“Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…”
Blah, blah. Blah, blah. Boring, super boring. Everybody knows the 1823 Moore version, but who knows the 1963 Morris version??
My daddy always loved poetry and music so when he gave me these words at Christmas my senior year in high school, I wasn’t surprised. I don’t remember if he mentioned they were part of the lyrics from a song called A Letter from Santa written by Mickey Maguire (more remembered for Christmas classic I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus). I do remember I laughed out loud. I probably also couldn’t believe my dad had actually written the word “ass” in something he gave me – my parents refused to use what they considered to be vulgar language; I’m sure “ass” was a hard no. Maybe this rite of passage made it funnier to me.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
Jesus saith unto him,Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. (Gospel of John)
Every morning at five o’clock King Carl saith unto me rise, take up thy bed off thy back, and walk…to the den to let me outside for my morning constitutional, and be quick about it.
then he follows me to the kitchen, waits patiently while I make my coffee
inseparable cats Batman and Robin want breakfast asap
(before I take my first sip of coffee– spoilitis)
I am ready to eat, says the third King of Cardinal Drive
We three kings of Orient are; bearing gifts we traverse afar, field and fountain, moor and mountain, following yonder star.
O star of wonder, star of light, star with royal beauty bright, westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light.
—- John Henry Hopkins, Jr. (1857)
oops, no star – we’ll settle for the moon on Christmas Evemorning
Batman and Robin are two male feral cats that guard our carport in exchange for food and a warm place to sleep. Unfortunately, their guard duties do not extend to our car and truck, but hey, you can’t have it all, can you, Santa?
my early years in my hometown of rural Richards, Texas
(circa 1949 – when I was three years old)
(this picture should have been a clue, but my grandmother ignored it)
a birthday party dress made by my grandmother (circa 1951)
my grandmother made this dress and a picture postcard of me
for her family Easter card in 1949
Bless her heart. My grandmother tried and tried to reshape my fashions which upon reflection she probably hoped would reshape my life. One of the most dreaded phrases my mother ever spoke to me – the one that made me cringe-was “Your grandmother is making you a new dress and needs you to walk down to her house to try it on. No arguments, no whining, just go.”
I absolutely hated to stand on her little stool while she endlessly pinned away to make sure the pattern she bought from a grand clothing store in much bigger town Navasota fit perfectly on my small body. She pulled, tugged here and there, made me turn around as she measured whatever cloth she had purchased when she bought the pattern. I prayed silently that the aroma I smelled was her pineapple fried pies…the only possible redemption from the hell of being poked and prodded for a new dress I didn’t want to wear.
My grandmother Betha Day Robinson Morris and I lived within shouting distance of each other in the tiny town (pop. about 500) of Richards until my dad found a new job that took us out of the place I called home when I was 13 years old. Our new home in Brazoria was less than two hours from Richards so we came back every other week for most of my teenage years. Distance did not deter my grandmother from her sewing, however.
She usually managed to have something for me to try on whenever we visited. I finally surrendered to her passion for sewing because as I grew older I came to understand sewing was an important part of her life, but to this day I dread hearing Pretty say she brought something home for me to try on.
my grandmother surveys her granddaughters
before Easter Sunday church services in 1963
I was 17 years old and wearing a dress my grandmother made for me
while my younger cousin Melissa modeled her store-bought outfit
My grandmother continued to sew for me until I was in my twenties. Every Christmas she wrapped a large box in her best wrapping paper and favorite bow saved from the previous Christmas to give to me. I always opened with feigned surprise at the dress she made for me to wear to church and praised her for being able to still find the perfect pattern and material for me even when I wasn’t there to try it on.
I’ll never forget the last time I opened a gift of clothing she made for me. She had made a pants suit – unbelievable. I could see she was pleased with herself for breaking from the dress tradition she wanted me to wear to making the pants she now understood would forever be my choice of clothes. The year was 1968 – I was 22 years old – my grandmother would have been 55. The pants suit represented a rite of passage for both of us.
Unfortunately, I never could bring myself to wear the pants suit which was made with a hideous polyester fabric and a horrible bright green and white large zig zag pattern. I couldn’t bring myself to wear it, but I carried it with me around the country wherever I moved for the next 30 years. I would carefully hang it in my closet as a daily reminder of the love my grandmother gave me for as long as she lived.
My grandmother Betha was a flawed individual but what I wouldn’t give today to hear my mother say “Sheila Rae, your grandmother is making you a new dress and wants you to try it on. No arguments, no whining, just go.”
**********************
Those were the days, my friends – and now we have the opportunities to create new memories for our granddaughters we celebrate not only during the holiday season but also whenever we see them. What will they remember? I wonder.
