MY HAPPIEST CHRISTMAS: A Mother's Christmas Letter about Family (December 19, 1952)

The Schneider Family

While taking inventory of my 2016 Year in Review these last few weeks, I've been reflecting on how May 14, 2016 could have (should have?) been my last day on planet earth. In the wee hours of the morning (3:10-3:30 a.m.) I suffered sudden anaphylaxis. Had it not been for the extraordinary alertness of my 16-year-old daughter, I would have expired on the bathroom floor.

I woke up to confusion roughly 30 hours later in ICU. I was intubated so that I couldn't swallow. That alarmed me. And my hands were tied down to the sides of the bed. That alarmed me, too. As I became more lucid in stages, I recalled being unable to breathe and nothing more. Before that, I recalled that I had spent the last week stacking my plate with record-breaking accomplishments involving home improvement & the landscaping of my property.

But as I lay in the hospital for the next two days, I couldn't recall anything more important than my daughter who saved me and the family I almost lost. And if you've been muscled by your mortality, you know this to be true: all that ever mattered was love.

Had I not made it, I would have left a book unpublished: Little House on the High Plains: Growing Up Happy and Healthy During the Dust Bowl and World War II by Major General Carl G. Schneider USAF (Ret.). This book had been a remarkable project for my wife and me. We enjoyed the learning curve it took to wrap our heads around the time period, lifestyles, and the customs of Texas farm culture.

I want to share a piece that I thought fitting for the season. In chapter 11 the author's mother, Laura, wrote a letter, on the advent of the Christmas of 1952. She was anticipating all of her grown children being back in their little house once more:

My Happy Christmas

December 19, 1952

“JoAnn, jump right in bed while I get the hot water bottle and an aspirin.” Then I will call Mr. Neis and ask him to bring a prescription from the drug store as he comes to supper. This was the first thing that happened when I got home from school the afternoon of the 19th beginning the Christmas holidays.

We had had a very busy day at school. The gift exchange had worked out well, however. Each child had been given a generous treat by the room mothers and sent home with many good wishes for a happy holiday. When the books had been put away, the Christmas decorations taken down from around the room, flowers removed from danger of a possible freezing, and the thermostat set so for a comfortable heat in a closed room, I drew a deep sigh of happiness and closed the door on school room worries. Two whole weeks of happiness at home, just being “Mother,” and the anticipation of having all my children at home together again.

After making JoAnn comfortable, I made a quick clean-up and pick-up over the house, went to the grocery store, and got supper under way.

Scarcely had I turned around it seemed before Daddy and Joyce came into the house laughing and I looked beyond them to see Martha giving Clyde’s uniform a final check, with particular attention to the new wings just that day pinned on. Of course I said, “Greetings, Lt. Schneider,” and in return got a big hug and saw the boyish grin of pleasure spread over his face. How a mother’s heart swells with pride in such a splendid son!

After supper Daddy and I dashed off late to our Sunday School class social at the church. It was a delightful evening with old and new friends, and I went home with two gifts after Daddy gave me the box of ladies’ hose he’d drawn in the gift exchange!

When we got home our first thought was of Grace, who was coming home with Carrie Bier. When they had not arrived by midnight we turned the fires low, left the door unlocked and a light burning, and went to bed.

Martha and Grace were to sleep in our room and Daddy and I took the extra bed in the boys’ room where Clyde was sleeping. About two o’clock Grace came in. She undressed very quietly, and not looking in Mother’s room lest she disturb, went to the back bedroom to that seldom-used bed. She called softly, “Clyde, Clyde,” and was startled to hear a movement in the bed that she was so sure would be empty.

Saturday morning brought the happy reunion of four children – Grace, Clyde, Joyce, and JoAnn, as well as Martha, the soon-to-be new daughter. A quick trip to town for last minute shopping, groceries, and a Christmas tree largely took up the morning. JoAnn and Clyde chose a beautiful, tall tree and began to decorate it even before the noon meal.

