Another tender Tennessee Christmas

Now that Christmas Day is behind us, you may have some time to slow down and reflect on it. What is your favorite childhood Christmas memory? What is your favorite tradition that you still follow or your favorite "new" tradition?

That's the four and one-half-year-old me on the right in 1953 with my sister Lynda, who was almost eight. I was such a believer! Isn't he a great Santa Clause?

One of my best Christmas memories is of my sister Lynda waking me up early--in the wee hours--on Christmas morning. Lynda was 3 1/2 years older than I, and I think that this was a repeated memory for many Christmas mornings. Apparently, we were not to wake our parents up. Of course, I was a bit sleepy but still so excited that I could hardly contain myself!

Lynda had the flashlight, and we would tiptoe down the hallway into the dark living room to see what Santa had left under the tree. Using the flashlight to make her way behind the tree, Lynda plugged in the colorful tree lights. And what to our wondering eyes would appear but toys that Santa had left for us under the tree! Quickly, we would divvy up the toys and presents according to whose name was on the tag. After checking out the unwrapped toys, we would unwrap the other gifts. (The odd thing was that immediately we would take our toys to our individual rooms and play with them there.)

It was the 1950s when children did not get gifts except on Christmas and their birthdays and only a few presents at that. Since toys were rare, they were special for us. Early on, I seemed to always love dolls the best--dolls and their clothes and their paraphernalia and dollhouses and even paper dolls.

When my parents woke up, we would get to empty out our Christmas stockings in which we would get tangerines and candy and small toys. Of course, we couldn't eat the candy yet because we would enjoy a really nice family breakfast of eggs, bacon or sausage, grits, and Sarah Lee coffee cake.

To this day, the excitement of those early Christmas mornings and "sneaking" down to see what Santa had left under the tree remains. It is still the Christmas stockings that are one of my favorite parts of Christmas. And I will always associate Sarah Lee coffee cake with Christmas morning.

Another memory I have occurred just when I was beginning to wonder if Santa were "real." I was accidentally woken up late one Christmas Eve night when I heard a noise in the living room. Knowing that I should not be out of bed or Santa would be angry, I quietly sneaked down the hall and saw my father trying to jump on a pogo stick--the very one that my sister got from Santa the next morning! After that I knew the "truth," but I did not tell my parents that I knew--either I wanted to protect them, or I thought that if they knew that I knew, then I would not get any more presents!

Now one of our present Christmas traditions starts on Thanksgiving Day. Ellen, Nekos, I, and the girls and any friends who want to join us take a long walk on Thanksgiving morning. We had been going to the Boulevard Bolt, but this year we went to Radnor instead. After our walk, we go pick out a Christmas tree, which we decorate after lunch. Of course, the grandchildren, three and one years old, Tessa and Livvy, get so jazzed about the decorations that we can hardly get them on the tree!

Another tradition is that we exchange gifts and eat dinner (usually homemade spaghetti or chili) and play games at my house on Christmas Eve with friends. My daughter Ellen fills my stocking and hangs it back up on the mantle for me to get on Christmas morning! (And I fill hers and Nekos's stockings for them to get on Christmas morning.) This year I even bought them beautiful new stockings! The next morning, Christmas, I usually go to a friend's house for Christmas breakfast with her family and then onto my daughter's house for Christmas Day dinner, to play with the grands, and to take a walk at the local park.

One of my new favorite "traditions" involves this little girl, my granddaughter Tessa, almost four years old. For the first time, this year, I got to take her Christmas shopping with her own money for her to pick out gifts for her mother and father and sister and dog Hattie. We ended up at our local vintage Noah's Closet, which was just a perfect place for her to pick out gifts for her family. She picked out pink loop earrings, a pink three-tiered necklace, and a small candle holder for her mom, three hardback books for her dad--two suspense and one humorous, and two toys for her sister Livvy--Sesame Street characters for the tub and a talking caterpillar. Then we had to go to a pet store to get two float-able balls--purple and green--for her dog.

That afternoon we went to a movie matinee; this year it was Frozen, a darn good flick. The next morning we had the fun of wrapping all nine of her gifts! She got to pick out the paper and ribbons from my stash, and she began to learn how to wrap presents. All and all, a very fun Christmas "tradition" that Tessa and I started!

