Going to Grandma's for Christmas

Going to Grandma’s for Christmas (1950’s)

It’s Christmas Eve. It’s Christmas Eve. We’re going to Grandma’s. We’ve had a nap although we were too excited to actually sleep. We’ve had baths and our hair is in curlers. Oh hurry, Daddy, hurry. Do the chores as fast as you can. Take your bath as fast as fast as can be. It’s Christmas Eve. It’s almost dark! It’s time to go to Grandma’s house.

When I was in grade school, we went to my Grandparents’ house in Torrington, Wyoming for Christmas. On the 24th Daddy would do the chores very early but it would always be dark when we left the ranch 10 miles south of Alliance. And, it was so dark. There were no mercury lights that come on automatically at dusk. Farmsteads were visible only if they happened to have a yard light on when we drove by. Leaving Alliance, there were a few street lights at Angora and a couple at the junction but then it would be very dark the rest of the way to Scottsbluff. There we would see Christmas trees in windows, street decorations and a few lighted decorations in yards. Then it would be pitch black again with our headlights throwing thin beams down the road ahead of us. The stars, if it wasn’t cloudy, were low and bright. We would sing Christmas Carols and I could gaze at the black sky and imagine how startling a sky full of angels would be.

We knew which small town was next and we watched eagerly for the lights of each. In Morrill there was a lighted Santa standing beside the chimney on a roadside roof that made us laugh and heightened our excitement because we were almost there. Only Henry and then we’d be in Wyoming!

We were always the last to arrive at Grandma’s. My cousins from California, if they came, would come a week early and the other ranch living cousins had other family members who would do the necessary chores so they could leave home right after lunch or even earlier.

December 24^th is my sister’s birthday so as soon as we had been greeted, we would have her “birthday party.” After she had blown out the candles, we’d eat supper having her cake for dessert. While the women washed the dishes, we children put on our good clothes and the men arranged the chairs in the family room and made sure that the fire in the fireplace would last through the evening.

Then we opened presents. My uncles exchanged the same gifts year after year. I suspected that they really were the same gifts that were just put away with the Christmas decorations. One was a coconut with a handkerchief tied around the “face” and the other was a bag of nuts and bolts. Grandma and Granddad’s gifts almost always included new pajamas or slippers or a robe for each of us cousins. After the presents we talked and played with new toys or games and had snacks and sometimes some of the grown-ups would go to church. One by one we kids would go change into our nightwear and then clutching a favorite new gift we would snuggle together in the warmth of the fireplace and the soft lights of the Christmas tree and fall asleep on the family room floor.

After a big dinner on Christmas Day, we would return to our house. We could never spot the Santa on the roof in the daytime and coming from the other direction. This was just an ordinary, long drive home. Only the Christmas Eve drive in the dark was magical.

The Year the Focus Shifted

The Year the Focus Shifted

The temperature hovered around 20^o below zero on December 20 when Donna left the ranch south of town to go to work. A thaw a couple of weeks earlier followed by the bitter cold had left deep frozen ruts in the gravel road making the daily trip to town and back again quite treacherous. Whether she was going a little too fast or was momentarily distracted or it was inevitable, Donna hit a rut at the wrong angle and her car flipped into the ditch.

She was NOT knocked out and was able to crawl out of the car. She made her way to a neighbor’s house about 200 yards down the road. No one answered her knocking! However, the back door was not locked and she went in. She was able to call 9-1-1. (In 1983, cell phones were unknown and country dwellers usually left their back door unlocked!) Then she lost consciousness.

The calls went out, “Donna rolled her car. She’s in the hospital.”

Suddenly, my screaming “to do” list faded into oblivion. My worries over the budget were overwhelmed by concern for Donna. Noisy teenagers, home from school, were strangely quiet after hearing the news. Each going off silently to homework or chores. Supper grace was not for food but for Donna. The sense that our family circle had a dent in it made those gathered around the table a little closer.

Later, another call came. “Nothing is broken. She’s badly bruised but should be ok.”

My thoughts did not go back to the “to do” list or the budget concerns, but stayed in the mellow warmth of the real importance of holiday celebrations. God sent His son into a family! The family is the touchstone.

Donna was in the hospital until the 24^th. The family had all gathered at the ranch by then. She was stiff and in considerable pain and we were all very solicitous. Because the five steps into the house were difficult, a roll-away was set up for her near the Christmas tree. Traditionally the grandchildren rolled out sleeping bags on the living room floor and whispered and giggled into the midnight hours. This night they went quietly to sleep to avoid disturbing Aunt Donna. Always one to pick up on the drama of any situation, Donna presided over the gift opening Christmas morning propped up on pillows in her bed by the tree. Then, so she wouldn’t get too full of herself (my opinion), as the rest of family went off to get the day started, we heard a squeal and then a crash. Rushing back to the living room, we found Donna in her bed with the Christmas tree on top of her.

“I could see it coming but I couldn’t move out of the way.” Unfortunately, no one got a picture of Donna, bruised, battered, and decorated but we remember the year the focus shifted.