As the latter was almost ready, a quick wave of excitement ran through the house as someone called from the front, “Glendon has come.” And there was the tall, sturdy jet pilot who had not been with us at Christmas time for the last three years. How glad he seemed to be at home again.

After having driven steady for the past 24 hours [from Alabama], he fell in bed as soon as he had eaten lunch.

Sunday was a happy day with church in the morning and callers [in the] afternoon. I sat with little Hal Seaman while his parents attended a rehearsal and dinner for a wedding party Sunday night but was back home in time for coffee with the family before bed time.

Again the light was left burning and the fires going because Finis would be coming in before morning. Daddy and I did not sleep very soundly and were awake when the car stopped in front of the house at 3:00, exactly 52 hours since they had left Red Bank, New Jersey. We knew he really wanted to be with us to make such a long, hard journey home. Christmas had already come in our hearts when the entire family gathered for a late breakfast on that beautiful Monday morning.

How quickly the days went until Christmas Eve morning when we wakened to find a beautiful blanket of snow covering the earth and what fun it was to go downtown and see the gaily lighted windows, the throng of busy shoppers…

What struck me in this letter was something I've always seen but have never felt until recently, and that is Mothers love their children. Forever and always. Unconditionally. Because mothers give birth to children they have never seen, they love their children when they are gone just as much as when they are present. And they will love them just as much when they leave this earth.

At the time of this letter, I'm sure Laura didn't know that she only had only seven more Christmases. But that's no matter, because she loves her children now just as much as she loved them before they were born. That's what Christmas means to me this year.

Mother.

***

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MERRY KRAMPUS! & UNNECESSARY PANGS OF CONSCIENCE

The Christmas season in Germany was beautiful and enjoyable for children... if you ignored the part called The Naughty List. I'm not sure how other children around the world took Christmas, but we took it with what I could only call unnecessary pangs of conscience. On the one hand, Christmas represented family, gifts, and expectancy. Nice things. On the other hand, Christmas resembled the Day of Judgment. No matter how naughty you were from January to November, the first day of December found you recounting all the naughty words, all the naughty deeds, and all the naughty thoughts you indulged in like a reprobate ragamuffin. And the DAY OF RECKONING eventually rolled around with all the contrived regret and gratuitous repentance my little child's soul could conjure up. 

I remember once being put on The Naughty List close to Christmas (the tree was already up). As best my six or seven-year-old memory can recollect, it was for a homework infraction (or maybe several... and maybe for several other things, I honestly can't remember). I remember thinking There is no way for me to make this right before Santa comes. I mean, I needed to do enough good things to make Santa forget that I had even made The Naughty List. I had never heard of anyone who made the The Naughty List unmaking that list. I was screwed.

I remember more than one Christmas going to bed on Christmas Eve with the trepidation of an imminent Rapture. I was so frightened that I put my head under my covers and faced the wall, knowing full well that Santa would be in MY house that night. My head was full of the carol...

You better not shout

You better not cry

You better not pout

I'm telling you why

Santa Claus is coming to town...

I heard the song as more of a threat...

You BETTER not shout

You BETTER not cry

You BETTER not pout

Or else...

See, Santa knew if I was fake sleeping. Either I was really asleep or really awake. There was NO in between. And if I prayed to God, I prayed to Santa, too, to give me a genuine desire to sleep. But it didn't come in enough time before I heard someone moving about the living room, making his way into our hallway, and stopping right outside my door. It wasn't Santa Claus. It was Satan Claus.

Krampus.

Now, I am being completely honest when I say that in some places in Europe Christmas Day is like the day of reckoning. In America being on The Naughty List means fewer presents. In Germany, being on The Naughty List meant that you had your shoes filled with coal & switches. Which meant that you sucked.

Few children outside these European traditions understood that Santa had a helper... and he wasn't an elf. His descriptions varied, and none of us children really knew what he looked like, because he was typically levied as a threat to keep us in line. But we knew a few things. We knew that an enormous Santa entered normal houses through the chimney, but was never dirty upon arriving. Because he was good.

