A Child's Christmas in Central Illinois

Like Dylan Thomas, I plunge my hands into that snow drift of Christmas memories and pull out a handful.

Food--Since we lived within five minutes of my father's parents and 20 minutes of my mother parents, Christmas Day was always consisted of two gatherings with two major meals and two sets of presents. Turkey was the meat of choice at Grandma Kelmel's while roast goose was the tradition on the Finch side. I always looked forward to staying with Grandma Kelmel for several days after Christmas as she and I would "pick" over the turkey carcass for most of our meals. Plum pudding as the desert of choice at the Finches, while pumpkin pies were featured at the Kelmel meal.

Cousins--lots and lots of cousins. Being an only child, the commotion and noise of family Christmas gatherings was both stimulating and at times overwhelming.

Sleeping uncles--tradition held that we had the Finch Christmas at noon and the Kelmel Christmas in the evening. As a result, the afternoon was composed on uncles asleep in the living room while the aunts gossiped and bragged in the kitchen. The kids were relegated to remain anyplace where they would not disturb the uncles. I learned early on "to let sleeping uncles lie."

Ban-lyon Shirts--For the Finch side we always "drew names" so each person only had to buy for one person. Uncle Earl always asked for a Ban-Lyon shirt (double knit polyester). Never failed. He had to have had dozens of them in his closet, since he never wore them to work.

Miscalcuations--My perverse sense of humor got me into trouble with a couple "special gifts" over the years:
     --Aunt Doreen loved the musicals made by Jeannette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. Their signature duet was "Indian Love Call," which is the most parodied song in American history. One year Kevin, Mary, Aunt Jo & I did a tape recording of "Indian Love Call," (Aunt Jo on the piano, Kevin on the trombone, and Mary & I singing (I was the one off key all the time). Needless to say, Aunt Doreen did not find it at all amusing. It was always a sore subject with her for many years after. Once video tape films became available I gave her for Christmas a VHS version of the film which featured the song. It did little to assuage her pique.
     --Dieter's spoon--Aunt Jo was always talking about going on a diet, so one Christmas I gave her a "dieter's spoon," which was a teaspoon with a large hole in the bowl. She did not find it particularly amusing in spite of her well know sense of humor. I learned that a person's practice of self-deprication was not an invitation to participate.

Pinochle Games--Once I was old enough to play pinochle, which was the card game of choice for both families, I was allowed to partake in the games of the adults. The Finch side played double pinochle, which uses two decks instead of one. I once dealt a perfect hand to my partner (which statistically is almost impossible in double deck play) but misdealt, which voided the hand. I was not allowed to forget that error for many, many years.

Millburg Gatherings--My Grandmother Kelmel's family--the Millburgs--gathered each Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Easter, and Fourth of July. Six of the sisters had married farmers, and all had very large families. By the time I was ten they had to limit the gatherings to only the Fourth of July as no one had a large enough house to accommodate everyone in cold weather. When I was five or six my parents hosted one of the last Thanksgiving gatherings. How we got all of those people inside that tiny house on Illini Drive I do not know. All I remember of the day is that the men went hunting and came back with a wash tub full of dead, skinned rabbits. Fortunately, these gatherings were potlucks, as cooking for that many people would have been beyond my mother's humble culinary skills. The one Christmas gathering I vividly remember was at someone's farm where there was a large forzen pond out behind the barn. The reason I have such vivid memories of this event is that their dog bit me on the cheek when I tried to pick it up. My natural affection for dogs was circumscribed by the experience.

Dad's Gifts for Mom--It seems as if every Christmas my Father would purchase some really expensive dress for my Mother from the most expensive women's shop in Taylorville. Often these were dresses that Mother would never wear. She would take them back and exchange them for dresses she could wear to work. The problem was that the dress shop carried few dresses that Mother considered appropriate for the office. A couple times the owner of the dress shop just gave Mother the money back when she could not find anything she liked in the shop.

Booze--The weeks before Christmas were times when Dad came home in loads of "gifts" from the salesmen who sold products to the township. Bottles of expensive whiskey, boxes of candy and tins of gourmet popcorn were unloaded each evening when he came home from work. After Dad stopped drinking the liquor bottles began to accumulate in our bar. Eventually, he began giving it away to friends.

Midnight Mass--Mother and I usually went to Midnight Mass. She always preferred to sit toward the back of the church, so I could see very little and with the Latin Mass, I understood even less. My chief memory is of the incense and my intense desire to go back to sleep.

Buying Christmas Trees--When I was in eight grade, Sister Loretta, who was my eight grade teacher and principal of St. Mary Grade School, asked me to help her and the other sisters decorate the church for Christmas. This was done on Christmas Eve day. I helped carry the large plaster statues of the Mary, Joseph, the Christ Child, a cow, a couple sheep and a donkey out of the church basement and up to the sanctuary. When this was done, Sister Loretta handed me a leather pounch full of money and told me to go buy six Christmas trees for the sanctuary. Now it was a cold, snowy day and I was not old enough to drive, so I do not know how Sister thought I was going to get the trees. I walked seven blocks to the nearest place where they sold trees and began looking at the meager selection left late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. The man who ran the gas station where the trees were sold, asked what I wanted and when I told him he was surprised at my request. We picked out the trees and I paid him. Then he took pity on me when I told him I was going to have to drag them to the church, making at least three trips. In retrospect, all of the needles would have been pulled from the trees in the process. The kind man closed his business (he was working alone), loaded all the trees in his pickup and drove me to the church. Then I had to figure out how to get the tree stands on the trees, something I had never done before. Once in place, it was obvious that the trees were some of the worst anyone had ever seen. Whether anyone said anything to the priests or the sisters about the scraggly trees, I do not know. But I remember that the next year there was a notice in the church bulletin the Sunday after Thanksgiving asking for volunteers to decorate the church for Christmas. Either by design or accident, the Sisters were no longer in charge of decorating the church for Christmas.

Most of all I remember the sense of wonder and magic that seemed to fill the air on Christmas Eve. Regardless of all the presents, turmoil, family angst or commotion of Christmas Day, the night before Christmas was, and still remains, the holiest of times for me. The beauty and joy of Christmas has always been in the anticipation, a feeling never dulled.