Well, let’s see now…

     When little Edna was (almost) five years old she was such a true believer in Santa Clause that it was inconceivable that there could be any doubt he existed.    By then, of course, she could remember what had happened the year before and she could hardly wait for it to happen again.

     Edna’s older siblings worked hard during December to fill her to the brim with stories and activities so that by Christmas Eve her excitement level was bubbling over the top.    As her father would say, “She was as jumpy as a fart on a hot skillet.”    Her only sister was twelve years older than Edna, and her brothers were ages eight and ten years older; it was the perfect time to work on Edna’s imagination.    She seriously soaked in everything she was told about Santa, his elves, the North Pole, and Santa’s Toy Shoppe … and it was all vividly painted in her imagination.

      Her brothers told her tales of Santa’s elves and how they jumped from snowy fence post to snowy fence post; how they were so fast that you rarely ever saw more than a blur from the corner of your eye as they ran around gathering notes for Santa’s list.   The brothers knew everything about the elves from the tips of their pointed little hats right down to the bells on their curly little shoes.   They knew where they slept when they were on “duty” and how they would sneak in at night to get warm by the coal-burning upright heater in our living room and sneak little nibbles from our bread.    Bill swears to this day that he saw one leap the high fences that corralled the farm animals who lived down the dirt lane from our home to the barns at the back of our three acre lot.    They would take Edna to the windows of the house and watch for elves, occasionally screaming, “Did you see it?   Did you see it?”   At first, she didn’t … but by the time Christmas came around, she was pretty sure she was seeing them too.    Both of her brothers made sure she understood the seriously worrisome details of how easy it was to get on Santa’s “Naughty” list, particularly if you disobeyed your older parents, your sister, or your brothers.   (This story teller knows it was their way of expressing their love).   

     Ann, was in high school, and Edna thought she was the prettiest, nicest big sister you could have ever, ever … ever wish for and she always seemed to make sure every holiday there was plenty of “sister time”.    She would show her pictures of the North Pole and tell her stories of Santa’s workshop, how the toys are made, and how easy it is to stay on Santa’s “Nice” list.   

      On Christmas Eve, after visiting some neighbors, singing carols together with the family and reading the story of Christmas from the Bible, it was time to hang up the Christmas stockings.    Edna was trying to find the biggest stocking she could among the ones in her drawer but her foot was much smaller than the ones everyone else had found.   Her mother found her sitting on the sofa, arms folded across her chest and a big frown on her face. 

     “What are you doing sitting here like that?   You better hang up your stocking and get to sleep before Santa comes or he will see us still up.   He has to visit every house in the world, and you know, he never comes unless we are asleep,” Mother told the pouting little girl.

     “My stockings are too little.   Santa won’t even be able to give me a big orange and apple in its toe,” she grumbled, holding up her longest stocking, which compared to the others was, indeed, very small.    “That’s what he puts in the toe, because I know.”

     Daddy, who overheard this exchange winked at her and motioned secretly with his finger for her to follow him.   They went around the corner, through the kitchen, down the hall, and into her parents bedroom, which was filled with mysterious shopping bags and lumpy things that were covered with Mother’s table cloths.    Finally, inside the closet, Daddy opened the drawer that held his neatly rolled socks and told her she could pick any one of them.

     “I can?” Edna asked excitedly.   “Won’t Santa care if it isn’t my own stocking?”

     Daddy laughed and said, “No, I absolutely know for sure that Santa won’t care if you choose one of mine.” 

     And so she did.    She chose the longest stocking in Daddy’s drawer and went running happily back to hang it in the living room where five other stockings were already hanging in a row.  (This memory was three years before Reed was born.)

     “Now Santa can fill it clear full,” she thought to herself as she sat once more on the sofa to look at the Christmas room; the decorations, the lights on the beautiful tree in the corner, and the odd shaped stockings hanging on the wall.    She felt safe and happy as she looked at mother’s Christmas Crèche and thought about Mary and Joseph, the singing angels, the shepherds sleeping on the hills with their sheep, the wise men who followed the star all the way to where baby Jesus lay sleeping on the hay.  Her mother told her the story when they would rock in the big, leather rocking chair and Edna knew that Christmas was the birthday of Jesus.

