Billie said, “I remember when I was little and we were living in Vian. We would all (All being Billie and her three older sisters, those pretty little Martin girls) go the Baptist Church on Christmas Eve. There would be a big Christmas Tree in the front of the church surrounded by a sea of festive brown paper sacks. There would be a Christmas program, Christmas carols and then each one of us went up front and they gave us a sack with an apple, an orange and what seemed like lots of striped hard Christmas Candy.”
I said, “Me too!” I don’t really remember which Stigler church but logic dictates it was the First Baptist Church of Stigler. It had to be the Christmases of 1943 and 1944. I went with my mother and my Aunt Vivian (Claunts). I know it was during the time World War II had taken my father away from home.
My dad and my aunt did not see eye to eye on the First Baptist Church of Stigler in the 1940s. I suspect my religious enthusiasm would have been influenced by my desire for ribbon shaped Christmas rock candy.
I’ll save my collection of humorous family stories about my aunt and daddy and my salvation for another less festive time.
Ultimately, it was my neighbor and life-long friend, Jon Conard, who saved me from this family conundrum. Jon soon played Joseph in the First Methodist Church of Stigler Christmas program. I went to the program with Jon’s mother, Jewel, and her sister, Opal Calhoun, who had been my second-grade teacher and rescued me from the abyss of believing I couldn’t read.
In a couple of Christmases, I was Joseph in the Christmas program. My Grandmother Lane altered one of my Uncle Hubert Claunts’ bathrobes for me. It was striped. I was iffy. My Mema Lane, who could quote the Bible chapter and verse, convinced me stiped was the favored cloth of the Holy Land.
Winston Churchill once said, “Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection.” The older I get the more I concur with Sir Winston. I think peppermints, you know Brach’s hard round striped ones, have replaced Christmas ribbon candy for me. I have my peppermints and Sir Winston has his stogey. Memories.
Christmas isn’t just a season. It’s a feeling. Edna Ferber
