Unforgettable Christmases

Last week the Spin Cycle assignment was for Christmas memories.  We had a lot going on last week and blogging time was not on the list as a priority.  Today, life has settled down a couple more notches has provided me with some extra time.

By far the most memorable Christmas Season was in 1972.  Four years earlier Gene and I had been told we would never conceive children.  After a period of time we decided to go for adoption.    We started the long adoption process in 1970.

By the first of December of 1972 we had been deep in the process for well over a year.  We were so close to having a baby placed with us.  One of the final steps was a physical exam.  During the exam I joked about the fact I was "late" this month.  One thing led to another and on Friday, December 22, just 3 days before Christmas I received a call from the doctor's office.  I was pregnant.  WOW!  To say we were very pleased is like the world's biggest understatement.  Talk about a December to Remember.

In 1982 I had the opportunity to write and perform a bit of prose in the Aurora Community Theater Christmas program.  Gene and John Roger ( our only son ) were performing in several of the musical numbers for the group.  They had been in several previous productions.  I was not one to perform scripted material.  Not a lot of good memorization nodes in this brain.  Anyway, here is the "bit of prose" that is part life experience, family history and fiction.

First Christmases

by Janice Adcock, 1982

My sisters,
Suzie & Margaret

The first Christmas I remember was at PawPaw's house.  I remember my sisters, Momma, Daddy, Aunt Sissy, Uncle Claude and their kids.  But mostly I remember Nona Pat.  She was Marsha's beautiful, new doll.

The first Christmas I realized that one did not always spend Christmas with family was the year a neighbor boy was in the service.  We spent hours cooking goodies to send to him so that on December 25 home would not be quite so far away.

Aunt Sissy's children,
Marsha is the infant.

The next big "first Christmas" held two new experiences.  A man named Jake, big and handsome ......... and so full of love.  Not a showy, bowing, loud kind of love but a quite, sky, smiling kind of love.  And salmon soup for Christmas Eve supper.  Definitely two new experiences.

Then, there was our first Christmas with our infant son.  We felt so akin to that Holy Couple.  Jake allowed as how, "God had a powerful lot of love for us all to allow His Only Son to die on that tree to save us wretched souls."

There were so many joyous Christmases with our folks and our children.  There were weeks of gettin' ready, cooking and cleaning.  Making a fresh wreath for the front door.  And the tree, it had to be just right!  I near drove Jake mad that first Christmas in our new home.  That tree Had to be Perfect!  It took two trips before the perfect one could be found.  And then it was too tall!  I could tell just by looking at my man that he was pretty upset.  But some hot chocolate and a batch of fresh popcorn and maybe a little peck on the cheek soon had things set right.

I know the tree mattered to him 'cause I remember how he fussed the first Christmas we had electrified lights on the tree.  REA had not reached our house yet so he strung flashlight bulbs and a car battery somehow or other and cellophane over the bulbs and it was beautiful.

The first Christmas our kids started leaving home, well it seems that Christmas became even more special because we could all be together again.  Next the Christmases started changing faces as first one parent then another went to meet The Maker.  Those were hard.  But, Dear Lord, that first Christmas without my Jake ..... that had to be the hardest.

Now my first, wide-eyed, great-grand daughter has just bounded in the front door with a new doll in her hands to show me.  It is beautiful!  Do you think that just maybe she might name it Nona Pat?

First Christmas with a camera that had a flash!  Note the tree has a power cord strung to the  light cord hung from the ceiling.  This was the "front room" at Paw Paw's house, the Farnsworth homeplace.

And do not forget to visit the other Spinners!