Here's to your holiday memories and traditions, dear readers, and to your keeping what works and tossing the rest away! Remember to stay in the moment and appreciate the days that will never return again.

Babies are made for kissing!

This little darling is my second granddaughter Livvy Lara. She just turned one in late November. 

I wrote the following piece over three years ago when my first granddaughter Tessa was about six months old. Now she is three years and over eight months old! As a matter of fact, Tess will be four in March. This piece was first published in The South Cheatham Advocate newspaper, and still later I used it as a speech in Toastmasters. In both places, people really liked it, so I thought that I would repeat it here. I dedicate it to all grandmothers and grandmothers-to-be everywhere.

Now some people had told me that being a grandmother would be special, but I really had no idea what they were talking about. All I knew at first was that my baby had had a baby. But as the weeks of Tessa’s life passed, I began to spend more time with her--keeping her at my house overnight at least one day a week. Early one morning as I watched Tessa in her new walker, I came to some conclusions as to why being a grandparent is especially cool: the baby and the grandparent are so much alike!

Let me explain some of this phenomenon to you:

(1) Most of you would contrast our physical appearances--her smooth, clear skin to my sun-spotted, increasingly wrinkly skin, her smallness to my largeness, etc., but let’s take a closer look: we both have chubby thighs with dimples, small pot bellies, and upper arms with some extra meat on them.

(2) Then there’s the hair. Tessa was born with a full head of dark, curly hair, and, like me, she has lost some of it.

(3) At six months, she needed a walker, and when my back went out recently, I could have used one, too. Now at 16 months, she walks, but just like me at 62, she is sometimes unsteady on her feet and sometimes she falls.

(4) As she begins to talk, she slurs her words a bit or uses the wrong word or sometimes talks nonsense, not unlike me. And if truth be told, we are both missing some teeth. And if more truth be told, we have little control over our gassiness!

(5) We also embrace similar lifestyles. We both live mindfully in the present moment, truly abiding in the here and now. Time is slowed down for both of us.

Since this blog post is about the younger Tessa, I wanted to include more pictures of Livvy. Their parents may not agree with me, but I think that Tessa and Livvy look quite different and have really different personalities. So far Livvy is more laid back than Tessa, and boy, does Livvy love and admire her big sister! 

(6) We both see things through eyes of wonder. Every little thing so intrigues Tessa and me: a small yellow butterfly navigating the early morning light, the soft black and white fur of my new puppy, the mournful strains of a blues song, and summer’s fresh harvest.

(7) We both need to keep our diets simple. Tess loves her pureed sweet potatoes; whereas for me, it’s the July tomatoes that I like best. And we both need bibs because we spill food down our shirts when we eat!

(8) Our sleep patterns are similar, too. Tessa and I tire easily and nod off randomly. We require lots of sleep and afternoon naps. That’s just what works best for us. By the way, snuggling with Tessa has become one of my new favorite pastimes. There’s absolutely nothing sweeter than a sleeping baby. Unless of course, it is a worn-out, sleeping grandmother.

(9) Part of what I believe makes us so similar is that she’s come from heaven lately, and I’m going back there relatively soon.  (Even if I live to be 85, won’t that be relatively soon?) You see Tessa has been here on earth just a short while, and in a short time, I will be leaving. That’s why we two appreciate each other so much. We are both so close to heaven.

(10)  Just as I teach Tessa things, she teaches things to me. She teaches me to slow down and wait . . . To be in this moment with her. Don’t you remember how sweet the days were when we were young? If we are retired from the rat race and if we let them and if we practice gratitude and mindfulness, the days can be just as sweet again as we age.

All this time, I’ve been wanting Tessa to call me Grannah, but it’s proven to be a  difficult word for her to say. But just this past week, she gave me her name for me. I was swinging her in her backyard, and she was facing me and smiling with delight, when she exclaimed with such pleasure, approval, and elation, “Yaya!” That seems to be the name she has chosen for me. And I like it; I mean I really like it! I am indeed now and forever Tessa’s and Livvy's Yaya.

These are my two granddaughter with Tessa Jean on the far left. I usually keep them every week, one at a time, overnight. Together, at one and almost four, they can be quite a handful! As their mother knows for sure!

A memoir of sorts--Coming back home to Tennessee

I love this maple tree that my then husband John dug from the woods behind our house when it was a mere sapling and planted in the front year the first year that we lived in our house--1984. 

