A Homemade Christmas

At times I write things that don't get published for a while, if ever. This is one of those stories waiting for a magazine or anthology home. For now, it makes a good blog post. 

I can’t remember the year, exactly, but it was sometime in the mid 1960’s. My family lived in Nigeria, West Africa because my parents were stationed there by the Christian mission they served. Nigeria was not an easy place to be in the 1960’s.

That decade started out hopeful when on October 1, 1960, Nigeria was granted its independence from Great Brittan. But hope crumbled in the subsequent years as tribal infighting increased and rumblings of war began. This fighting culminated in a tragic civil war known as the Biafran War. My family lived there during all of this—my physician father, my nurse mother, my two sisters, one brother, and me.

Like other missionaries, my parents usually brought with them, tucked away in the missionary barrels with all of their other personal items, at least some of the presents they would need for the various occasions over the three years they would be in Africa. But they assumed they would be able to also purchase other toys and other items in country. Nigeria’s larger cities like Lagos and Ibadan had British stores with many of the goods we were accustomed to in America. Most Christmases, my parents and other missionaries made trips to Ibadan and purchased gifts for each other and us children, which they gave us along with the one or two things they had brought with them. But that year, travel was restricted due to the unrest all around us.

What was a parent to do in a situation like that? 

Nonetheless, I remember that Christmas as one of the grandest I ever had. I woke up that Christmas morning to what seemed like a living room full of new toys! It felt to me like I had received more toys than I had ever received at any one time in my life. It was a magical morning; Christmas magic, I suppose. I can still remember looking around the room and seeing a new item of one kind or another seemingly everywhere. And what were these gifts? How had my parents solved the problem of not being able to travel and purchase gifts for their children?

That year, my parents had brought only a set of plastic dishes with them in their missionary barrels as their gift to my sisters and me. Those plastic dishes were all they had to offer their three daughters. Oh, they had brought other gifts, but these had already been given in the previous two years on the field. This year, the last year of their term, they had only one set of plastic dishes left. I do not know what they had thought they would be able to do but I assume they had planned on giving one of us those dishes and buying other gifts for the other two of us. But as it was, that set of plastic dishes was all they had. So, they improvised and made gifts, or had them made actually.

That morning before my bright, wide-open child’s eyes, I saw laying around my living room in various places; a small wooden sink and kitchen cabinet combination, a small wooden refrigerator with doors on hinges that opened and shut and shelves inside, a wooden stove with a door that opened just like a real stove, a miniature wooden table and four small chairs. These, it turned out had been made by the hospital carpenter using my dad’s design and then hand painted by my father. Sitting on the table were the plastic dishes and laying on the floor near these were three aprons, a small tablecloth, napkins, dish cloths, and a hot pad all made by my seamstress mother with material she had bought at the local market.

The gifts were for all three of us—both my sisters and me—but that didn’t matter to me at all. It all seemed so marvelous! My sisters and I shared a room, anyway. All three of us slept in one double bed. I, of course, got the middle since I was the middle sister. After we moved our toys to our room from the living room, we had every little girl’s dream of a bedroom. Our three baby dolls already had their spots in the room. We had one small wooden cradle that all the dolls laid in. That didn’t seem strange to us. They shared that bed just like we shared our bed. But now we had a table and four chairs so the dolls could sit at our little table instead of sleep in the cradle if we wanted to place them there. Against one wall now sat the toy kitchen sink-cabinet combination, stove, and refrigerator and in front of that we placed the table complete with a tablecloth on it. We stored the dish towels, and aprons on one of the shelves inside the cabinet. The dishes could be found anywhere—in the cabinet, in the refrigerator, in the sink, or on the table.

I didn’t feel like I was in a small mission house in a war-torn African country. I felt as though I was in the richest palace in the world. Surely no little girl anywhere had as many wonderful kitchen toys as my sisters and me!

 

 

Angel or Alien?

 This is a reprint of a story I wrote that appeared in last year's Chicken Soup for the Soul's Christmas anthology: 

“Mom! I made an angel for the top of our Christmas tree!” 

