Mary Belk: Best things in life aren’t things

In case you haven’t noticed, it’s almost Christmas again. Time to reminisce about Christmas traditions.

It always does me good to ponder Christmas Past. Times when the holiday was much simpler. The description of Christmas Day in Laura Ingles Wilder’s “Little House on the Prairie” should make us ashamed of ourselves.

Mary and Laura Ingles each got a new tin cup, a stick of peppermint candy and a little heart-shaped cake. “And in the very toe of each stocking was a bright, shining new penny!” They were too happy to speak. Their neighbor, Mr. Edwards, swam the freezing creek to bring them sweet potatoes to eat with the Christmas turkey Pa had shot. Ma baked the potatoes in the ashes of the fire. “There had never been such a Christmas.”

My mother grew up the youngest of twelve children in south Alabama in the early 1900s. Her Papa owned a general mercantile store, so they had more than many people. Things like electricity, a telephone and a piano. The store brought in a steady income, but money wasn’t plentiful, so Christmas was simple.

Christmas dinner was the center of their celebration. My mother’s Mama tried to cook everybody’s favorite food. There were plenty of vegetables from the garden, plus a turkey from the store and a homegrown hog. The hog and turkey were cooked together outside in a big wash pot. Then the turkey was browned for about an hour in the oven. That made the outside crisp and the inside tender. For dessert her mama made ambrosia and at least ten cakes.

They didn’t give gifts, but they still thought Christmas Day was the best day of the year.

Strolling through the old neighborhood of my own long-ago Christmases, I try to recall my favorite presents. And I can hardly remember any specific gifts at all.

My family strung big colored lights on a tall cedar tree every year, and there were plenty of presents around it. On Christmas Eve we could pick one gift to open. Then Christmas morning we had our Santa Claus stash and the rest of the loot under the tree.

Considering the fact that I got dozens of presents every year, it doesn’t seem nice of me to have forgotten most of them. I vaguely remember getting a Betsy Wetsy or Tiny Tears doll and a cap gun several years in a row. But all of those recollections run together.

I’m glad to report that my lack of graphic gift recall doesn’t mean that I’m losing my memory. Turns out it’s other things about Christmas that come to mind.

I have clear recollections of the Christmases my sisters came home for the holidays.

Those memories are etched in my brain forever. When they walked through the back door with a baby bundled in a blanket, that was the only gift I wanted.

Just goes to show, the best things in life aren’t things.

Mary Belk lives in Auburn and writes a column for the Opelika-Auburn News.