My Hollyhill Christmas

December 22, 1965

   Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky at Christmastime or almost Christmas, anyway. I am so excited. Are you? I love Christmas. 

  What do I love about Christmas in Hollyhill? I like the red and green lights the county workers string up on the street light posts. I like the pine tree in front of the courthouse with a star on top and lights draped around it. I love the Christmas parade with the sirens and at the end, Santa waving from the firetruck. I used to sit on Santa's lap and wish for things Santa could never get in his sack. Like my mother and Tabitha coming back. 

    But then Dad told me that wasn't the kind of thing to think about Santa doing. That it was the Lord I needed to be talking to. I'm so glad the Lord is there to talk to any time and that I can just look up and ask him about things anytime. That's another thing I like about Christmas - that it was when Jesus was born. I like singing the carols at church even though we squeak a little on those high notes. I like seeing the Christmas pageant with the angels in tinsel halos. I liked being one of them when I was a little kid. Now I get to watch and take pictures. 

    I like that about Christmas too. Getting to take pictures. Film and flashbulbs are always on my Christmas list. I don't know which I want to be most - a photographer or a writer. Dad says I don't have to decide yet since I'm only fourteen. Good thing because I couldn't. Tabitha warns me that sometimes life pushes us down paths we don't expect to walk, like her here with little Stephen. But that's okay. I guess I was pushed down some of those paths before I was old enough to know about anything, but it turned out okay. Dad says the Lord had a lot to do with that. (You can read more about that in Scent of Lilacs - still a free download, whatever that means.)

   But back to Christmas. I like our cedar tree that we cut out on Miss Sally's farm and decorated with things we've had forever. Aunt Love has a bell that belonged to her mother. We put it up high so Stephen can't reach it. But I look at that bell and try to see back through the years to when Aunt Love was my age. That's hard to do. And then I think about someday somebody in my family, some kid sometime, might look at one of the ornaments I'm putting on the tree and wonder about how I was right now. I like wondering about things like that.

   Mostly I like how we all get together and give gifts to each other. Not because we have to but because we want to. Some of them homemade. Some of them from the store. All will be wrapped in love. Wes will give me a big chocolate candy bar and tell me a Jupiter story. Dad will get me a new notebook and pen and shoes and stuff. Leigh will get me a blouse that is way fancier than anything I ever wear. Tabitha will get me a book and books always make me happy. Aunt Love will give me a muffler she's knitted. It's okay that I have three already. She can't remember that she knitted them last year. 

    I love Christmas. I love that baby Jesus was born and brought joy to the world!

   Merry Christmas to all of you! Tell me what you like about Christmas. Now or when you were a kid like me.  

   (I didn't have time to write more about Bailey, Skelley and Lucinda this week, but they are heading out into the dark unknown on the far side of the road. I'll figure out what happens next and write it next week.)

Mistletoe and Kissing

December 2, 1964

Jocie Brooke reporting from Hollyhill. It's December. That means Christmas isn't too far away. I love Christmas. I love getting gifts. I like giving gifts, but that giving is harder than the getting. That's because I don't have any money or at least not enough to buy something for Dad and Tabitha and Aunt Love. Wes and Leigh. Miss Sally and... Well, you get the idea. Lots of people I want to give presents and limited, as in very limited, funds.

Aunt Love says I should just make something, but what can I make? I don't knit. I don't sew. I could write them a story, but that would be sort of lame. Dad says not to worry about presents for him. He has everything he needs and us just being together at Christmas is good enough. But I noticed he went shopping for Leigh. 

Last Christmas when they were just beginning to think about dating, Dad bought Leigh a big chocolate candy bar. I'm talking the super-size ones. Sigh. Isn't that romantic? I might even think about falling in love for a super-size chocolate bar. On second thought, there are some things that can't be bought with chocolate. Of course, that doesn't mean I couldn't break off a few squares to taste. Ha. Ha. 

But back to finding a way to finance those gifts. I kept thinking and thinking and mistletoe popped into my mind. That's not as strange as it sounds. It is only a few weeks until Christmas and people need stuff to decorate with.  Bingo! There's where mistletoe comes in. Lovely mistletoe.

Did you know that the name, mistletoe, comes from bird poop on a branch? That's not the image I bring to mind when I say mistletoe. But that's how the stuff gets planted on tree branches. Birds eat the mistletoe berries and then poop them out on the branch. You see mistletoe doesn't grow in the dirt on the ground. It has roots that stick down into the tree branches. It's a parasite plant. Parasites and bird poop - not exactly romantic, but that's not what I think about when I see mistletoe. I think Christmas. And kisses. I've never been kissed under the mistletoe except by Dad, and that doesn't really count.

But mistletoe could be my answer. No, not for kisses. Eeww! Keep that stuff away from the school! No boys there that I'd want to get caught with under the mistletoe. No sir. Now Zella, she might be thinking differently with the way she's moping over Mr. Whitlow. Zella will probably hang some mistletoe right over her desk. Or tuck a spring into the curls on top of her head.

Anyway, I climbed this tree out on Miss Sally's farm and pulled down a big clump of mistletoe. Then I broke it into little pieces and tied red ribbons around it. Took forever, but it did look good. When I showed it to Wes, he said the mistletoe looked like kisses waiting to happen. Then he shoved a dollar into my hand and made me promise that none of that stuff got hung up anywhere around him. He says he left all the girls he wants to kiss up on Jupiter.

Have you ever been kissed under mistletoe? Was it somebody you wanted to kiss?

Raspberries in God's Pantry

June 24, 1964

Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. Do you love raspberries? The kind that grow out in the fields. Aunt Love says those are part of God's pantry. She also says that about asparagus and cabbage. That's a shelf in His pantry I don't care if I get anything off of. Yuck! 

People at church are always bringing us stuff from their gardens. I don't know why they all have to plant so much cabbage. And zucchini! Don't get me started on that. But I'm all for them planting strawberries and raspberries. 

But raspberries don't even have to be planted. You can just go out on the field and find them. You usually find chiggers too but a little scratching is a small price to pay for raspberries. 

Guess you can tell I love eating them. The best way is right off the bush unless a stink bug has been sitting on them. Then cabbage is better. But you just grab another berry to eat and the bad taste is gone. 

And Miss Sally fixed me  up this time with the chiggers too. She had me tie rags with coal oil on them around my ankles. Phew! No self respecting chiggers were going to jump on somebody reeking of coal oil. But the raspberries were worth it. Now if Aunt Love can get me to put any in my picking bucket instead of my mouth we might have pie. 

Have you ever picked wild raspberries?