Christmas is not Christmas anymore. What I mean by that is it is not the Christmas I remember. Of course I know that things and times have changed. Progress has been made and people have more. That doesn't really matter. Christmas should never change. Christmas is a time for Family. a time to worship our Saviour. Maybe not the real day of His birth but as close as we can make it in the world today. Look what our Government has done to other Holidays. They have made every holiday they can come on Monday so they have a three day week-end. Of course that is the reason. Doesn't take much common sense to see that. But even our corrupt Government has not had the nerve to try and change Christmas and Thanksgiving to always be on Monday. I look for that to happen in the future but I don't have to change my view of Christmas and I never will.

Everybody wants something now. MORE MORE MORE! Never satisfied. I'm not implying that I am always satisfied with what I have. Not saying that at all. I just wish everyone would slow down and enjoy the simple things that God has provided for us. Some animals seem to appreciate their friends and family more than some of us do.

When I was growing up I didn't have much but I was rich. I could occupy my self for hours just lying on the ground and looking at the clouds by day or stars by night. The clouds are ever changing. I've seen all kinds of animals, flowers, buildings, I even saw a big fluffy Birthday cake one year with pink frosting. Sure did! And what made that even more miraculous was it indeed was my Birthday. Now Ponder that for a while. Mama didn't have the ingriedients to make me a cake that year as she usually did so God sent me a very special one just for me. I didn't pout over no Birthday cake. Mama told me the truth of the matter and I accepted it. No problem. Later that day my Daddy came home with a puppy for my Birthday and I was thrilled. Simple things were all we needed then.

If I was lucky enough to receive a doll under the Christmas tree I treasured it. I took tender care of it and still had it the next year. If I couldn't have a new doll the next year, again no problem, Grandma made new clothes for the one I had. Good as new, YEP!

One year I had seen a doll in the Aldens Christmas catalog thst I wanted so bad. It was a beautiful doll. Not the cloth dolls I usually got, but the most beautiful doll I had ever seen with yellow hair and blue eyes that opened and closed. It came in a case and had two changes of clothes, comb and brush, and even a pink nightgown and slippers. There was a baby carriage with it just the right size for me to push. I never expected to get it but I sure could hope and imagine having that doll. I didn't ask for it because I saw the price and knew it would be impossible. I understood even at a young age that I didn't get everything I wanted because Mama and Daddy couldn't always do it.

I carried that catalog around with me for a couple of months and pretended I really had the doll. It became almost real to me and I had a big time in my fantasy world. I wore the page out till you could barely see it. Well My wonderful Mama and Daddy had been watching me. They wanted that doll for me as bad as I wanted it myself. I don't know how they managed but on Christmas Eve Night we got home from Church and ran to the Christmas tree. We took turns unwrapping. None of this ripping open, putting aside and grabbing another one to rip open the way I've seen kids do today. Not just kids either but grown people acting so greedy then not even being satisfied with all those expensive gifts. Anyway i had opened one package and had two left. Norman was on his second. Now Daddy handed me a good sized one and I very carefully opened it. Oh My Goodness! (Let me wipe tears now) There was that beautiful doll in a little brown case lying there in pink paper. I was overwhelmed, overjoyed, and so full of love at that moment. I just sat there and stared, almost afraid it was a dream. Daddy helped me take it out and I hugged it to my chest. I looked at my Daddy and Mama and saw tears in their eyes. Didn't understand the tears then but I do now. Oh Yes I understand now.

Norman opened another one and Mama and Daddy opened the home made trinkets we had wrapped up for them. Now remember the buggy? I hadn't given it another thought. I had my doll. I was satisfied. Daddy got up and went in the bedroom and came out pushing the little buggy. He had to bend way over to push it and I can still see the love in his eyes and the big grin on his face. My Brother? Nope he wasn't jealous of my things. He was satisfied with his. We were never jealous of each other. Still are not. We would give one another our last dollar if it was necessary. That is the way we were taught.

Those Christmas's are the ones I remember. Christmas today is just not the same any more. I do try to once again get that old Christmas feeling. But it is gone and it is sad.

I hope none of you are sad about Christmas but I suspect some are. Just know you are not alone. We are never alone. The little baby who was born on that Christmas long ago is still right here with us and he loves you. I love you too. God Bless you all and Merry Christmas. 

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If you have never run threw a full grown row of cow corn at night with only the light of the moon to guide you than you should do that. We thought it was the most magnificent thing that was ever invented. We had never heard of maze but that was it. Just a way for us to have fun down there with not a lot to do. We made fun out of anything. But the night we did some damage to Daddy's corn, although unintentionally, that fun thing stopped abruptly. Oh boy was that fun while it lasted though. Well, except for the night we came head on with a skunk and her babies. A skunk is bad enough but with babies, Psew awful. But that's another story. I started out to talk about Mamma's flyswat.

