Earlier this year a former student from Texas questioned me. He thought he remembered a Creative Writing Club Christmas party. He asked if it were actually a true event or something he imagined.
Not long thereafter, another former student, another member of the same club, mentioned that long ago evening. She reaffirmed what I remember about that night and what her classmate had questioned about his own memory.
December 1959, my husband and I had been married for a year. In the summer, we had moved from a fully furnished apartment to an unfurnished duplex. We had bought kitchen appliances and a dinette set, a bedroom suite and a stereo. What fun we had had shopping for these first pieces of furniture.
At that point, we didn’t have any living room furniture except the stereo. Bob and I still puzzle about why we purchased a stereo system, a new concept just on the market, before we bought a TV set. Neither of us were musicians nor folks who listened to music frequently. But, we had a stereo system set in a maple cabinet along with Christmas records.
And we had a live Christmas tree with multicolored lights and plastic ornaments. Still newlyweds, we had our own special memories about purchasing and decorating the tree. We had bought plastic ornaments because we planned to have a family eventually and we didn’t want glass ornaments for a toddler to break and maybe get cut. We no longer have any of those first ornaments, but we still have the egg shell covered in velvet, a miniature diorama, that our duplex neighbor made and gave us.
The teenage members of the club were to bring a Christmas story they had written. We sat on the floor around the tree while each member read his/her story and the group offered far more praise than constructive criticism. Since I had graduated from college at age 20, I was only a few years older than my students my second year of teaching.
The Creative Writing Club was an idea that these students had conjured up and asked me to advise. The administration was more than willing to start a new club. I enrolled in a creative writing class taught at night at my alma mater, SMU, to be able to help them better. We learned together. As they left that December evening, I collected the stories, typed them onto stencils and mimeographed copies for each of them on their return after the holidays.
The student who affirmed the meeting called her selection, “Christmas Survey.” She places ten people on a bus on Christmas eve; and starting with a driver, she describes the reflections of each on this special occasion. After the driver, she walks down the aisle to the grandmother, then the department store Santa to the business executive and the sixth grader. She ends with the priest.
“I wish I could know what to say in my sermon. Christmas is such a complexity of things - how can I explain these to my parishioners? How can I bring the Christ child into their lives… I wish Christ would give to me as a Christmas gift the power to lead all to him. Baby Jesus, I want to give you a birthday present. It’s all I have…take it…it’s my life.”
And the alum, who questioned his own memory, began, “It has come to the point where a person has to make a grave attempt to get in the mood for Christmas. This makes me sad, for I am one of those people. When I was a boy, it was easy to get into the Christmas spirit because I was a little boy and little boys have so much to look forward to. There was a stocking over the fireplace, a cup of hot chocolate, and a note for Santa. It was early to bed but no sleep in hopes that Saint Nicholas would soon be there. And oh how wonderful to find a football and roller skates, maybe even an electric train if you had been extra good. It was so pleasant being a little boy. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could spend all our lives in peaceful and blissful circumstances, but it is not meant to be as we have to have a few ups and downs to make us strong in character and to make the grade in life…”
Memories, especially those around Christmas, always beget more memories…
2020
Beautiful story