I'll Be Home For Christmas - but not in southwest Georgia

Recently one of my nephews sent me some photos of the farm in south Georgia where I grew up and lived half my life. 

Family farm in south Georgia

That place will always bring up some sadness in me, but also great memories of life there with my four brothers, two sisters, Mother and Daddy.

I had thought I would marry and move to a city or at least off the farm, but a year after our wedding, we were back on the farm again. My father who bought   land on Fleming Road in Dougherty County Georgia in 1942, told each of his seven children that he would give us five acres on which we could build a house. I never thought I'd do that. I went away to college and learned a little about the outside world, and my younger sister went to college and then to California. My older sister married and moved away to live in various places for most of her life.

I turned down my first love when he asked me to marry him because he planned to have a military career. I could never imagine me picking up and moving all the time. I felt my tap root ran so deep in south Georgia soil that nothing would ever dig me up and transplant me in another state, and certainly not in another country.

Barry asked me to marry him at Christmas time, the second year after college, and we had a wedding in June. We moved into a small one bedroom, furnished apartment on 8th Ave. in Albany, GA. He gave me a black poodle puppy right away. For that summer Brandy, my puppy, was with me constantly. In September when I began my second year of teaching fourth grade, I had to leave the puppy in the apartment.

The first day that tiny ball of black fur disemboweled a sofa and two chairs. He met me at the door when I got home as happy and proud as he could be. Foam stuffing lined the hallway from door to living room. This was before the days of crate-training or before I ever heard of it. When I left him in the bathroom, he destroyed the door and unrolled all the toilet paper. 

Needless to say with a week of this little black tornado climbing up on chairs, onto tables and flying over dividers, we realized we had to move. We could not keep him inside while we were gone.

We were thankful when Daddy gave us our five acres, and we hastily moved a mobile home onto the wooded and uncleared land. And so I was back on the farm again. Although I would have moved anywhere with Barry, and we looked at houses

cattle silhouetted against water

all over the county, he made the decision to stay right there where I had grown up. 

He came to love that land as much as I did. He enjoyed the fishing at Majors' Pond, the horseback riding, working and playing tennis with my brothers on the recreation area and then working with them in the manufacturing business.

Of course I enjoyed being close to my mother who was only 1/2 mile or less from our place. We had chosen a perfect spot with old "Disney" type oak trees and tall whispering pines in the back of the farm where we saw only natures' creatures most of the time. 

Moon Rise

Life was peaceful and laid back for a young couple with little money but lots of love for each other and for our four-legged family. We had two horses, a dog and two cats. 

I close my eyes and I am once again walking down the farm road, smelling honeysuckle growing wild along the fence, or in the morning, dew drops nestled on morning glories brought a smile to my lips. One of my dogs usually walked with me, running ahead or stopping to sniff out rabbits or field mice hiding from us.

In summer, I might sit by the large pool we built right in the center of the farm for all of us to use and care for. It overlooks some small ponds where blue cranes pose in the water or egrets gather on dead trees. 

From south end of pool on Council Farm

The warm weather we have had here in the mountains this December is the same as what we had almost every Christmas on the farm. We were often in shorts on Christmas Eve and, after Barry and I built our house with the lovely fireplace, we turned on the AC so it would be cool enough to light a fire for ambiance, not for warmth.

I love the song, I'll Be Home for Christmas, but there comes a time when the home of your childhood is gone and you can't go home for Christmas. Home becomes another place where you can be with loved ones, to share good times, laughter and memories. 

Down home they will have the annual family Christmas party. I hope they have a great time together. I'll be thinking of those good times of yore.



Farm scenes by Gabe Council

Holiday memories get to me this time of year

Gay, June and Glenda in 2011 

Holidays bring up the nostalgia of long ago celebrations with family, many long gone now. 

I grew up in southwest Georgia in a simpler time when we found our Christmas tree in the woods on the farm where we lived. Max, the only one of my four brothers now living, took on the responsibility of taking his little sisters to find the right tree. Looking back, I am sure he spent many hours inspecting the pines and cedars during the fall months so he could take us right to the one that would serve us best.

From pictures taken back when Gay and I were little children, it is evident that we did not have many trees shaped like the typical ones we see today. We might have a cedar tree one year and a pine tree the next. (They would be called Charlie Brown trees today) 

I remember the cedar trees were flimsy with soft branches that would not hold up ornaments of any weight. The pine trees smelled good but were sticky with resin that got on our hands and clothes. The long needles drooped sadly. They, too, were difficult to decorate. 

We did not have lovely ornaments bought in stores when we were really small. We made our colored chains or used garland saved from years past. We hung faded blue and red balls bought when my brothers were kids. However, we always had silver icicles dressing up the humble tree. 

After 1946, we had electric lights on our tree each year. That was what I loved best, the twinkle lights and bubble lights. Max made us a star from cardboard, paint and glitter. I couldn’t have been happier with a Christmas tree when I was under the age of six, than I was with the ones we brought home from the woods. Nobody I knew bought a Christmas tree back then unless you purchased an artificial tree, and no one in our family would dare do such a thing. 

