrosbyencounter, #bobhopeencounter, #atruebingcrosbyfan, #whitecristmassingalong