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Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection. ~~Winston Churchill
Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. ~~Norman Vincent Peale
Christmas isn't a season. It's a feeling.~~ Edna Ferber
Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home! ~~Charles Dickens
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Curled up by the fire, ensconced in my papasan chair, it becomes a capsule hurling me back through time to fifty-some-odd years ago. Christmas at my grandmother's house. Curled up in an oversized leather chair in front of her humongous fireplace in her library. Two-story high room with bookshelves covering two walls to the ceiling and two ladders to reach the books twenty feet up the walls. A wall of glass windows looking out over her flagstone patio to a snow-covered Mt Greylock in the distance. The other window wall showcased her eighteen-foot Christmas tree you could see a mile away.
My grandmother, Annie had a long, long driveway that was a two-track at best. It absolutely wasn't car friendly even in the best weather conditions. We'd park in town and take a sleigh to her house. She had one at her place and one she'd leave in town if we were coming up. Two dappled grey horses, Horatio and Hector, would pull the sleigh, their harness bells jangling as they trotted up the trail.
Annie's house was, as she used to call it, a 'ramblin' house.' Part old, old Victorian, part farmhouse and all magic. It had front, back and side staircases. Next to the fireplaces upstairs were teeny little narrow doors that once upon a time let 'tweenies', small children go up and down bringing firewood and clearing out ashes without walking through the house. They were great hiding places when I was still small enough to walk the narrow corroders between floors. (It was a great way to sneak down to the kitchen for a snack in the middle of the night!) My room had two window seats, a great big canopied bed with thick posts carved with leaves, running deer and twisty vines. There were heavy damask curtains on the bed and I remember feeling like a princess sleeping there.
She had a walk-up attic above the third floor and we'd form a line to pass all the boxed ornament, roping and lights down three flights of stairs to the tree. I remember playing up there after she brought me up there the first time. That was the day I found out about 'my grandmother's grandfather's trunk' and learned her house was a frequent stop on the Underground Railway. Annie's house was full of secret rooms, bookcase doors that could make two rooms into one, and passages that went nowhere at all. On the second floor was a locked door. I'd always wondered what was on the other side of that door. One day I found it open and snuck in. I was so disappointed that it just lead to a hallway with nothing in it!
Down in the basement was what we always called 'the octopus.' Old time furnace with numerous arms --the way the heat got to different parts of the house. A man would come and shovel coal down a chute into a big hod in the basement and from there it would be fed into the furnace. My brother used to threaten to make me octopus bait. My dad would threaten my brother with a stocking full of coal on Christmas if he didn't behave. I loved being at Annie's!
Annie's kitchen was warm, huge and had seventy-three cabinets in it. That isn't including her butler's pantry either. Obviously, she had a lot of counter space and she'd manage to use it all with her dinner preparations, dishes of homemade cookies and racks of pies. She baked a pie for each family in town. That was a lot of pies. Mincemeat, apple and pumpkin. In the fall we gather up the pumpkins from the fields, collect baskets of apples. Near Christmas, she and I would make a stop at every single house and leave a pie. Some families got two or three because they had so many kids. She always told me that we have to give back our good fortune to others. That was usually repeated to me as I sat in her kitchen peeling what seemed like thousands of apples! She'd tell me that each apple was a thank you and a blessing, and to stop my bellyaching!
She had an old fashioned cast iron oven and used the fireplace for baking as well. On each side of the fireplace were small alcoves where she'd bake her bread. Annie told me that way back in the day, sometimes the bottoms of the loaves would burn. The bread would be sliced longways back then. Guests always got the top of the loaf, or the upper crust.
I'd spend summers rambling around her house and the fields surrounding it. Town hadn't spread that far then. One of my jobs was to dust all the things Annie had scattered about on shelves, tables andin all the nooks and crannies she had. I remember it taking me hours to dust all the figurines and glass animals, the oddly shaped boxes, the statues and the furniture. She'd hide pennies, sometimes a nickel or a dime, on undersides of tables, under boxes, behind lamps. There was never the same amount, one week to the next. As I dusted, I'd find the coins and put them in my pocket. When I was finished, I'd count them up and report how much I'd found. If I didn't find them all, I had to start over, and yes, I'd have to polish everything again. After a few double-dustings, I learned to do the job right the first time!
In the front room, she had an intricately carved, marble-topped table that always held the manger. Although I never found any coins there, it was one of my favorite things to dust and arrange all her people and animals. There seven shepards and a whole flock of carved sheep. The three kings, cows, a mule, three cats, a dog and horses. On the wall behind it were what she called her 'host of angels.' Her angels were one thing I didn't have to dust. She did that, but as she did, she repeat like a litany what part of the globe each one came from. She had angels from Holland, France, Germany and Italy. Others from Turkey and Hungary. (I always got such a kick out of that!) There were angels she'd gotten in Nairobi and Kenya, Madagascar and India. I've always wondered what ever happened to them. Mom always said they went back to heaven. They probably did!
Annies house was a treasure trove of ornate boxes, elaborate sculptures and bejeweled eggs. She said Faberge Eggs were rare and I always had to be extra careful with them. Some played music and other would reveale entire tiny towns and villages when opened. And her books. Annie had every single 'classic.' She had shelves and shelves of children's books. On a stand in the corner was a Bible printed in the 1600s. She had first editions of books back before there were copyrights. I loved those books then as I love them still.
As I grew older and the town spread out, fields were sold and her driveway became a street ending at her place. It is a parking lot now. I cried my heart out when I went back just to see her old house and for a moment actually thought I was in the wrong place. Sadly, I wasn't. But on days like today, I go back there on a mind-journey and see it as clearly as if I were there.
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Memories...
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What are your favorite Christmas/holiday memories? What makes them special? Have you considered writing about them to share with, yes, folks here, but more for the generations to follow you? With grandchildren who don't have a clue about phone booths, black and white TVs, or 'practical' presents, mine, at least, have had a world opened up to them. Our world has changed so much since I was young, or my parents and grandparents were - these are memories and happenings that needs must be kept alive. What a gift it could be for the generations in your family yet to come.
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