Christmas Remembrance

By

                                             Cindy Bonham-Miller

                                              s/v Dragonheart

The first year my father was in Viet Nam was the year I had to face the fact that “Santa” was not real.  My mom had four kids who wanted this Christmas to be like all of the others they had ever known.  She knew a big tree was out of the question so… we gathered the top of a tree that someone else had trimmed and placed it in a pot.  When the first bulb was placed on the tree, the top bent over just like Charlie Brown’s tree.

We were headed to Illinois to spend Christmas with our grandma.  Mom needed help packing the car which included gifts from Santa.  I was the oldest of the four and the task fell to me. 

Soon the hour of the dreaded conversation arrived.  Deep down, I knew that Santa wasn’t real so my acknowledgement of that fact made it easier on mom.  She told me that Santa would always exist as long as I kept him and his spirit alive in my heart.

That Christmas is talked about each year.  That Christmas was the year I started to grow up and I made sure that Santa “lived” for my sister and brothers.

The Christmas Pud.

 By Carole Webster

s/v Androsian

(Carole and Roger are from Britain.  As a young married couple, they applied to teach school somewhere in the British realm.  Their assignment was on the island of Androse in the Bahamas.  This is a story from that time in their lives.)

It’s late December, 1969, and Christmas is just around the corner. Roger and I breathe a collective sigh of relief as we officially close down High Rock School for the Christmas holidays and climb into the tiny four-seater plane we’ve chartered. Our pilot spins the propeller and after a few splutters the plane takes off. Roger, seated next to the pilot, is asked to keep his door open until we’re off the ground - something to do with keeping the cabin cool. The narrow        

airstrip at Congo Town recedes and is swallowed by the                  Click pudding for recipe

dense bush before he can close the door.

It’s not too long before we’re in the welcoming arms of our friends in West End, Grand Bahama. I’m envious of their modern home complete with running water, electricity and a cultivated garden. It’s a far cry from our house atop a scrubby, jagged rock on South Andros where we painstakingly try our hands at pothole farming. In contrast, we have brown, brackish water spewing from our cold water tap, and out of the hot water tap flows cistern water, bearing lizard legs and cockroach body parts.

Mabon and Anne proudly show us their new addition. They’ve transformed their car port into an extra room; the piece de resistance being the bar, constructed from left over grey concrete blocks. Anne is wearing a paper Christmas dress ordered from a Sears and Roebuck catalogue. Wrapped around her are hundreds of green Christmas trees scattered on a snowy white background.

About fourteen of us are enjoying far too many pre-dinner drinks, including ‘uncle’ George, a relic from old colonial days, who perpetually staggers about in a cloud of whiskey vapors. Delicious aromas of roast turkey and sage stuffing waft from the kitchen.

The main course was a grand affair and everyone is now replete, reclining with drinks at the new bar, awaiting dessert. Anne and I are busy in the kitchen tending to the last minute details of the Christmas pudding flown from Marks & Spencers in England – two pounds of it contained in a shiny tin. The heating instructions are simple and the tin is simmering quietly in a pan of water. I’m stirring the custard as Anne prepares the traditional brandy hard sauce. Sauntering out of the kitchen to join the others, we’re just about to sit down when there’s a loud crack followed by a frightening explosion. Everyone leaps back to life and for a few seconds we stare wide-eyed at each other before dashing towards the kitchen. Jostling for position in the doorway we survey the scene with dismay.

Christmas pudding is splattered all over the place! The counter tops are covered in a dark gooey mess. Clumps of pudding rest on the floor. The ceiling is speckled with tiny remnants, some floating casually down to join those on the rug. Pudding parts are clinging to the curtains. Currants stick to the light bulb.  Dark brown raisins slither down the walls. Red and green cherry pieces festively decorate the dirty dishes. White specks of suet glisten on the cupboard doors.  Moist crumbs are slowly sliding towards the sink and, wedged firmly in the minute holes of the mosquito screens are numerous pudding dots trying to escape to the garden beyond.

We had failed to puncture the pudding tin. In hindsight, a wonderful memory of a Christmas past.

CHA-CHING

By Beth Tally

s/v Up Jinks

Nowadays when I do my Christmas shopping, standing in check-out lines resembling slow moving snakes with carts filled to the brim, I am overwhelmed by the constant annoyance of that “beep, beep, beep” of the price scanning machines.  If I had to be a modern cashier, I’d go stark raving crazy.  If the noise didn’t do it, the waving of each article across the magic red laser hoping to trigger the “beep” would.  Add to that the inevitability of the laser scanner, after not registering a price through five swipes, deciding to become super sensitive and adding the item twice, causing a total meltdown of the check-out line by precipitating a to call a manager to void the sale.  You get my drift.  I surely don’t want the job.

It hasn’t always been this way.  As a matter of fact, years ago when I was a little girl, I truly wanted to be a cashier at a grocery store.  Every Wednesday, mother would take me shopping with her.  We only had one car and she had use of it just the one day a week.  Plopping me into the seat of the cart, she roamed the aisles carefully checking off the things on her list while looking for bargains along the way.  I never resisted the cart seat because it gave me such a good vantage point for seeing things - especially when it came time to check out.

As she wheeled the cart into the check-out lane, my eyes would grow wide with anticipation.  There, sitting next to the cashier, was the amazing, stately register with its buttons that, when touched, miraculously caused numbers to appear in the window at the top.  The cashier picked up every can, bottle, box and package to read the price.  “Cha-ching,” “cha-ching,” “cha-ching.”  As her fingers deftly pressed the buttons, somewhere deep inside of the register, a total was building.