Yes, Virginia you’ve probably read this story at least six times if you’ve been with me for many moons. This Christmas story is one of my favorites from Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing that was published in 2007 by Red Letter Press. The book’s been out of print for sixteen years, but there’s something about this little girl’s struggles for authenticity in her life that make it universally appropriate in any season. Dedicated to all little girls who struggle to be themselves.
*********************
“Dear Santa Claus, how are you? I am fine.
I have been pretty good this year. Please bring me a pair
of boxing gloves for Christmas. I need them.
Your friend, Sheila Rae Morris”
“That’s a good letter,” my maternal grandmother I called Dude said. She folded it and placed it neatly in the envelope. “I’ll take it to the post office tomorrow and give it to Miss Sally Hamilton to mail for you. Now, why do you need these boxing gloves?”
“Thank you so much, Dude. I hope he gets it in time. All the boys I play with have boxing gloves. They say I can’t box with them because I’m a girl and don’t have my own gloves. I have to get them from Santa Claus.”
“I see,” she said. “I believe I can understand the problem. I’ll take care of your letter for you.”
Several days later it was Christmas Eve. That was the night we opened our gifts with both families. This year our little group of Dude, Mama, Daddy, Uncle Marion, Uncle Toby and I walked to my paternal grandparents’ house across the dirt road and down the hill from ours. With us, we took the Christmas box of See’s Chocolate and Nuts Candies that Dude’s sister Aunt Orrie who lived in California sent every year, plus all the gifts for everyone. The only child in me didn’t like to share the candy, but it wouldn’t be opened until we could offer everyone a piece. Luckily, most everyone else preferred Ma’s divinity or her date loaf.
The beverage for the party was a homemade green punch. My Uncle Marion had carried Ginger Ale and lime sherbet with him. He mixed that at Ma’s in her fine glass punch bowl with the 12 cups that matched. You knew it was a special night if Ma got out her punch bowl. The drink was frothy and delicious. The perfect liquid refreshment with the desserts. I was in heaven, and very grownup.
When it was time to open the gifts, we gathered in the living room around the Christmas tree, which was ablaze with multi-colored blinking bubble lights. Ma was in total control of the opening of the gifts and instructed me to bring her each gift one at a time so she could read the names and anything else written on the tag. She insisted that we keep a slow pace so that all would have time to enjoy their surprises.
Really, there were few of those. Each year the men got a tie or shirt or socks or some combination. So the big surprise would be the color for that year. The women got a scarf or blouse or new gloves for church. Pa would bring out the Evening in Paris perfume for Ma he had raced across the street to Mr. McAfee’s Drug Store to buy when he closed the barber shop, just before the drug store closed.
The real anticipation was always the wrapping and bows for the gifts. They saved the bows year after year and made a game of passing them back and forth to each other like old friends. There would be peals of laughter and delight as a bow that had been missing for two Christmases would make a mysterious re-appearance. Ma and Dude entertained themselves royally with the outside of the presents. The contents were practical and useful for the adults every year.
My gifts, on the other hand, were more fun. Toys and clothes combined the practical with the impractical. Ma would make me a dress to wear to school and buy me a doll of some kind. Daddy and Pa would give me six-shooters or a bow and arrows or cowboy boots and hats. Dude always gave me underwear.
This year Uncle Marion had brought me a jewelry box from Colorado. He had gone out there to work on a construction job and look for gold. I loved the jewelry box. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any jewelry; equally unfortunate, he hadn’t found any gold.
“Well, somebody needs to go home and get to bed so that Santa Claus can come tonight,” Daddy said at last. “I wonder what that good little girl thinks she’s going to get.” He smiled.
“Boxing gloves,” I said immediately. “I wrote Santa a letter to bring me boxing gloves. Let’s go home right now so I can get to bed.”
Everybody got really quiet.
Daddy looked at Mama. Ma looked at Pa. Uncle Marion and Uncle Toby looked at the floor. Dude looked at me.
“Okay, then, sugar. Give Ma and Pa a kiss and a big hug for all your presents. Let’s go, everybody, and we’ll call it a night so we can see what Santa brings in the morning,” Daddy said.
*********************
“Is it time to get up yet?” I whispered to Dude. What was wrong with her? She was always the first one up every morning. Why would she choose Christmas Day to sleep late?
“I think it’s time,” she whispered back. “I believe I heard Saint Nick himself in the living room a little while ago. Go wake up your mama and daddy so they can turn on the Christmas tree lights for you to see what he left. Shhh. Don’t wake up your uncles.”
I climbed over her and slipped quietly past my sleeping Uncle Marion and crept through the dining room to Mama and Daddy’s bedroom. I was trying to not make any noise. I could hear my Uncle Toby snoring in the middle bedroom.
