{"id":3432,"date":"2012-12-25T17:50:07","date_gmt":"2012-12-25T22:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=3432"},"modified":"2012-12-25T17:50:07","modified_gmt":"2012-12-25T22:50:07","slug":"christmas-memories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=3432","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Memories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Going to Mr. Wunker to pick out a tree.\u00a0 The elaborate method of setting it up so it could take in lots of water and not be a fire hazard.\u00a0 Going to see the living creche at Lytle Park and all the colored lights on the houses.\u00a0 Staying up Christmas Eve to decorate the tree, then going down in the morning.\u00a0 The doors to the living room were closed.\u00a0 We had to eat breakfast and wash all the dishes before we could see the tree, even though we had been decorating it the night before.\u00a0 Then we had to line up outside the doors, youngest first.\u00a0 Daddy would go into the living room, light the fire, turn on the lights on the tree, and start a recording of Christmas music.\u00a0 Then he opened the door and we all rushed in to gather and unwrap our piles of packages.\u00a0 Gradually we children took over the ceremony.\u00a0 One year, when brother Jesse had grown taller than his older sister, he announced that we would line up by size, not age.\u00a0 Eventually this led to Mother going in first, followed by the rest of us.\u00a0 We made a game out of getting all the breakfast dishes washed.\u00a0 One year I said \u201cLet\u2019s see if we can finish the dishes in the time it takes to sing \u201cThe Twelve Days of Christmas.\u201d\u00a0 We were finishing the last verse very slowly until we could see nothing more, so we sang the final \u201c… partridge in a pear tree!\u201d and then, my brother Jack, who had been holding his hand under the dirty dishwater, triumphantly lifted up a big serving spoon.\u00a0 \u201cThe One More Thing!\u201d we chorused.\u00a0 \u201cThe One More Thing\u201d comes from a story by Josephine Johnson<\/a>.\u00a0 A housewife has almost finished the dishes.\u00a0 She\u2019s about to pour out the water in the dishpan.\u00a0 She turns and looks all around the kitchen.\u00a0 \u201cI know you\u2019re there so come on out.\u201d\u00a0 She sees nothing, so she dumps the water and spins around and \u201cthere it was, the One More Thing, a dirty ice-cream dish on top of the refrigerator.\u201d\u00a0 So when we found such an item we would scream with delight \u201cThe One More Thing!\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, our mother was unable to join in our fun.\u00a0 She would wander around the kitchen looking sour, dabbing at invisible bits of dirt with a towel.\u00a0 Possibly she felt that we could not be doing a good job if we were having fun.\u00a0 Possibly she was trying to tell us how much work she did that wasn\u2019t appreciated by her children.\u00a0 (Which was ridiculous because we had servants.)\u00a0 After breakfast was finished & cleaned up we would gather in the living room.\u00a0 Mother, to make her point that we weren\u2019t doing a good enough job, would say \u201cI have to finish up,\u201d and go back to the kitchen.\u00a0 We all knew this was a excuse for a nip at one of her hidden bottles.\u00a0 At the end of the day, having opened lots of presents, gone to our grandparents\u2019 for a big party and dinner at which liquor flowed freely, come home tired and stuffed, I would retreat into a book.\u00a0 And I would feel vaguely disappointed, something I needed or wanted wasn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n

The first Christmas I found out what Christmas was about was the year after my graduation from college.\u00a0 A classmate and I decided to travel around Europe for the year.\u00a0 We started in Ireland and went all the way to Greece.\u00a0 At Christmastime we wanted to be in London with some older friends.\u00a0 Anthony and Nora ran a small Bed & Breakfast that took only certain guests, most of them young American priests studying in Rome.\u00a0 Anthony also ran a car-hire business which is how Bettie\u2019s family got to know them.\u00a0 They were a lovely couple, warm, caring and fun.\u00a0 We took the boat train from Paris to Calais to catch the ferry to England.\u00a0 We ended up in a compartment with a bunch of young British people.\u00a0 I think there were seven of us.\u00a0 We became a comradely group, sharing some crackers and cheese, an orange, and a chocolate bar.\u00a0 When we got to the boat we stayed together.\u00a0 At Customs entering England, we Americans got through quickly, but the returning British took some time.\u00a0 So we went ahead and saved a compartment for all of us on the train to London.\u00a0 By the time we got to London, we felt like family.<\/p>\n

Christmas with Anthony and Nora was special.\u00a0 Only a few presents were given, but all appreciated.\u00a0 There was an older priest staying with them, and Nora gave us some money to buy nice handkerchiefs for him, but we saw a maroon cashmere scarf and got that instead.\u00a0 It turned out to be perfect for Father Philip who was a scholar and appreciated fine things.\u00a0 We gave Nora a jewelry box bought in Florence, and Anthony gave her a diamond ring, their first.\u00a0 But the presents weren\u2019t important, there was good fellowship, warmth, fun, and love.\u00a0 That was when I really got what Christmas was about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Going to Mr. Wunker to pick out a tree.\u00a0 The elaborate method of setting it up so it could take in lots of water and not be a fire hazard.\u00a0 Going to see the living creche at Lytle Park and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-present-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}