In the winter when it was not good to break a switch off the peach tree then Mamma had a fly swatter that worked well. We were swatted a lot because we were getting in to things a lot. We survived and we didn't have flash backs or whatever they say now for the reason for a kid not to be swatted.

The swats were different then. Not plastic but made of wire like was used on screen doors. This wire was surrounded in metal. They were tough now I'm here to tell you. I watched Mamma kill a rat with hers swat one day.

Mamma did not allow fighting and for sure she didn't in the house. One day Norman and Paul were having a slapping match and I was running in the kitchen to tell on them. She listened then she got that old fly swatter and gave me a swat. “Mamma I wasn't doing nothin” I protested. I guess I got it for some of the times I DID do Somethin' and didn't get caught. Or maybe for being a tattle tail. Mamma didn't like that either. She said once that she could find out all our stuff' on her own. She could too. After she took care of my whack the boys got their turns.

Then there was the day we brought the baby rabbit in the house. That thing was full of filth. I know it had bugs cause something bit me. Anyway we were able to hide it from Mamma for all of ½ of a day. Long time considering her track record. We got a box and made it a bed. We got some carrots and lettuce out of the old ice box and laid them in the box. The rabbit probably wasn't old enough to eat but we didn't know that. Of course we got bored after a while and went on to other things. When we finally went back to our box the rabbit was gone. We looked everywhere. Boy Howdy we knew we'd better find that durn rabbit or we were in big trouble. We just could not find it so we decided it had got out of the box and somehow got outside. OK That'll Work! We put the box back where we found it and forgot the whole thing.

At supper that night Mamma said “Clyde I killed a rat today with my fly swat. We sure need some more rat poison”. We looked at each other in horror. Oh No she had killed our rabbit. After we all ate Mamma said, “I also found some lettuce and carrots in the trash. Would you kids know anything about that?” Well Good Grief, did that woman ever miss anything? Heck no she never missed a thing if we had done it.

The rabbit had got out of the box and Mamma HAD killed it with her fly swat but at the time she was killing it she thought it WAS a rat. I don't know what she would have done if she had known it was a rabbit and I never asked her but after we got whacked a good one with her fly swatter (Of course she scrubbed it first) we never brought another rabbit in the house. NOPE!!! NO WAY.

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To me the house that I grew up in was a Palace. My Mama and Daddy were the King and Queen. I was the Princess, and Norman was a Prince. I never saw the cracks in the wall or the rotting boards on the back porch and steps where I played. I thought the linoleum almost floating off the floor when the wind blew hard as a magic carpet and it was magical to me. I would walk back and forth on it as it came up around me. I thought it was a special thing just for me to enjoy. I loved watching the plastic curtains on the windows blow out from the wall and seem to float around.

The house had high ceilings which made it cooler in the summer but colder in the winter. When I was very young the bedrooms had no heat so they were closed off and just the front room and kitchen had any heat. That was just a little open heater with a flame that came up out of each burner. The back was asbestos then there were stone burners in front of each flame that heated up. You still could only get heat if your were very close. I used to stand very close when Mama and Daddy were not looking. So close the backs of my legs would be red from the heat. Mama jerked me away one day when she caught me and she said she smelled my hair singing in the heat. My hair was long and kinky and if it was kinked from the heat it didn't show but Mama was convinced that it had burned. From then on I was threatened fiercely if I ever stood that close again. I don't remember ever doing so either. Mama could make a believer out of me when it was necessary and it was certainly necessary then. Later on there was one of the same kind of stoves in the back room that gave us some heat in the bedrooms.

The roof was sheet iron. Which was only a thin piece of tin that rusted and had to be painted with silver paint of some kind when my Daddy could afford to have it done. That roof was magical to me also when it rained. I loved to hear rain beating down on that roof especially at night when I was snug in bed. Such a peaceful and comforting sound. Made me feel protected inside and I would think of the people who may be out in the rain and didn't have my house and bed to snuggle in. I felt sorry for those who didn't have what I had.

The house sat high off the ground on concrete blocks. No foundation, no under pining. We would crawl under there in the summer and play in the dirt making mud pies and digging in the soft earth. In the winter Daddy kept potatoes and onions under the back side where it was a little lower to the ground. When he dug them from his garden they were laid out on the ground under a tree where it was shaded. Something was poured over them while they 'cured out'. Then in the fall when it got cold they were put under the house. They didn't freeze or rot. My job was to crawl under there with a paper sack and bring some in the house for Mama to cook.

The house was surrounded with trees for shade. Most of them were china berry and walnut trees. One big Elm tree over by the tracks was where I climbed and played.

I grew up thinking I had everything and I still think that. That house holds many happy memories for me and it was home from the time I was four month's old until I got married and left the first time. It will always be my home. No matter how old I get. As long as I live on this Earth that will be the home of my heart and soul. In my heart The King and Queen, Prince and Princess still live there. The house is still like it was then in my heart and nothing will replace that home until I leave this earth and go to my Heavenly Home. This world is not my home anyway.

