I always loved Nanny’s memories about times when she was a girl…
The Millers were a poor and big family. I have no idea what great grandfather John Miller did but I
know he was a laborer and he was big and I took after him – according to my
grandmother…He and I were just big.
One Christmas eve when all of my family were in bed waiting
for Santa, Nanny and I were watching the
midnight mass service on TV. Nanny
married a Catholic and my mother was christened Catholic – but Nanny nor she
ever practice that faith – we were Methodists (mainly because we could walk to the church).
I asked, “Nanny, what was Christmas like when you were growing
up kid?” She pause to gather her thoughts and then I knew she was back in Vineland.
“Well Calvin we were
poor, we didn’t have a lot, but we got along. My mother was French and my father was a German, Abot and Miller - so we had a little of both ways of celebrating and they made it the best they could.
On Christmas Eve I will always remember that father decorated
the whole house in evergreen boughs that he cut from the nearby woods. And I can still smell them. He made garlands of holly
too. Every doorway was an arch of green.
My oldest brother’Charlie's job was to take a couple of the younger brothers and cut down our tree. Old Tannenbaum - which my father remember and sung from the old country. On Christmas eve we carefully fixed candles to the branches – no twinkling lights for
us. It's a wonder we never burned the place down.
We used tinsel saved
from last year – not the plastic kind of today, it was metal and had a
heavy feel. Mother insisted that we put each strand on one by one – she always commented
that some folks just toss hands full and that’s not the way to trim a tree.
We didn’t have a
fireplace in our little company house, we had a big wood stove in the kitchen that heated the whole place. We hung our socks on nails that night and hoped Santa would find them. My
mother assured us that he would come even though we didn’t have a chimney.
The next morning we
would find oranges, apples and nuts in our socks – and one year we all got a
big piece of chocolate which was a
wonderful. Toys were not in our budget many years but each Christmas I remember I would get a “new” dress – I was the lucky one as the boys, who ages were like
steps, only had hand-me-downs. We did look like a “ragtag” bunch going to
school.
My mother made my dresses – so “new”
was an exaggeration. Mostly mother would
cut down one of her “old” ones and make a small one for me. I had two dresses for the year for school and my
brothers had one school shirt. Mother washed our clothes every night when we
went to bed. (We all slept in one
bedroom crowded with cots) and she hung them near the stove to dry for morning –
sometimes I would put on a dress that was frozen!
But we never
complained – we didn’t know there was anything better. We just loved being. Those were different times…so different than
today. For me, 82 Christmases have come and
gone. And I wonder where the time went so fast - I’m getting there Calvin…I’m
getting there.
And now Calvin – it is
time for our beds so Santa can come!”
That Christmas was her last visit and later that summer Ethel
May joined her brothers who all went before her and I wonder if she has to drag a shovel tied to a rope so she doesn't get lost on a walk in the clouds.
