Christmas, as everyone knows, is a time for dashing through snow in one-horse open sleighs. Christmas is the season of firs and pines in a blanket of white.
But I was a California child. I never saw snow till I was grown. Brown hills with rocks and oaks, scenes that would never grace a Christmas card, are the images that rise when I remember childhood Christmases.
We always spent Christmas at my grandfather's Castle in the back-country of San Diego County. As a child I must have been aware that other grandparents didn't live in castles. But no sense of strangeness or any consciousness of the bizarre was ever part of my feeling when we rounded the last bend in the road and looked up to the Castle's battlements. This was just my grandparents' home, part of the enchanted holiday that was beginning.
Our Model-T growled up the cypress lane, past the amphitheater and the croquet ground, through the grove of giant oaks, each named by my grandfather for a friend he honored most. Then at the top of the hill there were shouts, 'Merry Christmas,' and waving hands and hugs and kisses as we unloaded ourselves in the Turning-Around-Place.
Grandfather's white pointed beard made me duck and giggle as he showered dozens of rapid popping kisses over my face. And 'Oh, my soul!' cried Grandmother. 'How tall my blessed grandbaby's grown!'
Between my parents and grandparents the first eager conversation was always about the Ranch itself. 'So much water in the creek this year! The hills are already starting to turn green. Did you see the holly berries by the Indian Rock--so thick and red!'
'Yes, we saw. We did see! It's all more beautiful than ever this Christmas!'
The wonderful moment of arrival! Should we prolong it or hurry across the moat to the Castle? The frogs that lived in the moat made lively music as we filed over the narrow bridge, down the fresh-raked cactus-bordered path, into the Round Room of the Castle.
During the days before Christmas, the clan gathered. My favorite uncle, the one who had given me my first dog, my first bathing suit, my first wagon, came over with his wife and two little boys from his own ranch a few miles away. The aunt I always called Sister and her musician husband arrived brimming over with the news that this year Santa Claus was giving their four-year-old son a real half-size violin. The religious aunt and uncle brought their three daughters and a typewriter. They were rewriting the Bible along lines of their own and didn't want to lose ground because of the holidays. My youngest aunts, known in the family as The Two Little Girls, came down from college with tennis racquets, in case weather should leave the dirt court in playing condition.
Last to arrive was Grandfather's sister. We escorted her to the Upstairs Room of the Castle, always assigned to the ranking guest. She would share her room with Jenny, a sleeping wood-nymph in a huge painting above the bed. We all liked Jenny. Grandfather, in his younger days, had painted her as a suicide, blood streaming from the wound between her breasts; but, mellowing with the years, he had redone her into her present idyllic state, floating on a lily-pad while Pan plays his pipes nearby. Now only a faint stain on her bosom, still discernible through Grandfather's second paint job, reminded us that Jenny was a wood-nymph with a past.
With the whole family home for Christmas, a large supply of water needed to be carried every day from the spring, and much firewood gathered for the cookstove and fireplace. To keep up with Grandfather on these excursions I had to really move. He strode ahead over the narrow rocky paths, his tall straight back clothed in a black suit, his silver-white head topped with the broad-brimmed Stetson he always wore. It would be nice to think that on these walks Grandfather introduced me to his philosophy of art and living. The truth is I can't remember that he ever said anything to me at all. We simply paced along single file, two people enjoying the path, the smell of sumac and sage, and the occasional mourning sound of the wild doves.
Back at the Kitchen there was usually a crowd around Grandmother. She dispensed horehound and peppermint lozenges from jars behind the woodstove; and she told stories, some about a divinely naughty little girl named Bert, others about her own childhood in Louisville--the carriages and balls, and how she could remember her mother crying when Union soldiers led away her saddle-horse. Sometimes, when I was alone with her, we would scramble down over a cactus-covered bank to the Castle's basement. From a wicker suitcase she would gently lift a sealskin coat and tiny gloves and let me slip them on. These were the clothes she had worn when she left her girlhood home and followed her romantic young artist to California.
Grandmother and Grandfather never had to plan entertainment for their Christmas guests. Year after year we did the same things because they were what we liked best. Croquet and horseshoe tournaments raged through the holiday. Talk sessions were long, especially at mealtime around the outdoor table in the Ramada. Those with Christmas gifts still to finish retired in secrecy behind closed doors. Every day search-parties went out after holly and mistletoe.
