The Yuletide season is here, and music is always a big part of it.
“I’ll be Home for Christmas” is very popular tune, and Americans are certainly making every effort to do just that.
The American Automobile Association predicted a record 100 million Americans will be traveling for those “holiday greeting and gay happy meeting” that Andy Williams first sang about in the 1963 tune, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”
It’s been our good fortune to miss only one Christmas in Cordova. In 1968, Sue and I had been married a year, and were in Hawaii for my first teaching job. My net pay was $16.20 per day. Our only way home would have been if Santa had offered us a ride on his sleigh.
So instead of gearing up for a traditional tree hunt out the road, we donned shorts and headed down to Long’s Drug Store, where we picked through some scrawny Norfolk pines for a Charlie Brown Special. Alas, while searching for enough cash to pay for this beauty, someone snatched it from behind.
An elderly lady was dragging our little five-footer away. Sue had to restrain me from grabbing it by the vanishing tip, and creating a tug-of-war scene. Ho, ho, ho.
We ended up with another reject. Of course, all the Christmas decorations we had used to trim family trees for two decades were back in Cordova, so we needed something to give this lucky evergreen much needed embellishment. In a flash of elegant X-mas inspiration, Sue came up with the bright idea of an all-red theme: a string of red lights, and then peppermint candy canes hanging from its scanty bows. Classic and frugal. Perfect.
Rather than fly to Cordova, Sue’s brother Johnny had come over from Linfield College in Oregon to join us for the holidays. Within a day, he was about as red as Rudolph’s nose. Sunscreen technology was not very sophisticated back then; plus how could you tell a visitor from the rainy Willamette Valley to stay out of its glorious rays?
We lived in a small apartment that was not air-conditioned. After a Mele Kalikimaka day in the surf and sun, Johnny and I were standing near the tree, cooling off with some X-mas cheer from Frosty.
It was he that heard these funny tinkling sounds, followed by quiet plops, coming from our humble but happy Norfolk. A veteran of countless Cordova trees whose needles came tumbling down as it dried out, I assumed that was the cause. Then Johnny noticed splotches on the floor.
The candy canes were melting and dripping. We looked at each other, and silence ensued as we tried to decide which of Santa’s helpers would be chosen to inform Mrs. Claus.
Well, even back then, after less than two years of marriage, Sue knew that silence meant something was up. Actually something was coming down.
Santa’s jolly elves cleaned up the mess, and consoled her on the unanticipated. Peppermint canes don’t melt in Alaska.
The little Norfolk pine still stood, the lights still shone; and in all our Christmas years, it still stands out as one of our most unforgettable evergreens.
“O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, How lovely are thy branches.”
May your Christmas be filled with joy, and memories.