My five-year-old daughter exclaimed these words as she excitedly pulled the treasure she'd made in her kindergarten class from her backpack. Then she held it up for me to admire.

It consisted of a six-inch cardboard cone spray-painted gold, very much resembling a metallic gold, upside-down ice cream cone. To that base she had glued white pipe cleaners on the sides and bent them so that they came together in front. There they were also glued to a small rectangle paper so as to appear to be holding sheet music. In the back, she’d glued a lacy doily which I assumed were wings.

Up to that point is wasn’t so bad but its head looked like something out of a science fiction movie--a rather large white Styrofoam ball in which my sweet daughter had stuck large, colorful pins to make its facial features. She stuck the ones for eyes through small, round metallic gold papers. The papers were not glued down, and thus did not rest against the round Styrofoam ball. They sort of stuck out all around the pin eyeballs, looking a bit more like fins than eyes. This caused the angel’s eyes to look sort of like insect eyes.

It’s hair was a series of yellow pipe cleaners that had been cut short and individually stuck in the head. They were bent so they hung down rather than sticking straight out, thank goodness. It’s halo was another yellow pipe cleaner that had been stuck in the very top of the Styrofoam head and then bent into a circle around it. Since she had used the same pipe cleaners as the hair, it sort of looked like one piece of hair had gotten wind-blown and messed up. I had to fight the urge to smooth it down along with the other hair.

But my daughter was so proud! What’s a mother to do? 

Of course, I told her the strange-looking thing she held in her hand was beautiful and I climbed on a chair and placed it on the top of my tree.

… and there it remained, or was placed again, rather, year after year after year. It peered down on us Christmas after Christmas looking more like a space alien with its metallic, bulging eyes, than an angel. And every year, as I placed it on the tree, I tried to assess my daughter’s level of attachment to it, always hoping we could finally laugh at it and declare it for what it was—a five-year-old’s funny attempt at making an angel. But each year my daughter smiled and admired it when it came out of the Christmas box. Many times, she excitedly placed it in my hand and exclaimed, “My angel! Here Mommy, put her on top of the tree.” (I suppose the angel was a her. It was hard to tell but my daughter seemed to think it was.)

One of the years when my daughter was in middle school, as I was taking the angel out of the box of decorations, its head fell off and rolled onto the family room floor. I jumped at the opportunity, quickly suggesting that perhaps it was time to get a new angel for our tree.

My daughter’s face fell. Even though she was close to being a teenager, she still held affection for this strange item that bordered on being a monstrosity. “Or… I could try gluing the head back on and see if it stays,” I quickly suggested. This pleased my daughter so her angel once again graced our tree … for many more years.

I was beginning to wonder if I would have to have that bug-eyed thing topping my tree forever! I would see beautiful trees in stores and magazines and other people’s houses, but not mine. Mine was forever doomed to be a tree decorated with homemade ornaments my three sons and one daughter had brought home to me through the years. And it would forever have this insect-like alien with messed up hair sitting on top of it!

I resigned myself to it. It appeared inevitable.

Then one Christmas morning when my daughter was in high school, she handed me the gift she had bought me. I opened it and there before my eyes was a beautiful, elegant, store-bought angel tree-topper! I have never been so happy to receive a gift in my life! She and the whole family burst out laughing when they saw how happy I was.

Today, my tree is a mix of homemade ornaments and purchased ones. But sitting on the very top is a lovely angel holding tiny candles that light up who has normal looking hair and eyes and an elegant halo. It looks down at us in a gentle, smiling sort of way, instead of leering at us through bulging eyes.

And the other, much loved angel of days gone by rests in the bottom of the decoration box in two parts—body and head—because her head came off again. Every year I look at it and laugh … but I think I miss it a little. I love her too much to throw her away. She is a treasure in her own way.

My daughter is grown now with a child of her own. One year, I offered to glue her angel’s head back on and let her use it or her Christmas tree. We both burst out laughing.
 