My favorite hunting-ground for mistletoe was in the white-barked sycamores above the amphitheater. It grew thick and dark there, easy to see in the light open branches, not so easy to reach. But the best part of hunting so near the amphitheater was that no family group which happened onto the stage could ever restrain itself from falling into the chants and action of Grandfather's Indian Peace-Pipe Pageant. Many times, over a period of many years, the family had given formal productions of Grandfather's pageant here in the amphitheater. Grandfather played Old Ab the Chief. Grandmother was Wawona his wife. Each of the children, and later the grandchildren too, had his part--a warrior, a child, a wood-dove, a medicine-man. All remembered their lines and loved to declaim them, exuberantly and with exaggerated action.
The native magalar was our chosen Christmas tree, and on our walks we kept an eye out for the tallest, laciest one we could find. Once the tree was cut, our tradition demanded that we give it a ceremonial nighttime escort. Each of us, even the youngest baby, held onto the broad branches as we bore it into the Castle, and all sang 'Here we come a-luggin' in the Christmas tree!' We popped corn and festooned garlands of it about the tree. Grandfather painted a few angels for the wide upper branches, his long sensitive fingers sketching in faces that looked rather like some of us. Grandmother brought out the box of glass baubles and tinsel. When we finished, we could hardly get enough of looking at the grandeur we had created.
On rainy days there was an end to our croquet and horseshoes and walks out after holly and mistletoe. But storms dampened no-one's spirits. In the Round Room Grandfather sang his songs for us. Four of the aunts, who frequently wrote poems or stories, were glad to read their latest efforts aloud. A fifth did rhythmic dancing, swaying through the crowded room, expounding the theory of her muse. Nor did we lack for music. My uncle, a professional violinist, played only when urged, but once started he could be counted on for a good long concerto. Both the Two Little Girls played the piano. One did Chopin like an angel and awed us with her own improvisations. The other knew only one piece but compensated for the meagerness of her repertoire by the willingness with which she delivered its constant thumping rhythm.
When Christmas Eve at last was upon us, Grandfather built up a roaring fire and we sang 'Jolly Old Saint Nicholas.' Each of us wrote what we wanted most on small bits of paper and tossed them into the fireplace. Some of the messages flew up the chimney, straight to Santa Claus, and we knew those wishes would come true. Others fell back into the flames and we groaned knowing those gifts would not come to us that year.
In a quieter mood we sang 'Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem;' then Grandfather read us his long Christmas poem that began,
'Know ye not how at Christmas time
The Christ-Child comes to earth again
And wanders lonely far and wide
A-down the ways of men'
When the fire was down to coals, we squatted on the warm stone hearth and toasted marshmallows.
As the evening wore on Santa was sure to be heard from.
'Hark!' Grandfather would cry. 'Don't I hear sleighbells?'
And sure enough, we could all hear them, once and then again, so close the reindeer must be prancing in the yard.
I remember my aunt, the one who had won laurels for her role as Admetus in her college days, bursting into the room. 'Santa!' she gasped clutching her heart and sinking down by the fireplace, 'His sleigh! It's caught on the rocks by the moat. Did you hear the bells? I ALMOST SAW SANTA CLAUS!' The rest of us shivered and sat appalled. It was well known that, though Santa might well be watching us, if we should catch so much as a glimpse of him he would dash away without waiting to unload his gifts.
We scurried about hanging up our stockings. Grandmother put coffee and a roll on the piano for Santa's refreshment, and all was complete.
'Good night! Good night! Merry Christmas!' With coal-oil lamps and flashlights we climbed the path to our cottage bedrooms.
Though Christmas Eve was so dear to us, there was never any question but that Christmas Day was the true climax of our holiday. One Christmas Day, when I was twelve years old, stands out with special clearness--I think because it ended with such consequence for us all.
Early that morning aunts and cousins descended to the Kitchen with shouts of 'Merry Christmas!' and 'Christmas gift!'
The men were gone.
'They left at dawn,' Grandmother explained. 'The creek is rising with all the rain last night and they had to move the cars out while they could still get across.'
Anguished groans. Of course none of us could see the tree or stockings or open a single present till the whole family was there to enter the Round Room together. Now this delay. Grandfather's sister was missing too, and I ran up the Castle steps to the Upstairs Room.
