Christmas 1945 by Anita West Moss ©
Pictured: the picture of her Daddy (James Rubel Moss) that was kept on the mantel. Isn't the frame pretty?
I stand clutching my doll, Roy Rogers. I am only one and one-half years old, but I remember this. It is not a dream. It is not what I have been told; it is a vivid and intense memory. Mama and Cabby and Brother are listening to the radio. I like that radio. It is not a floor model like Grandma West's; it's a table model and it has an amber light in the center. I think people are inside. Tiny people who tell the news or sing or talk about calling for Phillip Morris or say that "We doctors prefer Camels." But this time, the voice of the little man inside the radio is saying, "The War in Europe is over. I repeat; the War in Europe is over." And then Mama and Cabby and Brother are hugging each other and jumping up and down and crying. When I remembered this, I thought -- surely you cannot be remembering that scene correctly. Afterall, the TVA did not even bring electricity to rural Monroe County until 1949 -- so you must have dreamed that radio. But my sister said no; we had a battery radio that did look like the one you describe -- the arched kind made of beautiful veneer and with decorative carving on the front.
Later, much later, Mama stands me up on the ironing board to put on my blue velvet coat and my blue velvet bonnet. I do not like the tight strangling sensation around my throat when she ties the bow beneath my chin. The firelight shines in her eyes. Folks say Mama is such a pretty woman; they say that she has the loveliest eyes of anybody, even prettier than a movie star's because no one has eyes like hers. They are the deepest aqua, the color of the Atlantic ocean on a stormy day with amber flecks in them that pick up the flames in the fire. Her hair is so shiny black that it looks dark blue in the flickering light. Her eyebrows have been plucked pencil-thin, flapper style, like Jean Harlow's. She has a puffy pompadour of black hair in front and on each side, her hair is swept up and held with a comb. A blue velvet bow nestles just behind the pompadour. I reach up and pat the bow and stroke her soft cheek. I cannot get enough of my mama - I love her smile and her smell. I love the gentle soft Southern voice - the quick childlike delighted laugh. She arranges my curls around the bonnet and hugs me and says, "Your daddy's going to think you are the sweetest, prettiest, smartest thing that ever was!" She laughs and picks me up and twirls around with me in her arms. I hug her neck and kiss her on the cheek. "My daddy's in France," I say, and point to the picture on the mantel. When company comes, I always climb up on a chair and get down the picture and show it off to the folks so they can see what a fine-looking man in his uniform my daddy is. Mama would tell how he had to leave before I was even born and go off and fight old horrible Hitler, and how she had to try to farm the place with just my fifteen-year-old brother to help. Her folks tried to make her shut up the house and come live with them and just live on the money the government sent each month. But my mama had spunk, folks said. She was determined to save every penny the government sent and to make the crop just as if my daddy were there. And none of her folks or my daddy's would even help her, Just the young, Methodist preacher who loved our family and especially my brother would come help, and then people were hateful enough to gossip that the preacher had a crush on my pretty mother -- or at least that's what my sister told me about later. Mama would just hug me and say that I was the Good Lord's baby sent to her special and how she could never have stood it all without me.
Mama put on her rose-colored coat with the wide fur collar. It fits at the waist and flares out just like a dress. She picks me up again and I ride lightly on her hip. I like to be swung into the front seat of the old black Chevrolet. When I ride with Mama by herself, I stand up in the front seat beside her while she drives. I put my arm around her neck and pat her cheek. I can smell the perfume she always puts on the scarf underneath her coat collar. We drive fast down the gravel road.
"Hang on, my precious baby!" she cries gaily, "We goin' to town." I giggle and jump up and down beside her on the seat. Once my brother said after church he was going off with his friend, Louis Kendrick and Mama said no. My brother hated to be bossed around, so he got in Louis's car anyway and took off. Mama took off right behind them. Cabby had to hang on to me. Finally, Mama caught them and pulled Brother out of the car and spanked him. She said he was not going to act any such disrespectful way just because my daddy was fighting Hitler in France. I said "let's ride that way again," but Cabby said no; she was a fraidy-cat but not me.
