As I’ve said before, at least the exterior of Dr. Boone’s rock house in A Coventry Christmas comes from the house we lived in when we moved back to Alabama when I was in the sixth grade. Here are some photos from our Christmas in that house, when Uncle Gerald and his family shared the holiday with us.
Cousin Gordon is helping Mother open her new four-slice toaster. So that’s when we got it! We had it forever, until it was just her and Daddy at home. I don’t know if one of us took it or she donated it. Eagle eyes will notice that my reindeer, with his original, uneaten felt antlers, is pulling the cardboard sleigh on the mantel. I think Hallmark sold the sleigh to display your Christmas cards, but Mother always wrapped little fake packages to put in ours. I’m sure it was my idea to add the reindeer, and she went along with it.
In that wooden bucket where she kept her magazines, I see Redbook and Ladies Home Journal, and even better, I see Look with this cover:
Psychedelic Beatle!
You may see a Christmas tree, an unlit fire, and Rudolph pulling that sleigh again. I see a print of a Confederate soldier on the wall and the Declaration of Independence over the fireplace. I can’t count the number of times I read the Declaration of Independence in our former house while I was eating a bowl of Cocoa Puffs in the den. I doubt I ever ate cereal in this living room.
I don’t think Cousin Bruce and David were with us on this Christmas Day. That explains why there are only two, instead of three, identically shaped and wrapped packages under the tree. Those would be Debby’s and my chocolate-covered cherries. Mother always gave each kid his or her own box. Since Mother’s death, I still send them to David and Debby, and Tom gives me a box. I’m not sure any of us actually loves chocolate-covered cherries, but it’s a tradition, dammit!
I’m shocked that I can’t find a photo of the table laid with a Christmas feast. Maybe Debby or David has that photo. But I like the red berries Mother has put in the table arrangement, and I love seeing all the Christmas cards on the hutch and what appears to be an old console television in the dining room.
Our very sweet Aunt Lola. Those Confederate soldiers are still firing at the Yankees on the wall in the background.
Uncle Gerald, Kent cigarette in hand, is watching his daughter Terry open a present. On the table behind him is a brass double student lamp that looks like this one:
I may have this wrong, but I think Gerald and Lola had a similar lamp, and Mother admired it so much that they found one like theirs and gave it to her on some previous Christmas, birthday, or anniversary. I seem to remember that she still had it when she moved back to Houston in 2004, but it needed new globes. I don’t know if we donated it, sold it, or one of my siblings has it.
I still have the White Album with the original enclosed set of 4 psychedelic pictures/reverse side of actual photos of the fab 4.
I love how wrapping paper delightfully looks the same year after year.
Albums were more fun than iTunes, no?
OK, I didn’t see the console TV in the dining room.
Also dad always used to get a box of Queen Anne Cherries for my mom every Christmas. I haven’t had one in years.
Should I send you some?
the red berries are from the nandina bush. there were not many southern yards that did not have them. The red berries were always just right for the Christmas arrangement. And really good for playing with. My mother probably didn’t have as many as she thought she would because I liked to pick them and pluck the berries from the cluster. They were doll food, a trail back to home, any number of possibilities.
You are my botanical guru. Okay, James, too, but you know all that Southern stuff.
Ah, family Christmases are something that I miss.
My nan used to make sleighs out of polystyrene ceiling tiles and put a flower arrangement in the sleigh. I think Mum probably still has one somewhere.
I love those kinds of memories. =)
I still have the table and hutch seen in the dining room picture and at one time had the declaration and old frame that I believe came from Papa and Jane-Jane’s. But alas it got ruined in a flood of my basement when I lived in Lexington.
I never knew the fate of the declaration–poor old thing. I love that you still have the furniture you do. Sturdy stuff, isn’t it? They bought wisely.