I love everything about the Christmas holiday season (well, except for wrapping presents). There is a sense of joy and wonder as decorations begin to appear in store windows, living room windows and the exteriors of homes all around town. Holiday music is everywhere and it's fun to sing along.
I remember anxiously waiting for Santa to arrive in my small town so I could pay him a visit and tell him all of my heart's desires. Moore's Department Store had a mechanical polar bear that jumped out of a box - over and over and over. He was moving oh so slowly the last Christmas the store was open, but I could have watched him for hours anyway. He was still magical to my jaded teen aged eyes.
At home, we decorated a tree. It was festive with red lights, red bows, red balls and candy canes. My mom's favorite color was red and she did not spare it's use at Christmas time. Our house was comfy and cheerful, filled with all the things you would expect to find. I would get up every morning and check my stocking . . . just in case.
My real love of all things Christmas came at the knee of Mrs. Neff. I spent a good deal of my childhood with Mrs. Neff and 'Neffer,' her husband. They were both very dear to me and expanded my view of the world greatly. From Neffer I learned about shoeing horses, how to reload shotgun shells, and about doing a professional finish when doing home-repairs.
Mrs. Neff was my stay-at-home mom when my own mom no longer could be. I watched her can beans from the garden, make crabapple butter, made consparitorial trips to the burn can in order to destroy the evidence of a cake mix being used. Neffer would swear he could taste the cardboard if he saw the box, but would praise with delight the very same cake if no box was spied. But holidays were an extra special time in their home and I always felt privileged to share in them.
Each year there was a fresh-cut tree, decorated to the hilt with balls and ornaments of all colors, a string of lights in every shade available and more tinsel that should be allowed in one home, angel hair that made my itchy but was pretty to look at, garland swirled around and around. I don't know how those trees managed to stand under all that ornamentation.
Each year there was much work to be done in the kitchen. Fruit cakes baked and left to "age." Batches and batches of cookies, baked, decorated and placed carefully in tins. Candy coated walnuts - different colors of candy for different batches then mixed together for an eye-pleasing arrangement. And then there were the pecan rolls. Delicious vanilla-y fudge, shaped into logs, home-made caramel sheets cut to size and wrapped around. Once they were completely encased in caramel, pecan halves were neatly pressed into the caramel before they were wrapped up in waxed paper. Those pecan rolls are still the most delicious candy I have ever tasted.
Over the years, Mrs. Neff outfitted my Barbies, came to my piano recitals, put Band-Aids on skinned knees,picked me up at the bus stop, took me Camp Fire Girls meetings, watched me turn into a bratty teen and waited patiently for me to return. She sat proudly with my mom in the front pew when I got married. Gave me my first Mother's Day present and The Princess her first doll. And, of course, she gave me a box filled with hand-made Christmas ornaments that find their way on my tree every year. They are starting to show their age, but they will never run out of love.