After a while, we ride over that bump in the road and my tummy flip-flops and makes me squeal and laugh. Soon we are at the Kroger's store. Mama needs to buy some coconuts to make the coconut cake for Christmas. Miss Eunice Turman is there. People are laughing and saying how maybe all the men will be back by Christmas. Mama says she hopes so because Christmas hasn't been Christmas since my daddy went off to the war. She said how my Aunt Inez could not stop crying because her son, Ellis, wouldn't be coming home at all because ol' Hitler had killed him and buried him in a grave so far away in France. Miss Euny said she heard there was a terrible storm in the North Atlantic and that a hospital ship was feared to be lost, My mama looks scared but says my daddy can't be on that ship. She says she just knows that my daddy will be home for Christmas.
That afternoon, I watch for Brother and Cabby to come home on the big yellow school bus. Mama says we're going out in the woods and cut down the biggest Christmas tree we can find. When Brother and Cabby finally get there, Mama says "Go hitch up Dixie-Jane to the little wagon." Cabby is excited and swings me round and round by the arms till I scream with delight and feel the whole world twirling. Mama says "Stop that, you'll make her sick." Mama instructs Cabby to fo change me into overalls and to change out of her school clothes. Cabby finishes eating her cornbread and peanut butter. She is a finicky eater; Grandma West says she would starve herself were it not for cornbread and peanut butter. Cabby changes me; I struggle to get my hands into the armholes. I make sure that Roy Rogers goes with me. When Cabby starts in about how ugly he is after I painted his face with red nail polish, I start to cry and hug him close to my chest. Mama says hush because there are Christmas elves everywhere in the woods just waiting for us to act up like that. She says they'll get upset if we fight and cry and no little children in the whole world will get toys and she said for Cabby to hush about Roy Rogers because he is my child that Santy Claus brought when I was only one month old and I can paint his face up anyway I want to. Cabby sticks her tongue out at me; I think about returning the gesture but I remember the Christmas elves and decide not to do that or to blubber again.
Brother drives the wagon up beside the back porch. He gets down, goes in the well house and brings out the ax and the hand saw and puts them in the wagon. I jump up and down on the porch, "Let me ride, Jane Jutchy!" I cry. Cabby laughs because I can't say my brother's name. "Say it right - James Russell; look at my mouth, she insists. "James Russell." I say "Rain Russell:" Mama, Cabby, and Brother laugh. James Russell swings me off the porch and throws me high in the air over and over. I laugh but lose my breath and feel scared. Prince, our copper-colored collie, runs out from under the house and barks viciously and nips at James Russell. "It's okay, Prince," James Russell says, "I'm just playin' with my beautiful baby sister." I put my plump arms around his neck and kiss him. His face is not soft like Mama's; sometimes it scratches my cheek. He swings me up in the wagon seat and pats Prince, who barks with joy now because he knows we are going deep into the pine forest.
Mama gets in the wagon, but Cabby likes to swing her legs off the back because we don't need the tailgate today. "Let's sing Deck the Halls," Cabby says - they all start to sing. I pretend to know the words and sing along, too. I like the fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la part and keep singing it after they have stopped. I do that at Sunday Scool when the children's choir sings Jesus Loves Me. That's because I like singing better than talking or preaching. My brother laughs at my song, "Well, girl, you're going to be another Alice Faye!" "Jingle Bells!" My sister calls out.
Soon we are in the pine forest and can't see our house anymore. I like the piney-winey scent and sniff it in I like the mist in the air and the hush of the woods and the wind murmuring in the tree-tops. I think we should all be quiet or maybe just whisper. Mama thinks so too, I guess, because she whispers, "Children, I think we'll find our magical cedar tree in that clump of trees over there." We clamber down from the wagon. Cabby holds my hand while I run to keep up. Her knees are knobby and her calves are mottley-purple from the cold. Mama looks at one and shakes her head, then points to one, and says, "that's the one; that's our magical tree." My brother saws down the tree; my sister and I skip around bouncing like my brother's basketball on his clay-packed court behind the corn crib. We can't be still. Mama says we need some holly because my daddy likes holly garlands on the mantel and around the windows. "Will he really be home by Christmas, Mama?" my brother asked. "Oh, how I pray he will be," Mama says. "My daddy's in France," I say. "Yes, silly, but he's coming home," Cabby says, "We told you the war is over. Our boys have beat ol' Hitler!"