'Merry Christmas!' I bawled. 'It's raining out here!'
'Lower your voice, dear, and come in.' She was nearly ready, collecting her clean white handkerchief and umbrella.
I dropped to my stomach and peered through a knothole into the Round Room below. The tinsel of the tree's top branches almost covered the hole, but by rolling my eye freely I could make out some wonderful objects. 'A soccer ball!' I whispered. 'For me, I know.'
'For one of your cousins, I should think--for one of the boys; and peeking is unladylike. We can go down now if the men are back.'
The men were in the Kitchen, waiting for us; and, youngest first, we formed our line for the march into the Round Room. The little ones, jumping and shrieking while we crossed the yard, turned shy as we passed through the Round Room door, and shyer still when they saw the Christmas tree. Overnight it had grown more beautiful than ever, spun with a new web of silver and crowned with another shining star.
The pile of gifts had magically risen into a sea that covered the whole room, chairs, tables and all. Dazzled, we all hung back. My mother, one of our bolder spirits, was the first to recover. 'Here's a big box,' she cried. 'It's for Old Ab the Chief.' We pressed around Grandfather while he opened a box of colors in oil. 'Rose madder and Prussian blue!' he laughed. 'How well Santa knows my palette.'
Now we all attacked the gifts, handing them out and opening our own. The soccer ball was, miraculously, meant for me. My doll sat under the tree newly dressed in blue-checked gingham with bonnet and coat. Beside my stocking stood a stick-horse, painted by Grandfather with flaring nostrils and wild eyes.
My own offerings were well received. The pairs of gold safety-pins I had wrapped for each of my aunts were just what they needed to pin their shoulder straps. My uncles had all been wishing for books of razor-wipers exactly such as I had made for them. The Round Room rang with shouted thank-you's and grew hot as we tossed discarded wrappings into the fireplace.
Grandmother was first to leave the boisterous scene. She had her Christmas doughnuts to make, and gradually we all drifted over to the Kitchen to watch her. She piled them, some round ones, some long and twisted, into the old white bowl that had held our doughnuts every Christmas morning as far back as any of us could remember.
As we sat down to eat them, a deluge of rain poured onto the tin roof like thunder, drowning our voices. Apprehensive glances went around the table. The downpour eased a little, and a few phrases could be heard. 'So much rain this monthâ?¦a real cloudburst like thisâ?¦creeks rising alreadyâ?¦surely marooned if the river bridge goes.'
'Let's leave,' suggested my uncle, 'go on over to my place before we get holed up here.'
Leave now? With Christmas dinner in the oven? Miss the rest of Christmas Day and the gentle unwinding period of our gathering, when one by one the families would say good-bye with promises to write and plans for next year's Christmas? Unthinkable!
Our preparations went on. We basted the goose, made rolls, set out quince preserves. At last the table was set up in the Round Room and the goose on its platter successfully carried across the yard, two attendants holding off the rain with a blanket canopy.
Grandfather said an extra long Christmas blessing. With heads still bowed, we listened to my uncle's violin play the prayer music from Grandfather's pageant. Then the goose was carved, and we began our Christmas dinner.
All at once the sky opened again in torrents of rain. We ran to the window. After a few minutes complete silence settled close around us; but from the bottom of the hill came a roaring tumult.
'The creek,' said Grandfather. 'It's flooding. We'll go. Now.'
We went. Some grabbed coats; others threw a few things into suitcases. Within ten minutes we were all heading down the hill. We couldn't cross the creek at the road. It was too deep. The men threw planks across where the banks hadn't yet caved in, and one by one we crept dizzily to the other side.
Late at night we reached the cars and drove on to my uncle's ranch. Somehow everyone got dry clothes to put on. Coffee and soup warmed us. As I fell asleep, the last thing I heard was my father laughing. 'Now all we need is Tiny Tim to bless us every one.'
The hard rains and the threat of being marooned convinced the family that Grandfather and Grandmother as they grew older should spend their winters nearer town. Though we had summer visits after that, there were no more Christmases at the Ranch.
But I still return to those Castle holidays on sentimental journeys of remembering such as I have taken here. The love and make-believe of our family gatherings don't leave me. Childhood Christmases are never lost.