 Christmas Card Christmas Christmas Tree Advent

 Christmas Card Christmas Christmas Tree Advent

Christmas Memories

A friend on Facebook posted this question today: Which gift do you remember most from your childhood?

And I was taken back …

Christmas 1964, maybe it was. We lived in the house at the bottom of the hill on the Ogbomoso station so that places this memory in either 1963 or 1964 but since I remember it so clearly, I will go with 1964 when I was six instead of the year before when I was only five. That year, I got the grandest of presents!

I was used to getting one gift from Santa and maybe a couple more wrapped under the tree. The wrapped gifts usually came from my family's trip to the Kingsway store in Ibadan so I sometimes had at least an idea of what those gifts might be. But the gift from Santa was usually only one gift (often a baby doll or stuffed animal) that sat unwrapped on a couch next to a stocking filled with candy and small toys. That gift, I now know was often purchased ahead while my parents were in the US and carefully brought to Nigeria in the packed barrels. But that year …

On that Christmas morning, my gift, or rather our gifts because they were joint gifts to my two sisters and me, were spread out all over the living room. The room was filled to the brim with new things for us! And what were these abundant gifts?

My father, with the help of the hospital carpenter, had built out of lightweight wood, plywood perhaps, a toy refrigerator, stove / oven, and mini kitchen cabinet. My parents had brought a set of plastic dishes with them from the US and those were laid out--dishes, silverware, and pots and pans. To top it off, my mother has sewn mini dishtowels, pot holders, and aprons for us. 

My childhood eyes burst with amazement as I scanned the room and then walked all around it looking from one thing to another. Later when we had this all set up in our shared bedroom with our dolls that we already owned, sitting in little chairs in this play kitchen, I felt like I lived in a playland of my very own! 

Life as I Knew It--Christmas Memories

Every child wonders if Santa Clause is real. I have two memories of times when I was pretty sure he was real or at least quite ambivalent about it.

One year the missionaries stationed in Ogbomoso had a special guest at the annual Christmas party. I found out later that he was actually a European visitor, but at the time, he appeared in the room as Santa Clause in the flesh. Many of the older MKs were convinced he was an imposter but none of us could figure out who he really was to save our lives. We would guess one missionary uncle after another only to look around the room and see them all accounted for. In my little mind, if he was not one of my missionary uncles, who else could he possibly be there in the heart of Africa at Christmas time? Though at some level, I knew he was not the real Santa.

The other memory was even more magical. One Christmas Eve as I lay in my bed about to go to sleep, I spotted what must have been an airplane in the sky through the window that was just above my bed. I lived in what we called the Wests' House then. All houses on the mission were temporarily named after the family who had most recently resided in them. That year we were living in the house the West family usually occupied, while they were in the states on furlough. (My MK friends will know which house this was by the name.)

My room had a bed right up against a window. I often looked out that window at the night sky as I was falling asleep. That night when I looked, I saw a light flying slowly across the sky. I suppose it could have also been a falling star, but it moved more like an object. 

Spotting an airplane in the sky was a rare treat in Nigeria in the 1960’s, especially in Ogbomoso where I lived. Once or twice I can remember hearing a plane through the screen window while at school. It was such a rarity that we all ran out of the classroom, turned our heads up toward the sky and just watched it—including the teacher!

So, I lay there that Christmas Eve watching that light move slowly across the sky. I was pretty convinced it was a plane, but my heart was filled with that magical feeling that perhaps, just perhaps, it was actually Rudolf’s nose pulling Santa’s sleigh. I mean, an airplane flying over Ogbomoso on Christmas Eve was equally as unbelievable.

Christmas in Ogbomosho Part 3

By: Peter Gilliland

There was a special progression of events that unfolded on Christmas morning which could not be altered. It was the way Christmas is supposed to happen.

