Christmas Memories...

I've had several people ask me, "What is your Favorite Christmas memory?"  It always catches me off guard and I stutter and stammer around and usually say "Wow! that's a hard one.  I'll hafta think about that."

This morning, I've had a some time to think.  The memory that I cherish most, was not on Christmas, but on Christmas Eve.  And...I'm not gonna relate that in this post.  You'll just hafta stay tuned in!  Here are a couple though, that you may enjoy.

I always wanted to give Mom and Dad good Christmas gifts.  I was always pretty frugal with my money (the Ozark term is "tight as the bark on a tree") but one Christmas, the funds ran low.  It was when we lived in the Farley House and I was around nine or ten years old.  We had went downtown to Richards Brothers Supermarket for groceries, so I just sauntered on up the avenue to Wilke Drugstore.  In the basement of Wilke's, there were all kinds of neat toys and knick-knacks.  After I looked around awhile, I found the perfect gifts for Mom and Dad!...the problem was...no money.  I had to go borrow the money from Mom to get their Christmas presents!

For Dad, I bought a box of plastic toothpicks.  He used a lot of toothpicks and he had this habit of chewing on the toothpick while he was using it.  Beside his chair, on a coaster, you would usually find a couple of toothpicks, chewed up in little splintery balls. (and I have inherited this habit...)  Plastic toothpicks were the answer!  They wouldn't get chewed up and you could wash and reuse them!  Perfect!

Mom's gift...even today, this is somewhat embarrassing.  I was a kid and what I was thinking is still a puzzle.  My Christmas gift to Mom that year was...a Yo-yo.  Yep...a Yo-Yo!  Now not just any yo-yo.  This one was really tiny, plastic, two-tone (yellow and green) with a little plastic ring for your finger attached to the string!  I was probably too busy opening my gifts to notice when Mom opened her's but THAT would most likely have been a sight to see!  Through the years, that was a story that Mom would relate as one of the best gifts she ever received.  As a matter of fact, when we were cleaning out her house after she had passed, we found the little Yo-Yo, tucked away in one of her chest-of-drawers...

It was kinda like this one..I don't seem to recall what happened to Mom's.

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 Sometimes, it's the smallest memories that really stick in your mind.  Years ago, we were working on a U.S. Forest Service job in Douglas County and it was just a couple days before Christmas.  We were surveying the boundary between Forest Service land and private land, and one of the boundaries went right across the top of Red Mountain.

The red line is Highway 14, "19" is the Section number and the black line between Red and Mountain is the line we were marking

Before lunch, we had worked our way up the east side of the mountain, almost to the top.  It was cold and cloudy so we walked back to the truck to eat and warm up.  Back then, as now, I like to listen to NPR radio.  The (liberal) news programs keep my blood pressure healthy and I like classical music.  I turned the radio on when we got settled in the truck and they had Christmas music playing!  We warmed up, talked, ate and listened for awhile and then a song came on that quieted us all down.  Actually, it wasn't really a song...It was orchestral music with a narration by a young boy.   It related what the young lad would have done if he would have been in Bethlehem on the first Christmas night.  No stable for Jesus if he would have been there! No manger full of hay or smelly animals if he had his way!  It was really a moment of enlightenment for all of us in the truck.  It made us ask the question,  "What would I have done?"  When my mind wanders back to Christmas, this memory always surfaces somehow....

I have searched high and low for this song and never have been able to locate it.  The narration was a poem by Robert Frost (I think).  I even called the radio station (KSMU) to see if I could get their playlist for that day.  No luck...it was streamed in from another station and they couldn't get the information.  If anyone has heard this song and knows the name, I would really appreciate a comment.  Merry Christmas!