We Needed a Christmas Tree

We Needed a Christmas Tree

I was in upper elementary or early high school the Christmas we “needed” a Christmas Tree. Daddy picked Carol and me up at St. Agnes. Christmas vacation had begun and we were excited! Two weeks of playing with our pets, of no homework, of reading what and where we wanted to.

Mother had sent a list of course, so Daddy dropped us and the list at Safeway while he went to do something else then picked us up and we went home to the ranch.

At home we carried the groceries into the house and Daddy returned to the car. When he came in with a tree, Mother started to protest but Daddy put his index finger to his lips and nothing else was said.

Looking back, I can see that Irish optimism had trumped German pragmatism. Daddy's index finger to lips was not so much “don't talk” as it was “it'll be alright.”

Mother had probably decided that we didn't need a tree. We would be spending Christmas Eve and most of Christmas Day with our grandparents where there was sure to be a large tree elegantly decorated. Cattle prices had probably been low and she was in penny pinching mode. And, she didn't like the mess.

But, Daddy had little girls who needed the sense of family togetherness as we decorated. Who needed the creativity of decorating a tree just so and the awe of viewing our creation in the darkened living room and running outside to see if the lights shone through the windows. Daddy's girls needed imagination and flights of fancy and Christmas dreams.

We needed a Christmas Tree.

Icicles Hung Neatly on the Tree

Christmas Memory: Icicles Hung Neatly on the Tree

Rick was not quite eight when he left South Korea to join his adoptive family in the middle of the United States. Rick met this challenge with the in-your-face bravado and determination that had enabled him to survive thus far. He was visibly angry when he got off the plane because his coat zipper was stuck and he was not able to present himself as “perfect” for his new family. He reluctantly accepted his new Dad’s help to fix it and bravely took his new Mom’s hand as the family left the airport. It was November 16^th.

The adoption agency recommended that the newly adopted child be kept at home for at least six weeks so they could adjust to the immediate family members and routines before adding school regulations and classmates. Rick demanded to go to school with his brother and sisters. The primary teacher in the small country school was willing to let him join his sisters and he started to school after Thanksgiving -- just in time for Christmas program preparation.

His vocabulary of six English words expanded rapidly. Each day was a wonderful adventure of singing and art projects and putting up decorations at school. On the Saturday that we went to the nearby Christmas tree farm, cut a tree and brought it into the house, Rick nearly burst with excitement. He lustily sang O Christmas Tree (with at least two extra syllables in “Christmas”). He eagerly explored the composition of the tree, walked around it measuring it’s space in front of the window and chattered gaily in Korean.

Traditionally, Dad put the lights on. We all added decorations then we all started carefully placing icicles one by one on the lower branches and slowly moving up the tree. The kids -- and Mom -- would soon tire and wander off leaving Dad to watch the football game while placing icicles neatly on the tree.

While Rick might have understood the words, there was no way he could grasp the concept of icicles neatly on the tree. While Dad was sitting on the floor adding icicles one by one, Rick pulled a stool up to the other side of the tree so he could come closer to the top and began gleefully throwing handfuls of icicles on the tree. There have been more than 30 trees since then and with each one we remember Rick’s first Christmas and the beautiful tree with great clumps of icicles reflected in his shining eyes. And, sometime along the way, we quit using icicles on our trees.

The Christmas of the Bobsled Run

The Christmas of the Bobsled Run

It snowed before Thanksgiving. For the first time in many years, the annual Thanksgiving gathering was cancelled. There were several more snows between Thanksgiving and Christmas but by Christmas Eve, the major roads were dry and clear.

Our tradition at that time was to spend Christmas Eve in Broadwater with Norm’s family. We were living in Dawson County and had to start right after lunch to meet at the home of two elderly aunts. There we would share supper and a gift exchange. Then most of us would noisily walk the long block to the candlelight service at the Lutheran church. After church we would return to the Aunts’s house for cookies, coffee and ice cream bars.

Then the other families would return to their homes and we would travel about 30 miles up the Broadwater road to the home of my parents.

Even driving on the clear, dry Interstate, we could see that the snow cover was deeper the farther west we came however the secondary highways were also clear. We talked to several people at church to make sure the Broadwater Road was passable. We were assured that it was open all the way to Alliance but that there were some one way stretches.

It was about 10:00 p.m. when we left Broadwater. There were stars but no moon and our headlights cast a narrow beam into the darkness. As we came to the end of the graded road we encountered a “one way stretch.” The road was the width of the snowplow and the snow was piled 6-9’ high on either side. The rest of the way to my parents was a series of “one way stretches.” Every two or three miles, usually at the end of a ranch driveway, there was a wider area where two cars could pass. Had we met anyone, someone would have had to back a considerable distance so the two cars could pass.

The headlights created strange shadows as we passed between the high piles of snow. The children began to “see” images in the shadows. One thought he saw Santa, another saw the reindeer. None of them fell asleep as they usually did. It was a magical, beautiful drive.

It was later, after watching the Winter Olympics, that our older, silver tongued daughter dubbed the drive the Christmas of the bobsled run.