Christmas has always been a refuge for me. I grew up in a noisy household—three much younger brothers, a father prone to shouting, and a lovable but barky schnauzer. My mom and I were the quiet ones.
For my mom and me, Christmas was a time for doing things with care—although, curiously, not hanging stockings. That was my dad’s job. For some reason, my mom disliked the whole stocking thing. I never found out why. She’d grown up the youngest child and only daughter during the Depression. Her father had left when she was three years old, and her family — my mom, her four older brothers, and my grandmother--was taken in by my great-grandfather, for whom I’m named. I always imagined that empty stockings might have been part of that scenario. In any case, stockings hung across the old barn-beam that made up our fireplace mantle were filled by my father every year.
My mom and I, however, did some wonderful things together at Christmas time. One year, my mom decided she was going to make wreaths to benefit my Cub Scout den. Yes, I was a Cub Scout for a year. It was an interesting time, although I didn’t pursue scouting after that. I actually discovered how much I liked acting while I was a Cub Scout. My den put on a Halloween play based on the TV show The Addams Family. I was Gomez. I wore a suit and a burnt-cork moustache, carried a cigar, and did my best John Astin impression. I recall getting what were, to my young ears anyway, big laughs. Strangely enough, many years later, I did a tour of A Christmas Carol in which John Astin played Scrooge. One evening, a bunch of us actors were all sitting around, and John asked what was our first stage experience. I answered, “Playing you,” and told the story, which got, as I recall, big laughs.
Ah, digressions, digressions! My mind often takes the scenic route at holiday time! Back to the story of my mother’s Christmas wreaths--
One December Saturday morning, my mom and I drove off to a wooded area south of our house—a very piney place along the road. My mom got a large cardboard box out of the trunk of the car, and we walked a ways into the woods. It had snowed the night before, and the ground and the branches of the trees were dusted with white. I remember the quiet and the smell of the woods in the crisp, cold air. We were looking, I was told, for ground pine. We hadn’t walked far when my mom spotted some, and the two of us got down on our hands and knees and pulled strand after strand of ground pine and put it into the cardboard box. I remember being surprised at how soft it was—not sharp or gummy like spruce or fraser. This went on for about an hour, each of us finding a new patch a little ways off and taking more of the pine and putting it into the box. We didn’t say much during all this. Just listened to the breeze in the trees and the occasional cawing of the crows, who watched us from the high branches. “Crazy humans!” I imagine they were saying.
When the box was full of pine, off we went to the florist’s shop where my mom bought round metal forms and a spool of thin green wire.
Back home, my mom and I began to make wreaths. We set up a table in the garage away from the noise of the house. My mom showed me how to cut a section of the ground pine and place it on the form, wrap the stems in green wire, and then overlap the next bunch until the whole form was filled all round and round with evergreen. She added red bows, pinecones (also gathered in the woods that morning), and a pick or two of wonderful glass holly berries. We made ten wreaths, and I recall my mom sold them at a table down at our church. They were all bought in one morning, and the money went to help fund my Cub Scout den’s outing to, I think, West Point.
I remember how in awe I was of my mom. That she knew how to do such things. That she did them so well. And I was grateful that she included me, the kid who was quieter and enjoyed doing things with care. Like her. It’s a warm and peaceful holiday memory. And who doesn’t need one of those?
