Ghosts of Christmas Pasts... part 2

Needless to say grandma lived in a very old house. The glasses we used where pear shaped and deep ruby red or dark green. She also had a set of red, blue, green and yellow metal cups with a matching silver pitcher she used for serving lemonade. I later found one glass and a set of metal cups very similar to hers and from time to time drink from them just for the memories. Her daily silverware was stainless steel with wooden handles. She had a set of fine silver in a wooden box but that was just for special occasion, like Christmas. I have tried to find some like the wooden handle set but with no luck.

The smells from that kitchen were incredible. She would bake for us and cook for us incredible meals and desserts. From time to time I get out her old recipe for a Japanese Fruit cake and make it, just to revert back in time if only for a little while. There was usually a large bowl of her Ambrosia in the refrigerator (that’s a fruit salad with shredded pineapple).
I can also remember her old pipes whining and clunking when you turned the water on in the kitchen. You could even hear those groans when you turned on the water facets in her old claw foot bath tub in the bathroom.

Of course Christmas being her favorite time of the year when her family was coming. grandma broke out the decorations for the occasion from the attic. She had a wood burning fireplace in the living room that had been converted to gas logs. Of course in Miami it was not very often she ever had to fire them up. She painted the whole fireplace white to match the walls. Her decorations adorned the fireplace and its surrounding areas like a Macys storefront display (did I mention that was one of her favorite stores in Miami?). She had a snow white Christmas tree with a snowy texture with red, green and blue ball ornaments neatly and methodically placed on the tree with a cozy little tree skirt comforting the many packages beneath it. There were two foot tall toy soldiers guarding each side of the fireplace with Santa and his reindeer keep watch over the entire display. A string of bright red, green, blue, orange and white flame like lights twinkled around the fireplace with Christmas cards on the mantle and mirror above the mantle. The ceilings were mahogany color was tongue and groove lumber with large wood beam rafters crossing every 5 feet or so. When someone was upstairs you could look up and tell to within a foot or two exactly where they were walking.

During WWII my grandmother took in borders to survive and she still had an old gentleman who we only knew as Mr. Temple (later we found out he was John Temple, a chef) living in a small room on the bottom floor. He was a quiet old gentleman tall and slightly bent over with thinning dyed light brown hair. He wore a pair of terminator looking sunglasses everyday as he and his cane shuffled out the door to the bus stop down the road. We never really knew where he went but you could set your clock by him. When my mother was a little girl he would bring her little gifts from time to time and was just a nice man.

Well on Christmas Eve we made merry like the rest of the world with good food and eggnog and at the end of the evening we were all ushered out to our rooms in preparation of the arrival of Santa Clause. My older brother and I knew the truth but we kept the allusion for the younger siblings. We slept in the upstairs bedroom on a large queen bed next to the Florida windows. Of course it was Miami so the windows were opened. It wasn’t like the smaller cities like Panama City where I grew up, where the streets were rolled up at dusk in those days. Miami was alive 24/7 and you could hear the heart beat of the city through those windows. Often that heart beat was Hispanic, both the music and the language of some of the surrounding neighbors. I still remember one particular song on grandma’s old AM radio we played up there. What’s New Pussy Cat, that song always brings back Miami memories. Grandma was a smoker and a collector of cigarette lighters. We found a whole box of them and ran through them until we found a couple that worked. We used those little lighters to east down the stair case into the living room. Of course there on the couch was grandma sound asleep. While this presented a challenge, it was not a deterrent. We very carefully unwrapped most of our gifts one by one and checked out our new found treasures. WOW… we done good. It’s still to this day hard to believe my parents were able to get all those toys to Miami on the top of that station wagon for five kids. I remember grandma waking up and of course like every good grandmother, she would shhhhhhh us so mom and dad didn’t know we were up and close her eyes back. As far as I know, she never spilled the beans. Yeah she did make us give up the lighters but that was ok... we knew where the stock pile was and no we never started any fires (by the grace of God only).

It was always hard to head back to the panhandle after a visit to grandmas. Isn’t it strange we never caught on that the bundle on the roof going home with all our toys was the same size as the bundle on the roof coming up with just our luggage? Well as you can imagine at the time to come back home mom cried, grandma cried, we cried, dad remembered the bills for Christmas and he cried. Like most kids, the only thing that made the trip back home worthwhile was the fact we were going to get to go home and play with our new toys with our friends. I just can’t imagine kids today having these kinds of stories to tell their grandchildren. It most definitely is a different world we are living but I am so grateful for my ghosts of Christmas past.