     “I love Jesus,” she thought as her eyes got heavier and heavier until she was sound asleep.     Her Daddy quietly picked her up and carried her up the narrow stairs to the bedrooms that were built in the attic above the kitchen and living room.    The ceilings of the rooms were higher in the middle so everyone, even Daddy, could stand up straight but then they sloped at an angle out to meet the walls on two of the walls before they angled down about four feet to the floor.     To get to the room Ann shared with Edna, Daddy walked through Bill and Chick’s shared room and then he gently laid her down in-between the nice, clean sheets and pulled the covers up and tucked them around her chin.

     “Good night, Babe (He always called her Babe),” he whispered.    “I love you.”

      “I love you, too, Daddy”, Edna whispered back, even though she was already dreaming of elves, and candy and dollies who really drank from teensie, little baby bottles. 

     Morning took forever to arrive for the children in the attic.   There was a firm family rule that no one … and that means NO ONE … was to go into the living room without first waking up their parents.   The tradition was that Daddy would get up and sneak in first in to make sure Santa had come and gone, so he wasn’t disturbed before he was through filling the stockings and putting presents beneath the tree, and then he would turn on the bright, flood lights so he could take pictures of the children who would come down the hall, shortest to tallest, to see what awaited just around the corner.

    The first four or five times that one of the children quietly snuck down to the side of their parents bed to ask what time it was, they were told that it was still the middle of the night and to go back to bed.    The last time, when the boys talked Edna into sneaking down to check on the time, Mommy sat up in bed and said, “Oh come on, Lewy, (that was what she called Daddy) let’s get up and see what Santa brought.

     “It’s 5:00 in the morning,” Daddy loudly whispered as he sleepily sat up and stretched his arms wide as he yawned.     “We don’t even know if Santa has been here yet.”

     “Well, you could quietly sneak down and see,” Mommy whispered  back as she winked and smiled at the now wide awake Edna.    “You go back up the stairs very, very quietly and  tell everyone they can sneak down to our room and Daddy will go see if Santa has come.”

     Edna whispered back, “Okay, Mommy,” and she quietly did just as she had been told.

     The children quietly huddled at the back wall of the hall, shivering in the morning chill, already lining up so they would be ready when Daddy gave the word they could march into the living room.   Shortest to tallest; Edna first, then Chick, then Bill, and then Ann lined up very quietly in the hall and whispered excitedly as Daddy tip toed with a highly exaggerated steps, down the hall where he stood pressed against the wall as he peaked his head around the corner.

     Quickly he pulled his head back and gave a panicked look at the children down the hall, motioning for them to be very still.   Slowly, he flattened his back along the edge of the wall of the kitchen and began to inch his way very carefully and quietly back down the hall to where they stood.  All motion and whispering had stopped and they were dead still as they watched Daddy make his way back to the family, where he quietly patted his chest and breathed in some big gulps of air.

     “Don’t anyone move or sneeze or make any kind of noise.   Santa and the elves are in there right now.    You know what that means.”  Daddy whispered seriously.

     Yes, indeed, they did know what that meant, and Edna tried to stand still, but Ann, and Bill, and Chick kept whispering to each other and getting the giggles.    The coal heater, you will recall, was in the living room and the hall was so chilly that cold Christmas morning that their teeth began to chatter, which made them giggle even more.  Daddy hushed them and said he could hear movement in the living room and suddenly, so could they!   They really could, it wasn’t their imagination!   They could hear faint talking and bumping sounds, and the jingle of bells, and then, just as suddenly, everything was quiet.    They waited quietly for another long minute before Daddy once again crept down the hall alone, just to make sure.

     “It’s clear,” he called as he flipped on flood lights, played soft Christmas music on his new recording machine, and stirred up the fire in the furnace.    “Oh boy, you aren’t going to believe the things that are in here,” he would call out every few seconds.