However, his more sinister side (who was covered in soot)... the one who took care of Santa's Naughty List) didn't care about his appearance. He would slide down chimneys and emerge with the switches (broom) he used to clean the chimney, dirty from head to toe, and trailing coal behind him. These fiery images were none other than the Devil. 

Now, what was so interesting was that ultimately we all enjoyed a Happy (Merry) Christmas. But it came with a cost: unnecessary pangs of conscience. After waking up to stockings on Christmas Day, opening up presents, staying in our pajamas, and stuffing ourselves with treats, the more sinister aspects of Christmas were forgotten. And within a few days we were back to our old antics.

Having run my own school for 13 years, I've dabbled in methods of motivating students to do the things they ought. When I first opened my school, I wanted to offer students opportunities (a concept not unique to me) to advance in their studies. But these opportunities were only opportunities if they didn't come with consequences for not taking them. And I was consistent with that. 

I've been a part of several designer communities (Look for my blog on LARPing... coming soon!) these last few years that sell themselves on benefits of "authentic living" and "belonging" and "organic community." Because most of us lack this kind of utopia in our lives, it's an effective lure to get us to take at least a peek inside. But once inside, almost each and every one of them have their own set of consequences, imposed upon the dabblers, the members or congregants if the opportunities they offered were ignored or spurned.

Subjecting oneself to communities like this, one's moral compass can get grossly misaligned and those special pangs reserved for true moral guilt are artificially engineered to be triggered more and more frequently. I knew someone who attended a private school who eventually left the community because he didn't agree with some asinine, medieval interpretation of some theological point that is moot in most of the world. On the one hand, he qualified to be in the community. But once in, he didn't really qualify because he refused the up-sells (They were true choices, weren't they?). 

There were consequences for not taking those opportunities, for not going above and beyond, for not willingly wearing more pieces of flair than required...

And do you know what those consequences are? Unnecessary pangs of conscience if you stay. And no Christmas presents if you go.

For me, screw the Christmas presents.

(Here is a real opportunity below!)

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NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH: HOW CHRISTMAS CAROLS SAVED MY LIFE

During interim at college in Florida, I spent the Christmas holidays with an elderly woman I called “Widow Eleanor” (Eleanor thought “Mrs. Rogers” was too formal. She also did not care for the title “widow”, but I felt the need to distinguish that I was not routinely shacking up with some young chick two weeks each year). Eleanor had me do chores around her house to justify keeping me around. I raked up bags of the never-ending, sticky pine straw and prickly seeds that fell from her trees. She lived on the water with the Gulf Coast in her backyard, so I also picked up the never-ending pile of junk the tide brought in from the occasional water cooler to the lone flip-flop to part of a refrigerator once. I would renail parts of her dilapidated boat deck. I would restack her firewood (Once while restacking, I came upon a frozen mass of snakes, each as thick as my wrist, bedding down for the winter at the base of the woodpile. That was the last time I stacked wood). The work was menial, and though I secretly thought Eleanor should pay me, she made up for it by giving me my own room, making me turkey and cranberry sandwiches, and going to bed early at night so I could read the books in her extensive library.

Eleanor lived in the little town of Shalimar which lay between Niceville and Fort Walton Beach, Florida. She resided on a quiet street where the houses were generously spaced apart, and the streets were especially wide. A sign indicated that hers was a “Neighborhood Watch” neighborhood. It was the first time I had ever seen the sign and it struck me as funny that a sign would warn a thief that he was not welcome in this neighborhood (but feel free to try the next neighborhood). Eleanor explained how it really wasn’t that way. Then she would launch into a catalog of the signs of the times, evidence she saw in her own neighborhood: kids stealing, kid’s using bad language, kid’s listening to loud music, kids racing in cars down the streets. I was never really certain if Eleanor was referring to the Last Days or to her own last days (she was 76).