That night Mama pops corn. We eat some and Cabby strings the rest into ropes to decorate the tree. We hang colored glass balls on the tree too. I struggle to hang a blue one and drop it. It shatters and I cry. Mama holds me close and then gives me some more popcorn. After the tree is all decorated, Mama sits in front of the fire grating the coconut for the cake. I rock beside her in my little red rocker with the blue morning glories on it. I hold Roy Rogers and sing Christmas songs to him or pretend to. I throw bits of the coconut shell into the fire and watch the flames burst into blue flowers like the morning glories on my chair. I am fascinated by the flames and by the soothing noise the fire makes as it burns lower and hotter. I rock slower and slower staring at the fire. I'm being lifted by my brother and placed in a big feather bed where I sleep every night between my mama and Cabby. I feel safe and snug between them. I'm glad when they come to bed. Mama rubs my back. I reach back and pat her soft hair.
The next morning, I wake up first and climb over Cabby, who gives me an angry shove. I tip-toe when my feet hit the cold floor. I go through the French doors into the living room and stare at the tall tree. I walk close and smell the pungent cedar and oranges in the fruit bowl and the chocolate covered cherries that Mama makes herself. I lie on my tummy and wriggle up under the tree. I lie on my back and look up through the branches and feel the cedar needles tickling my nose. "Maybe Christmas elves are hiding in this tree", I think. I think to myself that the elves are watching me; maybe they even like me, I say to myself.
That day Mama gets all excited when a man brings a yellow piece of paper. It is a telegram, she says. It tells where and when to meet my daddy. He has come all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to New York. Then he got on the train and was on his way to Camp Shelby which was close to Jackson. That's where the Army would give him his discharge papers, Mama said. She said it was a dream come true that he would be home for Christmas after all that time. He would get to Camp Shelby on Christmas Eve and my brother was to drive the old Chevrolet to meet him. Mama says she'll stay with us and get everything ready for him to come home.
When I get up on Christmas Eve, my brother has already left. Mama spends half the day cleaning the house, I have a little broom and mop and try to help. Mama and Cabby don't pay me much attention. Cabby keeps going to the window to look down the snakey red road wandering off among the pines to see if they are coming yet. Later, I cry when Mama washes my hair and gets shampoo in my eyes, I sit in my little red rocker naked by the fire while Cabby combs out all the tangles. Then she dresses me in my white blouse with puffed sleeves and my red velvet Christmas jumper. Ir seems like we are getting ready to go to Church. Cabby and Mama have white blouses and red jumpers just like mine. "Look, Mama, we're triplets," Cabby says. It has been dark for a long time. Cabby runs to the window now every few minutes to see if she can see headlights coming along the road. I sit in my red rocker and try to get Roy Rogers to sleep, but he is too excited about Santy Claus coming tonight. I can't settle him down. Cabby calls out, "It's them, It's them! They're here!" She runs outside and Mama runs after her. Prince dashes from under the house and barks; he runs back and forth and squirts the ground again and again because he is so excited. I hide behind one of the porch columns and watch. When the car stops Cabby flings open the door and gets inside. Mama waits outside the car. Then a tall man gets out of the car. He picks up my mama and swings her round and round. He kisses her on the mouth. I have never seen her so happy. I can tell she doesn't remember me. I don't like that man hugging and kissing my mama.
The man wears a uniform that is the same color as the Cedar Christmas tree. It has gold buttons with big birds in flight. The buttons shine just like the ornaments on the tree. I run to Mama and tug at her skirt. She picks me up and says, "And here is our precious baby." But I hide my face on her shoulder and won't look at the man in uniform.
Later Mama gives the man coffee in a ruby glass cup. I can see the fire gleaming through the red glass and I think it is prettier than any of the ornaments on the tree. I like the man a little better now that he is not hugging my mama. He is telling how he almost got lost in a terrible storm on the North Atlantic. I go to the living room and drag the pink velvet Rebecca Davis chair to the mantel. I struggle to climb up on the chair and reach up to get the picture of my daddy. Being so careful not to drop it, I climb down from the chair, clasp the picture to my chest, and run to the kitchen to show it to our company, just the way I always did. I held the picture up to the man; "See, this is my daddy, he is in France!" Then the man is picking me up. I can feel the shiny gold buttons pressing into my soft flesh. I feel his rough cheek next to my soft one and wonder why it is wet. I wriggle to get free, "Come on," I say "Come see the Christmas tree, but don't cry, 'cause elves live in this tree and they'll get upset and forget to bring toys to all the little children in the world." He smiled at me and then at my mama. He took my hand and we went to lie under the magical Cedar Christmas tree to search for the elves.
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