Sometime yesterday afternoon I got the Christmas spirit. Now this is not as easy as it would seem. Getting the spirit is something my family considers vitally important. Ever since I weighed less than a hundred pounds, I have been asked the question, "You got the Christmas spirit yet?". There is no guarantee what will accomplish this or trigger it or bring it on. Sometimes it is almost Pentecostal in its arrival; other times, a sound, a smell, an event, or an object may bring on the spirit.
I had done everything right to be in full spirit mode. We've had Christmas carols playing since the turkey got cold. The tree was up before rivalry Saturday. The nativity set resides on the mantle in the hallway. Lights and garland adorn the banister on the front porch. I had heard my first Salvation Army bell and jangled coins into the bucket. I still didn't have the spirit.
After getting home from a harried trip to Sam's, WalMart, and Publix, I set up the ironing board and began my annual task of pressing the Christmas table cloths. When I unfolded the large holly green cloth my mother gave me twenty years ago, I felt the first tingles of the spirit.
The table cloth is a huge thing constructed of about ten yards of green broadcloth. My mother must have made it the first year we celebrated Christmas at the big oak table we got after we moved into the Gill house about 1950. We didn't have a lot of money. No one did. My mother was a wizard at the sewing machine. She had a treadle sewing machine which she kept out in the hall. She probably bought the fabric at one of the stores in town. At that time there were at least two stores in town that carried cloth for sewing. She shaped it so that it would cover the table even when the all the leaves were in to form a large oval. She could seat twelve easily when this was done.
I remember how proud I was of my mama's table when she put on the pretty table cloth and then loaded the company table with good food. The food was always good whether on the regular table in the kitchen or on the company table in the parlor, but there was just something extra special when she used that green table cloth.
Christmas Eve was our really special night of the holiday season. We almost always had our friends, John and Ethel Lewis who had no children. We loved the feeling of being included in adult conversations and we enjoyed the feeling of being adored by these two people who found us interesting and amusing.
So, we gathered in that big old living room with the dining table covered in the bright green cloth and laden down with mama's Christmas goodies: fruit cake, fudge, divinity. We drank her home canned scuppernong juice. We listened to tale spinning, and eventually, we would open our gifts. It was a special, precious time.
My Christmas spirit has been somewhat stymied this year because for the first time ever, neither of our sons will be home for Christmas and Christmas for us during the years they were growing up was always a wonderful, family centered time. Before we moved back to Hamilton County we started our celebration by a trip to our favorite Mexican restaurant in Ft. Walton. Usually Santa would see us leave and would deliver the gifts to our home after we had done our annual drive around. After we moved here, we included the larger family in our Christmas Eve celebrations. Christmas day was low key. We included a birthday cake for Jesus. This was originally one of the boy's idea since it was a birthday celebration. Many Christmases we never got out of pajamas for the day.
So, this year will be a little different, but it will still be good because it is still Christmas. We will sit in a candlelit room with the sound of soft music, and Klep will take down the Bible and read the Christmas story from Luke. Therein is the true spirit of Christmas in those words which begin "And in those days, it came to pass..."
We will feel the peace, love, hope, and joy that that simple story gives us. It will spread over us and we will be blessed.
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