Mary Ann Kinsinger doesn’t live far from me in Western
Pennsylvania, but it took Suzanne Woods Fisher, who Maryann co-wrote The Adventures of Lily Lapp with, to
make the connection. I was surprised
that the author of the popular A Joyful
Chaos blog lived in my backyard, and is now a friend.
I highly recommend you visit A Joyful Chaos to get an inside view of a real Amish family that’s
as endearing as Little House on the
Prairie. There’s a link to Mary Ann’s blog on the bottom of the page.
Christmas Memories ~ A Joyful Chaos post
December 10, 2009
I used to start thinking and planning for
Christmas soon after school started each fall. My options for gifts were limited
since we never had an allowance so anything I wanted to give I had to make
myself.
I wasn't good at running our scroll saw in the shop like my
brothers were so making wooden things were out of the question. I was nine and
Christmas was fast approaching and the only thing I had ready was a little
picture book I had made for Mahlon by sewing pieces of paper together and gluing
pretty pictures in it that I had found in old Oriental Trading catalogs.
One evening as I was helping Mom unpack a new shipment of things and place them
on our store shelves I had an idea. I asked her if I could have the empty box,
after she granted me permission I took it upstairs where I carefully cut off a
flap, and covered it with some old wall paper scraps. I then glued a plain sheet
of paper in the middle and copied a poem about a mothers love onto it. There was
still something lacking. I finally decided it still needs a pretty border. My
teacher gave a sticker to anyone that got 100% in there lessons and I made up my
mind to try extra hard to do my lessons carefully and use the stickers to create
a border. It took quite awhile to save enough. Every evening I would run home
from school with my hard earned stickers and carefully place them as a frame
around the edges of the motto I was making for Mom.
I asked John to cut
out some heart shaped pieces of wood and varnish them for me. I then painted a
blue rose on the one and wrote Daddy on it. Then painted roses on the others and
personalized them for John and David. I felt pleased with my efforts of creating
gifts and hid them in a drawer until Christmas morning.
When Christmas morning arrived we were awake early but Mom and Daddy had told us
to not get up until they called us. As the sun rose it seemed they would never
be ready. Finally they called us and we went downstairs. The boys went out to
the barn with Daddy to help with the chores while I helped Mom fix breakfast. We
had our regular fried cornmeal mush with tomato gravy and eggs, and then oranges
and a cold cereal for something special.
When Daddy and the boys came in
from milking the cow and feeding all the animals, we all sat down for breakfast.
After breakfast everyone helped with the dishes. And then Daddy got the Bible
and read the Christmas story. It was the only day of the year that he would read
to us so we all sat quietly and listened carefully. After he was done reading we
children had to go back upstairs until they told us it was time to come down. We
used to get the gifts we had made and put them in a grocery bag and sit on top
of the stairs to try to listen what was happening in the kitchen.
When they called us we ran downstairs and at each of our places at the table was
a pile of things covered with one of Mom's pretty kitchen towels. We uncovered
the pile and found a plate filled with nuts to crack and a lot of different
candy. The boys each got a new shirt and I had a new dress. We each had a little
German songbook. We thanked them and then we noticed in the middle of the table
was another covered pile. Daddy said that was for everyone to share. We
uncovered it and found a pile of books. We were thrilled. We all loved reading
and new books were something we all enjoyed.
John, David, and I gave the
gifts we had made. Mom thanked me for the motto and hung it on her bedroom wall
where it stayed until after I was married.
After we had cracked and eaten some of the nuts and read a chapter or two in our
new books Daddy said slyly. I have a feeling we didn't find all our Christmas
gifts yet. Why don't we all go down in the shop. We followed him downstairs and
there in the lumber bin were three of the prettiest sleds I had ever seen. We
hurriedly dressed ourselves in our warmest coats and went outside to try them
out. We had a nice hill in the pasture behind the barn and for the rest of the
afternoon we rode down that hill and trudged back up. The longer we played the
longer the hill seemed when we had to pull our sleds back up but the ride down
was so fun we kept on until we were too cold to continue.
We went inside
and Mom opened the oven door in our Pioneer Maid cook stove and laid a thick
towel on it. We pulled up chairs and rested our feet on it enjoying the
delightful warmth that the oven poured over our feet. Mom popped some popcorn
and peeled a bowlful of apples and we all sat around basking in the glow of
happiness of having had another great Christmas.
What a wonderful story about the joy of Christmas and family. I can just imagine the smiles on the children's faces when their dad announced another Christmas present! When we take gifts to our Amish friends, the children are already at the window, smiling with anticipation, about our visit. I, too, am smiling as we are driving down the dirt road, approaching their farm.
ReplyDelete