It’s nearly Christmas eve and I am alone in the kitchen. Let the baking begin.
“Mom,” the GAP had laughed, giving me that “how’d-you’d-ever-get-through-breakfast” look again, “remember the lemon meringue pies?” I can still hear her echo.
I visualized our narrow kitchen in the old three-bedroom, one bath house where I raised the kids, piggy backed with pies. We had no extra money for Christmas gifts that year. Just a bounteous lemon tree. Twenty-seven lemon pies with hand-rolled crusts in one night with the help of a cooperating eleven-year-old. Maybe I was, er still am, slightly compulsive.
Sometimes as a mom I lost some of the magic. There was so much to do, so little time, and sometimes so little money. This was particularly true one Christmas when I was a single mom. Santa’s bag was going to be a light for four excited children. They’d gone to bed restlessly in hand sewn Christmas Eve pajamas and peeked into the living room through the wall heater vent hoping to get a glimpse of Santa dropping off the items on their Christmas lists.
Finally the children fell off to sleep, and I started to put out the few gifts I’d made by hand – a doll bed from someone’s trash. I painted yellow daisies on the headboard, and a matching doll blanket. And linseed oil stained blocks I’d cut from two-by-fours. The sawed edges were in the vicinity of ninety-degree angles. The boys gave up stacking them. Instead they spent hours building single story forts for toy soldiers suffering from a fear of heights.
Simon had had a single mom, too. I’d overheard Cheezy and him comparing notes. “Do you believe in Santa?” one of them had asked.
“Are you kidding? After last Christmas!” the other had answered. Instead they created a shopping list from the Sears catalog, addressed it to me, and skipped the middleman.
Another memory jumped on board. During one holiday season, noises of scrambling footsteps outside my bedroom window had awakened me before the sun came up. I’d grabbed the phone and punched in the numbers for the police.
“Someone’s trying to break into my house,” I’d whispered, gathering my wits (the three remaining ones).
“What’s your address?” the dispatcher asked calmly.
I gave it to her. “Please stay on the phone with me until the police arrive,” I begged. “I’m alone with my children.”
I froze and made no noise. My mouth went dry. Inside, I screamed while my heart thumped in my chest. Within minutes, though it felt like an eternity, powerful knocks vibrated the front door.
“It’s the police,” shouted a deep husky voice.
I glanced out the peephole. A large officer filled the porch.
“Lady,” he said sarcastically, “it was Santa.”
I swung open the door to gaily-wrapped gifts. Who gave the festive packages? We never found out.
Back to the task at hand. Literally. Only one burn on my finger so far, but then again it’s only morning. Tonight there will be less lemon meringue pies, more packages (some even wrapped, just so I can say I got with the program, but none of them looking as gaily as that night long ago), and love abounding for those four special grown-up blessings in my life.
Merry Christmas to you all.
Related posts:
- Sunday morning with kids
- New car trauma
- Halloween on a budget
- I’m old enough to be thankful
- Holiday shopping
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Good post Penny.
George
Good memory.