“Is that all?”  the cashier asked.

“Yes, thank you,” my mother would reply.

The cashier would hit the “total” button revealing the final numbers in the window, the tender box would fly open to a chorus of bells, mother would pay and the transaction end.  To me, it was wondrous.  Yes, I thought that the best thing a person could ever be was a cashier.

At this same time, my father happened to have an interest in a small business in downtown Greenville, SC, called the Tire Store.  Of course, their main concern was selling and fitting tires but, they also had a hardware department and a toy department.  A few months before each Christmas, Dad would take my older brother Bryant and me to the Tire Store to peruse the year’s selection of toys and pick something out that we wanted to ask Santa to bring.  I loved going to the Tire Store and can still visualize its worn wooden floors and smell the musty air laden with the odor from the rubber of tires. 

When I was five, we made the annual trek to select our Santa gifts.  It was an extraordinary selection that year of baby dolls with strollers and princess dolls with lovely tulle dresses capped with silvery crowns sitting on ringlets of hair.  There were play ovens, china sets, and blackboards with chalk trays.  I walked wide-eyed along the shelves trying to make a choice.  Suddenly, I spotted it.  Sitting on the top shelf, a little out of my reach, like it was the most precious prize in the whole world, was a toy cash register.    I couldn’t believe my own eyes.  How was it possible that somebody could have their very own register?

I raced down the aisle to find my Dad who was talking with the manager of the store in his office off of the tire department. 

“I’ve found it!”  I yelled excitedly.  “I’ve found exactly what I want Santa to bring me!”

Dad excused himself and came back with me to see what it was that had me so animated.  I’m sure he was expecting the biggest, brightest (and probably most expensive) doll in the place.  I grabbed his hand as we approached the register, extending my arm up and pointing to it while jumping up and down.

“There it is -- the cash register.  That’s what I want.”

Dad started laughing.  “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” I said adamantly.

“That’s it?  You don’t want one of these beautiful dolls?  Or maybe this dollhouse?”

I thought it was pretty strange that Dad didn’t seem to be as excited about my choice as I was. 

“No.  I’ve ALWAYS wanted a cash register.”

“Okay, then,” he said.  “We’ll make sure that Santa knows you want a cash register for Christmas.”

I thought the time between then and Christmas would NEVER end.  Every time mother and I went to the grocery store, my stomach would churn with anticipation watching the cashier enter the prices.  Before long, if Santa had gotten the message and I were truly deserving, I’d be ringing up things on my very own register. 

Finally, December 24 arrived.  We were living in a two-bedroom apartment in a complex called University Ridge.  There was a large living room, dining room, kitchen and two bedrooms.  Mother decorated the apartment festively with the focal point being a beautiful tree placed in the middle of the picture window of the living room covered in multi-colored lights, balls and silvery shimmering icicles.  Brightly wrapped presents were strewn all around the base and spilled out onto the living room floor.  Our stockings were taped to the window as we had no fireplace with a mantel.

Bryant and I shared bunk beds in one of the bedrooms.  Once mother and dad tucked us in, it took a while to settle down because we kept giggling.  Finally, we drifted off as sleep overcame us. 

I’ll never forget that next morning with mother and dad waking us up and making us stay in the room while dad went into the living room on the pretense of “seeing if Santa has come.”  Bryant and I twitched with excitement, laughing and pinching each other while we waited. 

Finally, from the living room we could hear dad saying “Well, I DO believe Santa came last night.  Wow!! Look at this.  Mary, I think you better let the children come in here now.”

To this, we bolted from the bedroom and raced into the living room.  Bryant went ahead of me and obscured my view a little as I came around the corner.  He plunged onto his knees at the train set racing around on the floor in front of the tree.  Santa had surely brought him what he wanted. 

He was wriggling around so much that I really couldn’t see a whole lot.  Finally, he moved around to the opposite side giving me full view of all the presents.  Sitting right in the middle of the oval made by the track, being circled again and again by Bryant’s train, was my cash register.  I screeched for joy, retrieving it from the confines of the track, dancing around hugging it like it was alive.

“Open it up, Bethie,” my dad said.

I sat down on the floor, folded my legs underneath me, reached out and hit the “total” button.  The tender box opened, just like it should.  Inside, neatly stacked in four little compartments were bills and coins of play money.  I was truly in business!

My poor mother.  All the rest of the day while she was trying to prepare our Christmas meal in the tiny kitchen of the apartment, I insisted on pulling the stepstool up and raiding her cabinets of canned goods, spices, cereals, flour, sugar and anything else I could find.  As she mixed her fabulous cornmeal dressing for the turkey stuffing, I lined everything up on the dinette table, placed my cash register at one end and proceeded to “check out” my imaginary customer from the grocery store.  Over and over and over again, the items would slide across the table – “cha-ching,” “cha-ching,” “cha-ching.”

“Is that all?” I’d ask.  “Okay, that will be $10.31, please.”

“Cha-ching!”

Over time, many things about Christmas have been eroded and taken away.  Some argue that the commercialism has actually taken Christ out of Christmas altogether.  There’s one thing for sure, as far as I’m concerned.  The incessant “beep, beep, beep” of the price scanners has taken away something very near and dear to my heart.  That would be the wonderful sound of “Cha-ching!”