      “Hurry, Daddy,” we called back as we took our turns in the single bathroom that everyone shared.  Mommy and Ann decided to take their hair out of the pin-curls they slept in and comb it and put on lipstick for the pictures.    It seemed to Edna that it was taking everyone FOREVER!.

      When the excitement was literally bouncing from the walls and ceiling, Mommy and Daddy went into the living room and called, “Okay, you can come now!”

      The first thing Edna saw when she turned the corner to the room of surprises was a row of stockings hanging on the wall … with round, full heels and toes and mysterious bumps with a banana and candy cane peeking from the top.    What a relief she felt!    Santa had really, really come!   

****** 

And that’s where this memory ends because even though our gifts to each other were carefully chosen and deeply appreciated, and Santa had given us wonderful presents, those things are not what I remember most.   I remember the things we did as a family in the days leading up to Christmas; whispering secrets, telling stories, singing carols, hanging our stockings, reading from about the first Christmas from the Bible, and faking sleep so I could be carried to bed.  How fun it was when my father caught Santa in the act, and that we heard he and his elves in living room as we all stood quietly shivering in the hall.   

On the 2nd Memory of Christmas …

“Hey, my name is Alice and my boyfriend’s name is Andy”, Marie Osmond’s voice rang out from the small tape player that sat on the kitchen table. My daughter Angi and her friends Annette and Jenny Hancey had been singing and dancing for hours without a break. Their faces were red and sweaty from their exhaustive dance moves, but they were preparing for a show for the two families and it was do or die.

The boys had given up tormenting the girls and had gathered every blanket and chair they could find in the house to make a huge tent in the living room. It was impressive but I couldn’t help but think about the work involved in getting all those blankets on the beds and back where they belonged. “Whew,” I thought to myself as I eased down on the edge of the sofa, trying not to disturb the heavy pile of books that were holding down the corner of their house.

It was our first Christmas in Ivins and I was doing my best to combat homesickness from the thought of not being able to get up to Draper, Utah, and attend the family parties. The closing costs on our house had been considerably higher than we’d been told and pennies were pinching at our house. Fortunately we had a little bit of a stash put away to get the children their Christmas gifts, but there was no money left for enough gas to get up to Salt Lake City, Utah, and back. We were fairly new in a small town that of people who seemed to be all related and I wasn’t feeling much of the Christmas spirit.

On the first day that the children were out of school for the holidays I decided to let the children have their friends over for the entire day. Well, actually there was a reason for this mad gesture of kindness and that was that my friend, Phyllis, needed to finish up four beautiful Christmas dresses, four Christmas nightgowns, and one nice warm pair of flannel pajama without curious children around. It was the day I’d set aside for baking … so I was willing to put up with just about anything as long as it wasn’t continually right under my nose.

The day before I had gathered ingredients and favorite family recipes and early that morning, in the tradition of my grandmothers, mother, and sister, I began baking up batches of cookies, brownies, and banana bread. I had many fingers in the batter when they thought my eyes were turned, but I figured the heat of the oven would kill any germs that were being passed around. I have to admit, I had my shares of samples as well. I may not have been with them in their kitchens, laughing, talking and stirring while beautiful Christmas music played softly in the background, but my house definitely smelled as good as theirs and I had eleven young children to keep me entertained … with the music of Donny and Marie Osmond blaring loudly in the background. As each mouthwatering treat was carefully set aside to set up or cool down, I found myself singing along with Marie’s, “Paper RoooZes, Paper RoooZes …” as I realized that I didn’t have to physically be with my family to feel the Christmas spirit. Carrying on family traditions and breathing in the familiar aromas of nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla, and chocolate would fill more than our tummies.

