A Christmas Memory

There were certain things you could count on at Grandmother’s house at Christmas.

There was sure to be a big bowl of orange slice candy on the coffee table. I would eat them until the inside of my mouth was raw. And then eat some more.

Pillow shaped hard candy, with tiny pinstripes in all colors, sat in clumps in the covered Christmas gift shaped candy dish, made by Grandmother in her ceramics class. Covered as if you could keep the Alabama humidity from coating the candy and making each piece stick together.

A plastic gum drop tree was the centerpiece of the coffee table. Grandmother carefully placed a colorful candy gumdrop on the end of each plastic limb. It was never empty. Grandmother must have refilled it the minute her guests left, ready for her next guest.

Since Grandmother worked at the local sewing mill, she always had her wreath made from giant wooden thread spools, assembled with wooden clothes pins, spray painted with a metallic gold paint that probably exposed us to a lifetime of lead. The wreath was centered with a lovely arrangement of plastic poinsettias. It just took one crafty soul to assemble those leftover wooden spools into a wreath before everyone was grabbing up all the empty spools that were headed for the trash.

Recycling before it was trendy.

And then there was the Christmas tree. You just never knew what shape tree Grandmother would have but you could be assured it would be extremely different each year. From a short, fat cedar to the tall, pencil thin spruce, that one of our fine church members sold up the road.

Every tradition, every confection, every tree and all the love. Just a memory now.

A wonderful memory.

From the mind of me.