“Daddy, Mama, wake up,” I said softly to the door of their room. “Did Santa Claus come yet?” Daddy opened the door, and he and Mama came out. They were smiling happily and took me to the living room where Mama turned on the tree lights. I was thrilled with the sight of the twinkling lights as they lit the dark room. Mama’s tree was so much bigger than Ma’s and was perfectly decorated with ornaments of every shape and size and color. The icicles shimmered in the glow of the lights. There were millions of them. Each one had been meticulously placed individually by Mama. Daddy and I had offered to help but had been rejected when we were seen throwing the icicles on the tree in clumps rather than draping them carefully on each branch.
I held my breath. I was afraid to look down. When I did, the first thing I saw was the Roy Rogers gun and holster set. Two six-shooters with gleaming barrels and ivory-colored handles. Twelve silver bullets on the belt.
“Wow,” I exclaimed as I took each gun out of the holster and examined them closely. “These look just like the ones Roy uses, don’t they, Daddy?”
“You bet,” he said. “I’m sure they’re the real thing. No bad guys will get past you when you have those on. Main Street will be safe again.” He and Mama laughed together at that thought.
The next thing my eyes rested on was the Mr. And Mrs. Potato Head game. I wasn’t sure what that was when I picked it up, but I could figure it out later. Some kind of game to play when the cousins came later for Christmas lunch.
I moved around the tree and found another surprise. There was a tiny crib with three identical baby dolls in it. They were carefully wrapped in two pink blankets and one blue one. I stared at them.
“Triplets,” Mama said with excitement. “Imagine having not one, not two, but three baby dolls at once. Two girls and a boy. Isn’t that fun? Look, they have a bottle you can feed them with. See, their little mouths can open. You can practice feeding them. Aren’t they wonderful?”
I nodded. “Yes, ma’am. They’re great. I’ll play with them later this afternoon.” I looked around the floor and crawled to look behind the tree.
“Does Santa ever leave anything anywhere else but here?” I asked. Daddy and Mama looked at each other and then back at me.
“No, sweetheart,” Daddy said. “This is all he brought this year. Don’t you like all of your presents?”
“Oh, yes, I love them all,” I said with the air of a diplomat. “But, you know, I had asked him for boxing gloves. I was really counting on getting them. All the boys have them, and I wanted them so bad.”
“Well,” Mama said. “Santa Claus had the good common sense not to bring a little girl boxing gloves. He knew that only little boys should be fighting each other with big old hard gloves. He also realized that lines have to be drawn somewhere. He would go along with toy guns, even though that was questionable. But he had to refuse to allow boxing gloves this Christmas or any Christmas.”
I looked at Daddy. My heart sank.
“Well, baby,” he said with a rueful look. “I’m afraid I heard him say those very words.”
*******************
In 2008, the year following publication of Deep, one of my best friends Billy Frye gave me a pair of boxing gloves for Christmas – better late than never, Santa. I was sixty-two years old. Billy Frye understood.
Last year (2022) Pretty’s sister Darlene and her partner Dawne gave me a brand new pair of boxing gloves because they also loved this story. Darlene asked me if I thought my mother would have permitted boxing gloves in our home when I originally asked Santa for them as a child if they were pink, and Pretty spoke up for me. I doubt it, she said, but she did always love for Sheila to wear pink.
My dog Spike and I are “working” in my office on a rainy Wednesday night in December, but my mind has been frazzled by the recent drama of the car theft which has affected my concentration, sleep patterns that are suspect anyhow on good nights, and winter/holiday doldrums that were here before any of that madness. Bah humbug.
This monkey’s expression while reading the Wall Street Journal reminds me of how Spike and I feel during the storm tonight. Basically, WTF.
Then I have to laugh because I gave this monkey to my dad for a Christmas gift to put in his office when he was a public school teacher turned administrator in the late 1960s. He loved it – said it made him smile whenever he noticed it during a stressful day at work. I saved it when I cleaned out his personal items from the school office in 1976 two months before his death. The monkey is a symbol of a powerful bond that shaped my life forever, a reminder of a good father who gave me the ability to find the “funny” in the journey, the vicissitudes of life as he would say.
I think he would approve of my working with a dog like Spike at my side. Daddy always loved his hunting dogs who never could hunt because they lived a life of luxury sprawled on a sofa next to him in an air conditioned home.
I understand now that not everyone had the loving, yet dysfunctional, family I had growing up; but I’ve had a monkey in my office for nearly fifty years that makes me smile on a rainy night in South Carolina when I remember the man and that Christmas.
I'll Call It Like I See It 
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