One Saturday before Christmas I went to the gym at Eglin Air Force Base with a retired Air Force pilot who at 48 was in comparable shape to me. We knew each other in Germany and would workout incessantly. Eleanor was at church choir or some sort of church-related festivity that morning, and she planned to be home by 12:30 p.m. I was already finished with gym and dropped off by 12:15.

The one thing I did not like about Eleanor’s house was her front door. It was stubborn and would not open apart from my cajoling it for several minutes. Eleanor would show me over and over again how to unlock the door with as little force as possible, a kind of jujitsu. It never caught on. That afternoon after having worked out I was dying to get into the air conditioning, so I proceeded to forcefully unlock her door. I jerked on it, pounded on it, kneed it, lifted the handle up and down, jiggled the key in the lock one hundred different ways. It wouldn’t budge.

I was unaware of a couple of important things. First, I was unaware that I was causing so much racket. Most of Eleanor's neighbors were of the geriatric sort, so aside from the occasional speeding car, the street was absolutely silent.

I was also not aware that Eleanor did not tell her neighbors I was coming to stay for Christmas. This is an important part of the story, because Eleanor did not have one neighbor with my profile on her street (or on the adjacent streets). The man across the street, hearing the racket, looked through his kitchen window and saw a Black man in a red wife-beater (That's what the South calls a "tanktop"), shorts, and with no car in sight, brazenly trying to force Eleanor’s front door open. It didn’t help that I had been at it for ten minutes and that I kept looking up and down the street every few minutes for Eleanor who was soon to be home. The door finally gave up. When the neighbor saw me enter the house and shut the door, he panicked, called the police, and went to his garage for a shovel.

Inside the house I was elated to be out of the sun. I jumped into the shower. Overcome with my victory over the front door and with Christmas spirit (even thought it was 76 with humidity outside), I broke out in song and sang every Christmas Carol that came to mind: Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem, It came Upon a Midnight Clear, We Three Kings, Hark the Herald Angels Sing. And I sang every verse of each song loudly and joyfully. As I was dressing post-shower, I heard Eleanor's front door creak open. Ever so quietly.

“Eleanor, is that you?” Eleanor had no way of knowing I was home aside from the unlocked door (I had no car), but with her stories of Last Days break-ins, I did not want to give her a heart attack should she unexpectedly find me in the house. I threw on my shirt and walked down her narrow hall to the living room. There crouched along the far wall by her television were two men with pistols drawn, pointed to the floor at my right. We looked at each other for a few seconds, they taken aback by my greeting and I trying to come up with a good explanation for their presence. One of them finally spoke.

“Do you live here?”

“No, but I stay here each Christmas with Eleanor.”

“Do you have any identification?”

“Yes.” I ran back to my room to get my wallet, the policemen jittery but too nervous to follow me (I found out later that Eleanor’s house was surrounded by police, so they would have had it covered had I tried to escape out the window). When I returned, they still had guns drawn. Looking at my military I.D., they were satisfied, and I walked them to the front door. There on Eleanor’s lawn were her neighbors, whispering to each other, certain that I was going to come out in cuffs.

Because the police didn’t really explain anything to the crowd (and because a few of them looked unconvinced) I addressed them from the steps, telling them who I was and that I had been staying with Eleanor for the last two Christmas holidays. A few of them murmured that now they recalled seeing me a year or two before. I think that their street was so boring that they wanted some action. One by one, the neighbors melted away. The man with the shovel remembered me, too. Embarrassed, he stayed around to offer an explanation. One of the policemen addressed me.

“We figured you couldn’t have broken into the house. We walked around the house before we came in and heard you singing Christmas carols."

The neighbor had a different story. He described how from his perspective I was angrily forcing the door open in order to get at Eleanor to kill her. He called the police, got his shovel from the garage, and came into Eleanor's yard. He heard me singing carols, too, but thought I had already killed Eleanor and was maniacally singing seasonal songs over her dead body.

When I told Eleanor, she thought it was funny. I was a little hurt and tried to explain to her that there were guns drawn. She still thought it was funny. That next year I stayed with a family in Niceville. I loved Eleanor, but that was too close.