As we made our way onto the porch in the pre-dawn damp darkness of the Harmattan mist, coming closer and closer was one of the most beautiful sounds in all the world. Then we could see them. Along the path near the house approached a line of angelic figures, all in white, carrying candles and singing Christmas carols. They were the nurses and nursing students, plus several missionaries. This was their present to us and others. Sometimes the carols were in English, sometimes in Yoruba, and Bill William's flute sang through the mist between the voices with a sound that, to this day, I have never heard equaled for the thrill it produced in me.

Slowly, but all too quickly, the singers-in-white circled our house and then moved on. They never stayed long enough, but it was OK for them to leave, because it meant that we could move on to the next thing. After all, there was a precise order to the way Christmas unfolded.

 

By the time the singers left, Daddy had the lights on. Electricity was very important to a Christmas morning (Christmas trees don't really look as nice by lamp light). Usually, the station light plant was working, but if not, Daddy would have our small generator cranked up. We could not go downstairs until Daddy said we could.

Then the word was given, and we rushed down the big front outside stairway into the dining room door – then into the living room. What would be under the tree? Had Santa Claus come?

Santa was remarkable in his ability always to come through for us. Besides the wrapped presents under the tree, there would be other marvelous things that had mysteriously appeared in the night. My sister and I would descend upon them with delightedly selfish tunnel-vision, while Mother urged us to slow down, and Daddy busied himself tuning in the BBC with its all-day Christmas music that crackled over the short-wave radio.

The two contenders for Best Christmas Ever are '51 and '59.

In '51 Santa brought me one of those wonderful huge English Raleigh tricycles and a wooden "Tommy" gun with a handle-and-ratchet I could turn to produce a rat-tat-tat sound. That tricycle was the beginning of my independence, and I could go anywhere on the compound (at least until the bush dogs around the hospital chased me home).

In '59 there was a full-size bicycle and a Daisy Model 25 BB-gun by the tree. I would love to know how many miles I put on that bike. I wore the BB-gun out completely in two-and-a-half years. I could ride that bike without holding on and shoot my BB-gun and hit every tree along one side of Teak Boulevard while going as fast as I could pedal.

There were always other people to share Christmas with us, too. Martha Tanner came some years, and the Seats and Griffins and Browns. They always made Christmas more special, and having them with us spoiled me. I still do not think it is really Christmas unless we can share our table with non-family.

After the first rush at the Christmas tree, and the presents had been summarily dealt with, we would have a big breakfast, with special goodies and then play with the new toys. Christmas mornings seemed to pass in a blur, and I have very few clear memories of them. I might go to check on what other kids had received, but that was usually anti-climactic, because for the most part, since our parents all shopped at the same stores in Lagos, we all got pretty much the same basic presents. The only opportunities for envy came with special items sent from the States, and I don't remember too many of those.

Sometime during the morning, all the various Nigerian friends would come by all dressed in their fanciest clothes. They often had wives and children in tow.

One Christmas, the old “peanut woman,” who sold peanuts around the compound and the town from a calabash on her head, came by. The once-brightly-painted calabash was faded and scratched and the colors were hardly recognizable. Daddy took her calabash and repainted its designs in fresh, bright, good-quality paints – and a new Christmas tradition was born.

Lunch time. A lingering excitement. Then the grownups went off for their naps, and I would be alone in the living room. This was the only day of the year I didn’t have to take a nap after lunch. But by this time, it would be too hot to go outside, so I would sit in the semi-darkness of the now-unlit living room and look at my gifts.

Sometimes, there was a sense of disappointment, because I was already getting bored with my new toys. I remember marveling that one could so anticipate Christmas, and it be SO wonderful and exciting, and then it could leave one feeling so deflated – and there was nothing special left to look forward to for a very long time. It took me years to realize that the real delight is mostly in the anticipation and preparation and the doing-for-others, not in the getting.

Eventually bath time came, and supper, and a quite evening, and off to bed, knowing that when I awoke, it would be a whole year 'til next Christmas.

Memories are remarkably personal things, and not necessarily "accurate" in the strict historical sense. But they are ours, and they give us our perspective on the present.