This morning, as I was up praying, I was thinking "Wow! It won't be long until Christmas." Ya know, Papa and me raised 6 children and we love Christmas. I should be writing about Thanksgiving, as it is the next holiday. But if you have a large family, as Papa and me raised, you have to think of Christmas even in October.
We had to start early to gather presents for each of our children. Mary, our sixth baby, was just 8 months old for her first Christmas, and Jimmy was in the Navy. Well, I had to send Jimmy his present early to get it there in time for Christmas. I sent fudge and Christmas cookies to remind him of the tastes of home. Shoot, we never had a lot of money for Christmas presents. But we got what we could to make each of our children feel special and loved by Daddy and Mama. We would give them one item of clothing like a warm sweatshirt. And then some kind of an inexpensive toy. In their stockings, we put candy and for the girls, hair ribbons or barrettes. And for the boys always basketball cards. I hear the little boys' childhood voices as I write. "Daddy, you are lucky -- you pick out the best cards. You always get the good ones." Dan said he didn't know what he wanted to be when he grew up, but he knew he would be in the NBA. Like it was a done deal. But we started packing little toys and fun things away in October to surprise the children for Christmas Day.
The children would have us take them to the Dollar Store to buy a dollar gift for each of the members of their family. They each had their own money, as they did a once a week paper route. So when David and Mary and Dan were little, and the other children were grown, we took the 3 youngest to the Dollar Store. So the 3 children represented 30 bucks, and all of them wanted me to help pick out presents. I was about cross eyed by the time I helped pick out 30 one dollar presents. And yet now, 15 years later, I would jump at the chance to do that all over again.
And ya know, somehow each year, we got a real Christmas tree for the family. We would find one for about 10 bucks. And, oh, the children's hands would just tremble with excitement as they put the first ornaments on the tree. It was a special night to behold. I would fix chili and cornbread. And after supper, we would decorate the tree. Papa was so full of fun and loved Christmas. I tried to have some Christmas cookies made for the evening and always popcorn. After the tree was all decorated, our dog Daisey would go sit under it. One time her collar got hooked to the tree and she knocked it over, and then as we all screamed, she ran away dragging the decorated tree through the house.
One year, Mary gave me such a precious gift. She didn't have any money of her own to spend for Christmas. She was just a wee little girl about 5 years old. Anyway, I had a precious old fashioned book that I had lost in the house someplace and couldn't find it for about a year. I had finally given up ever trying to find it. Well about a week before Christmas, Mary found it upstairs, stacked in with some other forgotten books. And so for Christmas Day, she wrapped this book up for me and put it under the tree with a card that said "To Mom From Mary." She has the same heart as I have and loves writing and books. So she knew how much Mama missed her book. So it was one of my favorite Christmas presents that year. I was so surprised to see it again, as I thought it was lost forever. And Mary was so proud of her little Christmas self.
If you saw this book, you would weep. It is real old fashioned from the 1800's with a little girl about 5 on the front cover. She is praying to Jesus. And inside the book is her prayers. I have the book upstairs in the baby's room on a shelf. Baby Rose has a sweet spirit like Mary has.
Mary, now married and 20 years old, is a lovely writer. And, of course, her heart has been cut open at so young an age by losing her first baby to crib death.
MOTHER'S CHRISTMAS GIVING
And just after Thanksgiving, I would start my baking. Then about a week before Christmas, I would make simple coffeecakes to give to the neighbor families. I would have one of the children dress up warm and deliver a few cakes to the neighbors. I would make a few a day and when they were done, they were delivered. They were made simply. I would make up a huge batch of sweet yeast raise dough. Then I would braid the dough for each cake and put it in a circle. I would put cinnamon and sugar on the braids before I wound them together. Then after they baked, I would put a light white powdered sugar glaze; then, on the top, green candy sprinkles. Then maybe red hots to look like berries on a wreath. Sometimes I put maraschino cherries on it, like in clusters of three. You can also add raisins to your sweet dough.
I would make about three Christmas cakes out of a batch of sweet dough. Then I would put the coffeecake on a pretty paper Christmas plate, and then put plastic wrap over it with a bow and a simple card "From the Hultquists. Merry Christmas." I loved doing this to teach the children to love and respect our neighbors and to teach them the Joy of giving. Of course, the neighbors would ooh and aahh and kid the children about "if they were naughty or nice and what was Santa gonna bring 'em for Christmas?" And when they would come back home, I would say, "Well, what did Chuck and Trudy say? Did they like the cake?" And the children would tell me what they said. It was a lot of fun. I look forward to having my grandchildren do this too, of course, when they are older.
I told Papa last week. "Thank God this Christmas we will have the grandbabies with us over the season, at least." I was reading to Baby Rose and showing her a Christmas book Papa had gotten for her. It had a Christmas tree. I explained to Baby that we would buy a tree, too. And I told her it would be for Grandma and Grandpa's house and she said, "And for ME?" And I said, "Oh, yes, Baby, for you, too."
Mary asks me in such sadness, "Mom, how will I get through Christmas? I had so much planned for our little girl."
I say, "Mary, I pray you will be pregnant at Christmas. The Lord will help you." And ya know, I carry this sorrow and will carry it forever. I am getting better at it. I can carry it now with less effort and heartache. But I will always carry it. And this is what I tell Mary and Brandon. Time heals our wounds but the scars remain.
We as Mothers and Grandmothers learn to carry our sorrows like ladies of dignity. And somehow, in spite of our tears, we find Joy at Christmas. We make a Christmas with our hands and with our hearts. Remembering that it is a time for Joy and a time to rest and enjoy the family. We must have hearts of trust in God in order to encourage our children and, by our behavior, excite courage in their souls.
And, ya know, as a young mom, I didn't want to make a Christmas, as I wanted to just celebrate Jesus' birth. But to tell poor children that we would have no Christmas as the other children had, and would only celebrate the birth of Christ, was not showing our children the love of Jesus and their parents' love. We celebrated both. And we let our children know that Jesus Christ was real but Santa was pretend, and we talked about Santa just to have fun.
And I bet I could say in my years as a wife and mother I have, without exaggeration, made at least a million cut-out sugar cookies. Maybe more! Again, here is another dough for Mother to learn to work with. I would say sugar cookie dough is like noodle dough. These cookies were a mainstay for me at Christmas. Many years, I sold them to buy Christmas presents. Mary, at 9 years old, made these and sold 40 dozen to buy Christmas presents.