So it was time for Lynn to get the turkey in the oven. One by one the children’s eyes lit up and they quickly began to gather around … not because they loved turkey, mind you, but because our turkeys had personality. Well, at first they didn’t. At first they were just a dead old, naked, inanimate bird but as soon as Lynn picked them up and put them in the water to get washed, they magically came to life. This one was from France and his name was Jon Pierre, and he definitely didn’t like to be bathed in a kitchen full of people! He kicked, and tried to get away, and tried hard to fly with his featherless wings, all the while splashing water on the countertops and the kitchen floor. Lynn was able to calm him down with a nice massage but when he was thoroughly dried and ready for his tasty herbs and spices, Jon Pierre burst up once again in a last giant effort for freedom, chasing a screaming Brett and Ryan through the house and almost making it out the front door before Lynn was able to wrestle him back to the kitchen. He may have been one of the feistiest birds we’ve ever met. The children giggled and screamed as Lynn continued to try to reason with our turkey to no avail. Finally, in a last attempt to plead for his life, Jon Pierre sang out in a high pitched, falsetto voice, “Ta Ra Ra Boom-dee-ay, Ta Ra Ra Boom-dee-ay,” while doing the Can Can on the kitchen counter top, but everyone still gave him a merciless thumbs down and our spirited Christmas turkey was placed in the oven to roast. Satisfied with the results, the giggling children went back to their activities and Lynn and I began to mop the kitchen floor.

While the turkey sizzled in the oven I stirred up batches of delicious home-made fudge, English toffee, and peanut brittle. That night after dinner we were to be favored by a program featuring the children and Donnie and Marie Osmond … not exactly your traditional Christmas program but, hey, they’d practiced it. After Christmas caroling we would exchange gifts and read together about the birth of Jesus Christ, surrounded by our new (to be loved for many years to follow) friends and neighbors, the Hanceys.

Oh, and there is something I almost forgot to tell! When Lynn went to lift our beautifully roasted John Pierre from the oven he slid right out of the pan and onto the floor.

Technorati Tags: 12 Days of Christmas Memories,Edna Henke

It’s kind of mind wobbling for me to think that I have people that I now feel very close to … who I would even dare to use the phrase (my close friend) in a sentence about them … and yet have never and possibly will never see them in person.

I went through knee replacement surgery with my pal who writes the blog,  Going Like Sixty.     He has quite a following of old timers like me … and has somehow manages to keep track of us well enough to send us personal notes and links that coincide with events happening in our lives.    I don’t know how he does that other than he must have a big old fat notebook of facts … because he’s an old timer like the rest of us.   Enough said.   

Alice, at Wintersong, has probably had the most impact on me as “a close friend” that I have never met in real life.    She has given me the right kind of encouragement to get me to actually write … as in BOOKS.    She writes as if we are sitting down to chat and has just exactly the right kind of humor.     I don’t know how it was that I stumbled on her blog in the first place but the first one I read absolutely cracked me up as she talked about Utah Mormons from a non-Mormon perspective.    

Another blog I love to visit and thoroughly enjoy is Virginia’s First 50 Words.  I love the quick writing challenges she gives out daily.   It’s like finding the crossword puzzle in the Newspaper …. ya just gotta do it.

My heart went out to my friend, Sally, whose husband of 54 years passed away this past October.    My heart twisted when I read of her loss and I wanted to be there to comfort her.    

Krista is one of my younger friends and I love her blog because it is uplifting and spiritual as well as full of cute stories about her family.    I am excited for the birth of her 2nd son in a little over two months … it’s fun to share those kinds of things with “close friends” via the Internet.    I’m grateful that somehow our cyber vibes found each other.

I’ve recently made a new friend at Coffee & Varnish.    Isn’t that just the strangest two words together?    It is such fun to peek into the lives of talented people who share their every day lives with such flair.    They are all such an inspiration to me.

Ronni Bennett has so many awesome links on her blog, Time Goes By, and links a lot of us seniors together in a good way.    In fact, it is probably through her that I have met the most of my new friends.   

My son in law, Brett, keeps me entertained with his perspective on fatherhood and tales like this one of his trip to Costco with three of his children in tow.    My daughter, Kim, has a real knack for pinpointing important learning moments and a cute way of repeating the funny things her children do and say.    I wish all of my children were as diligent in blogging!     My daughter in law, Kim, does have an excellent blog titled, All About Food Storage, this an absolute must for young mothers who are trying to prepare nutritious on a frugal budget. 