As long as my mother lived, we always had a Christmas tree at her house and until she was unable because of declining health, to handle the big gathering, all of our family came there on Christmas Day, exchanged presents and ate a delicious meal. This time of year the memory of those days wells up in me like water from a spring. I can close my eyes and feel the joy of family, smell the scents of Mother's fruit cake cooking, the dressing we always had for Christmas dinner, the fresh smell of the tree, and hear the voices of my mother, sisters and other dear family members, talking, laughing, sharing their love for each other. 

Today’s Christmas trees wear the most beautiful ornaments and wrappings. I can hardly believe the time and money it takes to decorate even one. 

A few years ago, I visited a cousin, Steve, and his wife, Maria, in Dawson, Georgia. They have renovated one of the old houses still standing in that town and it is beautiful all the time, but at Christmas it looks like Santa's elves have sneaked in and turned the place into a wonderland.

Below see some pictures of their house at Christmas. 

The Christmas tree in the living room of my cousin's house had not one bare branch on it, I'm sure. 

This tree was in a bedroom with ornaments that matched the decor of the room. Every room of this huge house had been meticulously decorated for Christmas. My eyes could not take it all in.

One of the many fireplaces in the vintage house where Steve and Maria live in Dawson, GA. 

The tree below was in the home of Gay and Stu Moring, my sister and brother-in-law. This was before the presents were added. When I see this perfectly shaped tree I smile. So different from the trees we had as children.

We learned how to make a perfectly shaped tree when we grew up and owned a Christmas tree farm. Gay still prunes away anything on the tree they purchase that doesn't look like a Christmas tree. 

I don't dare put up any kind of Christmas tree this year. 
Lexie, my puppy/monkey gets up on tables, into flower pots, trash cans, closets and I can imagine what she would do to a Christmas tree. But she does have a stocking hanging on the mantel that she has not yet discovered,  therefore it is safe -- for now. 

Christmas story based on a true family event about real people

Real Santa, A Wonderful Sister and A Good Hearted Man
Our family had moved from town where my father had a steady job in 1941 to the farm where he and his four sons worked hard from sunup to sundown with little or no income until harvest in the fall. That was often meager and had to last until harvest the following year. There was little or no money left after buying necessities for the family, food staples, clothes for the kids, medicines and supplies for the farm.
Gay and I were still very young the Christmas Santa Claus almost missed our house. My brothers were too old for Santa Claus and our sister, June was a grown up young woman with a car and a job in town at the bus station. She usually arrived home before six o’clock in the afternoon. That day she was late. No telephone lines had been run out our way at that time, so June couldn’t call home.

Mother cooked supper as she always did but she told Daddy she was worried about June. “She is never this late coming home. I hope nothing happened to that old car. She could be stranded out on the road somewhere.”

We lived ten long miles from town with hardly a house to be seen on the road for the last six of them. The night was cold and dark. Few people would be on the road in automobiles. After all, it was Christmas Eve and most farm families would go to bed early.

The boys finished their evening meal and Mother washed dishes after she had carefully filled a plate and put it in the oven for June. Daddy settled down with his Albany Herald newspaper. No one knew that Mother had two reasons to be worried about June’s late homecoming. She didn’t fear so much that June had become a victim of a crime or that some evil had befallen her. Life was far safer in those days. If the car had broken down, as it had done before, June could stay in town with a friend. But this night, Christmas Eve, June was bringing precious cargo. Unless she made it home Mother knew there would be two very disappointed little girls when they looked under the Christmas Tree the next morning.

It grew late, nine, ten o’clock and everyone had gone to bed except Mother.She sat by the lamp trying to read and not worry. She had made chocolate fudge for Christmas day. She had a big meal planned for the family, but Santa Claus was supposed to bring two pretty baby dolls with eyes that opened and closed. She knew Gay and I had been dreaming of those dolls for weeks.
We never had toys from a store except at Christmas when Santa brought them. Mother was afraid that this year she was going to have to divulge the secret of Santa and admit the reason there were no baby dolls.
She read until her eyes would not stay open. She dozed off, her head resting against the back of her chair.

Money was scarce that year as it had been since the family moved to the farm. Mother had put the dolls on lay-a-way at Grant’s. June promised that she would pick up the toys when she got her paycheck on Christmas Eve.

With the toys in her car, she truly felt like Santa as she started for home. Before she made it out of town, however, the car began to stall at every stoplight. June turned around. She didn’t want to take a chance. She headed for Frank’s Garage where she found the mechanic still there. He listened to her story and though he was about to close up, he took pity on the pretty girl. While she sat for hours in his drafty little office he managed to fix up the old car. “I think you will get home okay now,” he told her. June had climbed in and headed out, thankful she could be there before morning.
“Mother, what are you doing up?” June stage- whispered as she tiptoed in with two big packages in her arms.

Mother jerked awake and jumped up to meet her daughter. “What on earth happened, Honey? I was worried to death.”

“That darn car. I’d still be in town if I hadn’t found a good-hearted mechanic. He hated to see me stranded and unable to bring home gifts for my little sisters.”

Mother took the packages from June’s hands and said, “ Come in here and eat your supper. You must be starving.”

After June ate her leftovers, mother and daughter took the dolls, one dressed in pink and one in baby blue, from the boxes and set them up under the tree. They placed a tiny tea set between them. Both smiled as they imagined the looks on the children’s faces.
Thanks to a kind mechanic who worked on the night before Christmas, and a loving big sister, Gay and I awoke to find we had not been forgotten and Santa had brought us the special presents we wanted.