In looking back at my life, I realize now why and how I chose Middle Tennessee for settling down into my adult life. Since my father was an electrical engineer who worked in construction for the DuPont company, we moved around as I was growing up. Dad joined DuPont the same year I was born--1949--and we moved about every other year after that as he climbed up the career ladder. Mostly, we lived in various places in the South East, from Charleston and Camden, South Carolina, to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Richmond, Virginia, to Madison, Tennessee--that's five towns--all before I was eight years old.

Then on to Old Hickory, Tennessee, and to Louisville, Kentucky, when I was in junior high. Back to Madison, Tennessee, for my best high school years--my sophomore and junior years--then to Wilmington, North Carolina, and Grifton, North Carolina, to finish up my high school. Yes, that's right, we moved to five more towns while I was in seventh through twelfth grades. I attended two high schools in my senior year. As you can imagine, my education was somewhat piecemeal and spotty. I would study some things twice while completely missing other things.

So I know that for you, dear reader, this is just a list of names of ten towns, but imagine if you will, you're growing up, and you make a few good friends, and then you get word once again from your parents that you are moving to a new place. You have to walk into a new school, a new building, a new classroom, and look on the sea of faces staring back at you. Some schools, some teachers handled getting a new kid mid-year in stride; others not so much. Some families if they were loving and supportive enough of each other could have weathered such moving around; my family not so much. In my next installment of my memoirs, I will share with you what I consider to be my best and worst moves and why they were.

Finally, as my parents were transferred to Seaford, Delaware, I begged my father to let me go to Middle Tennessee State University, where several of my Madison High School friends were attending. We didn't consider that for the out-of-state fee that he was going to have to dish out, I could have attended at private college!

So if you count them up, it's no wonder that if, as a child and teen, I was searching for a "home," then Tennessee was that place. I had lived here three times before I went to college--(1) kindergarten and first grade in Chattanooga, (2) fourth, fifth, and sixth grades at Neely's Bend Elementary School in Madison, and (3) my sophomore and junior years at Madison High School. And for some reason, those Tennessee experiences--at least before I got to college--had always proved to be my best times. Though we had moved away between those places, we always seemed to be coming back to Tennessee. If there had been any place that I could call "home," it was Middle Tennessee. By the time I was 18, I had become a full-fledged Tennessean!

After a few years of college in Murfreesboro, I married my high school sweetheart Tommy Cooper from Madison High School and moved to Clarksville, where I finished college. I joined the faculty at Cheatham County Central High School and lived in Ashland City for a couple years. Then a friend and I moved to the big city of Nashville. A few years after my second marriage, my husband John and I and our one-year-old daughter moved to Kingston Springs, where I have lived in the same house since 1984! Before that I owned and lived in two condominiums in Bellevue at Belle Forest. The best thing about Belle Forest Condominiums was the woods (the forest) that surrounded it, where I took lots of walks, jogs, and strolls with my new baby.

This is my house a few years ago before I took the shutters off and painted it sage green. I am quite proud of painting the outside of my house almost completely by myself a couple years ago in the spring and early summer of 2011. I had had a grey tin roof put on several, several years ago. The sound of the rain on that tin roof is marvelous.

As you can imagine, I had dreamed of a house with a yard for many, many years before we moved into this house. I spent many a weekend driving around looking at houses in Nashville neighborhoods that I knew we could not afford. I had told my then husband John that Kingston Springs seemed like a nice town, so one weekend we were driving around the little town when we saw this house with a for sale sign in its front yard. We loved the house immediately!

I was 35 years old when we moved here, and I'll be 65 this coming year. Wow, I need to celebrate my having lived in my house for 30 years in May 2014! I was the second owner. Before I lived in this house, a young couple--the Bickfords--had lived here for seven years. The handy husband built on the den, the screened-in porch, the carport, and the outbuilding. Of those four, I appreciate the carport the most; it protects my car! But the outbuilding is good for storing kayaks! And the den has become my TV room, whereas the living room is my sitting/reading room. And ah, that wonderful screened-in porch!

My screened-in back porch is one of the really cool things about my house. In the spring, early summer, and autumn, it gets used quite a bit. There's my little dog Finn looking around the corner in this snapshot.