It’s all these bloggers plus the rest of them in my blog roll to the right who keep me encouraged and going on my own blog.      Blogging is more than a hobby, more than just  a way to keep a journal, more than just a venue for writing.   It’s my personal

community of people I love!

“Do you believe me, Anna?” I asked?   “What about you, Lincoln?   Do you think I have more than one donut in this box?”

“Do you promise, promise?” Lincoln asked.

“I promise.   There is only one donut and you four kids will have to share it or decide who gets it all.   You have to decide before we open the box.”

Anna and Lincoln decided it would have to be shared.   Luca held out on her vote that there were more donuts.

You should have heard them laugh when the box was opened and they saw this giant donut!   When we cut it up in four pieces they were HUGE and all of them saved at least half of their share for the next day.

We got this donut for less than $2.00 at a downtown Long Beach bakery just before 6:00 quitting time when prices were cut.    It was a hit.

Oh my fat cells!   If you really want a delicious meal of fish and chips and you are in Astoria you have to stop at this little place.   You would never believe such a small eatery could put out such delicious food!   The menu is limited … You go there for what they specialize in not to choose.

The Bowpicker (Just going to that link will make your mouth water until you have to swallow) serves their fish until they run out.   Their fries are also worth standing in line for.   We stopped because there was a long line waiting for service.   What better advertising can you get?  It is an old family recipe from Norway.  

Does anyone know if it has ever been documented that someone can thrown up so hard they turn inside out?    Just wondering.

Like most young girls, my first income was from babysitting other people’s children.   A good wage for babysitting back then was 25 cents an hour.  That is a dollar for four hours!  Sometimes, it was less if the parents couldn’t scrounge together enough change.   Babysitting included but was not limited to: tending from one to nine children (prolificity abounded in our little town of Draper … I made that word up), folding laundry, washing and drying the dishes, sweeping the floors and sometimes mopping the floors.     It wasn’t a very lucrative profession but fortunately young girls would often do it for free just because.   Young girls like to do those chores if their parents aren’t the ones asking them to do it.

Actually I was even younger for my first job, which involved picking big, green, juicy tomato worms off tomato plants in ours and our neighbors tomato patches.   A penny a worm would sometimes leave me with upwards of 25 cents on a good day.     I put the worms in jars and turned them in for my pay.   Thank goodness my job description didn’t require me to dispose of the worms.   

My first “real” job came when I was about 14 years old and began picking strawberries at Akagi’s farm in Draper.    I can’t remember the pay but it was per flat of strawberries.   Mr. Akagi would come around very early in the morning, around 5 AM it seems like, and pick us all up in his big flat bed truck.   We’d pick for about four hours and then he’d haul us all home.    It was a big deal at the end of the week to collect my wages, which were good for the time but probably never topped the lofty amount of $10 for a weeks work.   I felt rich, though, and loved counting and recounting the money I kept in a jar that I hid on the top shelf of my closet.   I used the money I earned to supplement my school clothes fund.

Kids earn more per hour babysitting now than I earned when I began to work for State Farm Insurance after I graduated from High School.    My starting wage back then for full time work as a file clerk in the claims department was $1.25 an hour.

When Lynn and I got married we lived on my earnings and Lynn’s part time wage of $1.25 an hour while attending college.  We got by like everyone else.    Our menu’s consisted of oatmeal, milk & eggs (from his parent’s), soups, Rice-a-roni, peanut butter sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, and vegetables and fruit from my parents garden.   Of course, we also had the luxury of living close to our parents and were encouraged to drop by around mealtime whenever we wanted.  

We used to buy small cans of tomato sauce for 5 cents a can on a super sale.  A pot of spaghetti, including ground beef, cost less than a dollar to make.   Macaroni and cheese were ten for a dollar, as was Rice-a-roni.   Now and then we could buy cans of vegetables ten for a dollar.  Frozen orange juice was always ten for a dollar.  Frozen lemonade was twenty for a dollar.  Our first food budget was less than $30.00 a month.   We didn’t go to many movies and maybe ate out once a month.

