MAMA LOVED CHRISTMAS

Mama loved Christmas.  Oh, I don’t guess there are many people I know who don’t love Christmas, but Mama especially loved Christmas.  She told stories about when she was a child, her Dad had died and her Mom was trying to raise 7 children by washing clothes for people on a scrub board or wash board.  She said then they didn’t get anything but an apple or an orange that her Mom put in their shoe by the fireplace.  Or perhaps some “rock candy”. But that didn’t stop her from loving Christmas. 

When I was a child, Mom and Dad made Christmas a big deal for us.  Some of my earliest memories are of the wonderful times we had as children because of Dad and Mom’s attitude and efforts at Christmas.  I don’t ever remember asking “Santa” for anything that I didn’t get.

One of my fondest memories of Mom and Christmas was after I had left the Coast Guard and returned home and Mom and I were going to get a Christmas tree.  Back then you didn’t drive to a Christmas tree lot and pick one out.  You were almost a communist if you used a “fake” tree.  So we would go out into the woods and find a cedar tree.  That’s the only kind of Christmas tree we ever had back then. 

We lived in South Calera and Dad had a friend and co-worker named John Lejoue (I guess that’s how you spell it) .  John was a Frenchman and he and his wife owned some land not far from us.  Their land was full of cedar trees and John was nice enough to allow us to go over and cut down a tree for our Christmas.  Mom and I got the ax and headed out, really not paying much attention to the weather. 

Finding just the right tree with Mom was a chore.  This one wasn’t large enough.  That one was too small.  This one isn’t full enough and that one looks crooked.  It seems now like we walked those woods for hours.  It was almost dark and then it started to snow.  (Yes, snow in Alabama.  It had to be early December, I guess.)  The snow begin to “stick” to the trees and ground so I assume it must have been pretty cold, although I don’t remember it being that cold.  The cedar trees looked wonderful and we had a blast when we finally found the right tree and I cut it down and carried it back to her house. 

Well, as you know, Mom died about 3 years ago.  She had lived with Keva and I for about 5 years before her death.  We tried to make Christmas for her as special as she had made it for me and Anita when we were kids.  On Christmas morning she would have her little pile of gifts that Santa had left her and we would take pictures and video of her opening her treasures. 

The Christmas after Mom’s death Keva had a wonderful idea.  Mom had a little saying that she always used when folks would leave.  She would say, “I love you, just a little bit”, and make a sign with her little fingers showing you how “little” she loved you.  So Keva had handkerchiefs made for those who knew Mom, and on those handkerchiefs she had embroidered that little phrase, “I love you just a little bit”.  She gave them out and everyone seemed to love them.  But that was three years ago.

This year, we continued our tradition of stockings and presents and family. Keva has continued the tradition of making everyone’s Christmas special. But on Christmas morning it is just Keva and I, Gracie (the dog) and the three cats (Bubba, Sissy and Runt).  So we opened our gifts and then I took down our stockings.  Keva had placed some little stuff in my stocking and I had placed some little stuff in her stocking.  I opened mine and smiled and commented on them, then it was her turn. 

As she emptied her stocking and “made over” the little stuff I’d put in there, I thought we were through with the presents.  But she reached down into the toe of the stocking and pulled out a special gift. 

There, stuck down in the  toe of the stocking was a little yellow handkerchief with the phrase “I love you just a little bit”.  I hadn’t put it there.  I guess the logical explanation would have been that three years ago it got placed in her stocking when we were giving them out to the family and for the last two Christmas’s it had gone unnoticed. But as her eyes glistened with a tear or two and I looked away so she couldn’t see mine, I think we both had the same thought.  Mama will always love Christmas.