My house is the only house that I have ever lived in in my adult life, and as you can tell, I'm really partial to it. It's my home. Sometimes, I try to visualize who will live in my house after I'm gone and what changes they will make. Of course, I can't see the future, but I would wish for someone who would love it as much as I have. I know that there are bigger houses and fancier houses, but I have always been proud and grateful when I pull into my driveway, and there is my little house. It is, indeed, my castle!

This was my back year before the flood of 2010 took 25 to 50 of its trees. It used to look like a park and had a creek running through it. The child Ellen enjoyed many hours playing in that creek. Now Nature is busy restoring it as best she can. The red bud tree is still there!

A memoir--the early years--Richmond, Virginia

This may have been first grade in Chattanooga or Richmond. That's me in the front middle with my fingers linked. I loved school from the very beginningl!

In contrast to my early life in Chattanooga, the threads of living in Richmond, Virginia, are not very tightly woven nor dyed too deeply into the tapestry of my life. Perhaps, I was in first or second grade when we moved there. Moving around as we did, we would sometimes move mid-school year. Few memories remain from Richmond, and two of them are rather frightening.

I remember that my second grade teacher had two favorite students--teacher’s pets--who got to help her do everything. They were a boy and a girl, both with blond hair. Though I don't recall that they were, they almost looked like twins. They were good looking children, and I thought that’s why the teacher liked them the best. Even in the class picture, those two students are standing next to the teacher while the rest of us sit in our desks. Spelling tests in second grade made me feel stupid. I remember feeling ashamed that I couldn’t spell very well. Still can't!

That's me sitting in the first roll of desks, fifth seat back with the plaid dress. My best friend Carol Sue is in the third roll, fourth seat back in the striped dress.

My best little friend and next door neighbor was Carol Sue Carrington. She and I did everything together, or so it seemed--we played dolls, including paper dolls, which I loved, and we played outside in a nearby woods. One time her older brother tied me to a tree in the woods and left me there alone. Hands tied behind the trunk, I could not get loose and was afraid. He must have watched one too many cowboy movies! I don’t remember how I finally got loose, but I did and ran home as fast as my little legs would take me. I tattled on him, and he got in trouble. Because Carol Sue was my friend, I felt bad about telling on her brother, but I had been terrified in the woods by myself.

For some reason, in Richmond that year, there was a divided school day, and I would go to second grade in the afternoon after lunch. So all morning long, I got to stay home and be with my mother and then have lunch with her. One day while we were eating lunch,  I somehow missed the bus. Because we had only the one car that my dad drove to work, I thought that my mom would be so mad at me for missing the bus. But instead she was not angry at all. And on that particular day, I got to spend the rest of the day with her and even take an afternoon nap with her. A sweet memory of an unexpected delight! I loved my mom so-o-o much when I was 7 and 8; she and I were very close. I have no memories of my sister from then and few of my father.

This picture looks as if we are going to church on Easter Sunday--once in a rare while I remember us going to a Presbyterian church. My father was no great photographer--it looks as if the sun is in all of our eyes! Besides how my mother appears to favor me, I also find it interesting that my sister Lynda at age 11 or 12 is almost as tall as my mother. If I were in second grade, Lynda would have been in sixth grade here. None of us look particularly happy in the picture! 

In Richmond, we children played outdoors in the streets and the yards in the late afternoons and evenings until our parents called us to come home for dinner and baths and bed. This one evening, some little boy threw a rock which struck me almost in the eye, perhaps on my eyebrow. It bled profusely, and home I scampered to get help for it. My father was home from work and seeing my eye bleeding, he got so angry and demanded, “Who did this?” Not giving any medical attention to my injured eye, he then had me lead him down the street to the boy’s house. He banged on the door, and when the boy’s father answered, my dad took my face in his big hands and pulled my hurting eye open wider, yelling, “Look what your son did to my daughter!” I was hurt and mortified and scared and embarrassed.

Thus end my memories of Richmond, Virginia. Then we moved back to Tennessee. This time to Madison. We rented a house down a long, long gravel driveway, whose backyard butted up against the wide, wide Cumberland River. A kid’s paradise. These were to be my happiest childhood days!

This is me in third grade in Madison, Tennessee, at Neely's Bend Elementary School. We moved there when I was in the third grade and stayed there until I had finished the sixth grade--nearly four years--our longest stay in any one town. I'm in the front roll, in the very middle again!