When Lynn graduated and was commissioned as a 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Army my employment came to an end with the birth of our first son, Warren, but our income went up.  Lynn’s income from the army was $380 a month, $110 in housing, and $50 for food.      We had some loans we were paying at that time … $8.00 a month to Sears for our washer and dryer, and $45.00 for our Renault10.   Medical was covered by the army.    We felt rich.

1.    If you like the smell of the Bed & Bath type liquid/gel hand soaps but don’t like the price try diluting them either 1/3 soap to 2/3 water or even 1/2 to 1/2.   I find I actually like it better that way because I still get enough suds and it rinses off easier.    I still get the nice fragrance for 1/3 the price.

2.    For at least five years now we’ve washed our clothes in cold water only.   The whites are still white, the coloreds are still coloreds, and the dirt gets washed out just as easy … and I use regular detergent.  Just put the detergent in first and let it swish a little before you add the clothes.

3.    You know what I love about how the Amish live?   They use candles after dark!     I’m not suggesting we go that far but we certainly don’t need every light on in the house and everything with a volume turned on!    My goal, should I live that long, is to have a quiet house at night with very few lights on.

4.    When you go out to eat share a meal … Most of them are plenty big enough for two.    You cut the cost and the calories in half and don’t have to worry about taking it home in a box.

5.    Have a little container with old rags and pieces of towels that you wipe spills up with instead of using paper towels.    In order for this to work you have to hide the paper towels from everyone in the house and threaten them with their lives if they use the good wash cloths & dish towels.

6.   Fold the clothes or hang them up as soon as the dryer stops.   They require far less ironing … or if you aren’t picky may not even need it at all. 

7.   Buy sneaker socks in 2 or 3 colors only so if you lose one sock you don’t have a complete mismatch.   Black, white, and cream are good picks.

8;    I used to sleep in brush rollers when I was in high school … suffered!      A good cut goes a long way in saving time.   Most good cuts only take 20 minutes tops from wash to “do”.

9.  Unless it’s a movie the kids will watch over and over … it’s much easier to rent than to buy … plus what will you ever do with all those movies?

10. Every single time you get out of the car gather up trash, papers, and receipts … plus anything else that doesn’t belong in the car!  

oops … one more

11.  Rinse those dishes and pots as soon as possible and don’t leave pans of water standing in the sink to soak.    Hardened food and icky pans take forever to clean!

A quarter of a pie seemed a bit much to me so we cut it into sixths and Vivian and I took the biggest sixths and Bill and Lynn each had two of the other pieces. We topped it with ample amounts of vanilla ice cream and began to devour it with gusto. We ran out of gusto before we ran out of pie but we were troopers …It took Vivian longer but she eventually crossed the finish line with the rest of us.

You might be wondering how we felt afterwards … This Picture of Bill says it best.

Lynn was still recovering this morning … or at least he would have liked to (particularly since it is his birthday) … but he had to pack up the trailer so we could check out and head for home.

There was a successful partnership with the Auburn, Washington McDonald’s and Lea Hill Elementary tonight as funds were raised to fill in the gaps not covered by funds they receive from the school district.    It reminded me of the old, “how many college kids can you get in a phone booth”, as family after family showed up for happy meals and McDonald cookies.  The teachers and principal and office staff donated their time to help the McDonald’s staff and children came in herds to support their teachers.   Hats off to McDonald employees for staying on top of it all and remaining cool, calm, and collected.

Children had to yell their greetings to each other and parents had to shout to converse and I would make a rough estimate that it was about a ten on the Richter Scale.   Fortunately I was able to self medicate with the purchase of a rather large Diet Coke … I mean it’s for the school, right?

I have to admit, though, it was a fun noise and the children had a blast.   Kai had fun wrapping those chubby little fingers around his french fries.

I don’t have a clue what percentage of the tab actually went to the elementary school in Auburn but if our ticket was comparable to those of the other hundred or so families fighting for tables tonight it should be a respectable amount.

Lynn and I prefer donating directly to the schools our grandchildren attend, but this was a fun way for families to get together to show their support.