Funny how a picture can trigger so many memories. One look and they come flooding back.
This art piece was made by my mother and sister in about 1971. We were living in Dayton, Ohio in an idyllic setting. Our house was in a forest of sugar maples. That fall, my sister got very sick with bronchitis. She was home from school for at least a week. My mother, creative soul that she was, got Barby to get up from her sick bed to help her create this Christmas scene all out of cut felt pieces. I have a memory of watching them using toothpicks to spread the glue on the backs of the little felt pieces. I remember they spent quite a few days working on it so many years ago.
Last night I went over to my sister's house. They had been traveling over the Christmas break, had a surprise Covid extension in London, and finally got to come home. That's why all of their Christmas decorations were still up even though we are well into January now. Anyway, she had this Christmas scene hanging in a place of honor on her living room wall. I hadn't seen it or even thought about it for years.
My mother Carolyn Thompson Lee (1929-2011) loved Christmas. It was her favorite time of the year. Being a musician, she prepared for Christmas for months. She led the Ward Choir, so we heard her previewing the pieces she intended to use starting in September. She taught her 20+ piano students Christmas pieces starting well before December so that they could be ready to perform them in a Christmas recital. She taught her children special Christmas songs 'way in advance so that we'd be ready to sing them on any show that materialized during the season. She usually accompanied at least one community choir, so we heard her practicing all of their Christmas music and a lot of choruses from Handel's Messiah, too. And of course, we started decking the halls for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving.
Notice the Christmas Scene behind us. But, sometimes she went even more overboard. One year she made Christmas aprons for all of her girls plus herself. She even made us perform wearing them. Then, there was that year she made every single person in our family red striped flannel nightgowns and nightshirts to wear for Christmas Eve.
My husband Ellis Bailey (1956-2019) really, really had to be convinced to go along with the program that year. He had a very hard time. And he absolutely put his foot down about being photographed dressed in his nightshirt!
I wonder if they have been able to have a laugh about it in heaven.
I wonder if they have been able to have a laugh about it in heaven.
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