Proverbs 13:1 - A wise son [heareth] his father's instruction: but a scorner heareth not rebuke.

Proverbs 29:15 - The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left [to himself] bringeth his mother to shame.

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It has been hard to write about Brenda since  I lost her.  Our growing up years were so good with neither of us having a care in the world.  We walked to the stores in the  area, Parks, Snows, and Keys with bare legs and usually bare feet. Girls didn't wear pants.
If we had a few cents, maybe even a nickel, we would sit on the porch at Keys and pour peanuts in our Coke. I didn't much like the taste of the salty peanuts messing up my coke but I wanted to be like everyone else. Often we only had enough money that one  of us would buy the Coke and the other one would buy the peanuts.   The Keys had built a bench of sorts  on the porch.  The store was high off the ground but I don't remember anyone falling off except me. Of course I wasn't the only one I suspect.
People who were not familiar with us thought we were about to kill one another all the time.  We did a lot of good natured brawling which is the only word I can come up with for what we did.
But before we were old enough to walk all over the place our days were spent right there in Denning where we were raised. I lived at the end of a road where a fence and a few yards of dirt separated us from the RR track. Brenda lived down a lane or across the pasture from me. If  a car came down the road we knew it was coming to one of our places. As I look across the pasture of my home now I can see a big beautiful tree that reminds me of that big old persimmon tree at the end of the lane. We sat in that tree and planned our days lots of mornings. We ate, or should I say bit in to, our first and last green persimmon there and then tricked our Brother's into the same.
Down the track a ways was a place we called The Culvert.  It was under the tracks. A big culvert that we walked through and played inside. Water spilled through when it rained and formed a pool that we played in.  At the time I never even thought about the trains roaring by over our heads. My Goodness it sure wouldn't appeal to me now.  The pool was deep on the back end. At least it was deep for a bunch of kids.  Paul pushed me in once and one of the bigger boys got me out. I remember Travis getting a leech stuck on his leg and needing to go to the Doctor to take it off.  I also was told that Brenda and I slipped away from Auntie and went  through the back pasture to the Culvert. When she found us Brenda was saying 'petty wata' and I was splashing around at the bank. I couldn't even talk yet,  we were that young.
Across the tracks and up on the next corner was the little Methodist Church where we grew up. I met Jesus and invited him in to my heart there when I was ten  years old.  I will never  forget that day. Also up there was the Post Office and Keys store.
We played in the nasty smelly toilet, of all places. That was a place of privacy for us. As I look back I am totally amazed that one or both of us didn't fall in.  I dropped my penny in one day and Daddy took a shovel and dipped it out for me. A penny would buy lots of candy then.  I washed it good and made sure I protected it after almost losing it.
We waded the ditches, crawled under the house, made mud pies,climbed trees when no one was looking,built forts, and made our own fun with plain old kid know how
Denning was my hometown and until I started school in 1950 it was our safe haven. I found out quickly that you can only go home in your memories.  A tornado took away  so many of my childhood hang out's.  A whole hunk of my childhood ripped away in the matter of a few minutes. If not for my wonderful memories it would all have floated away in the wind.  Writing it down helps me remember.  I am thankful for my raising in that wonderful place. We should not be ashamed of our hometowns. That was what made you who you are.


Isaiah 40:28
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.

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Subject: CHRISTMAS FOR ME

I think I'll buy a small table size Christmas tree this year.  It has been a long time since I've had one. Christmas has been a sad time for me. I still honor the day of Jesus' birth it's not that that makes me sad.  It is the warm spirit that I miss. It is the family all being together, the table full of people. Not stuff but loved ones. As I grow older so many are gone out of my family. They are all in Heaven waiting at the gate for me to join them. It is the people that I miss.
Then there is the complete disregard so many seem to have of the fact that Christmas is the day that Christ was born to the Virgin Mary. There is not enough reverence to that fact anymore.  I was really irritated to receive a flyer declaring, 'Shop now for Black Friday, blaw blaw blaw'.   Too much shopping,knocking others around to obtain something. Most things from ad's have limited  supplies and not many are lucky enough to get one. Then there is the 'Happy Holiday's' thing for a greeting. Hey people "Merry Christmas".  The Holy Spirit has been squeezed out of Christ's birthday.  How can anyone feel The joy  and spirit of Christmas when they have rushed around since before Thanksgiving..
This should and is a very joyful time of year but Some of us have problems during the holidays and sometimes are overcome with great sadness when we remember the loved ones who are not with us. And, many people have no one to spend these times with and are besieged by loneliness. We all need caring thoughts and loving prayer right now. 
I Praise God for His Son Jesus who He sent to this earth to present me with my salvation. I love the reading of "The Christmas Story" in Luke-2: 1-14

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.

(And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)

And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)

To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

No matter how many times I read or hear someone read this story I get goose bumps and joy. I need that this time of year when I slump into despair. I need it to lift me up.

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