Alice Chisholm Saunders

Alice Chisholm Saunders in about
1920 at Hill Acres

"My earliest journeys, I have always been told, were made nestled in a shoebox at my mother's feet, in the old buggy which she drove when calling on the neighbors." (written Dec 18, 1985)

Robinswood, 1989

After I wrote, last year, memories of other Christmases, many of you said, "Remember more!" And so I have. If not other Christmases, then other winters.

I slept, long ago in the log house, in an attic room with only the roof of hand-split shakes between me and the sky. On summer nights if luck was with me I could sometimes glimpse a star through the spaces between the shakes---spaces so fashioned that never a drop of rain came through. And yet, in winter, if the wind was right, I could sometimes stretch out my hand on waking, and find that the canvas cover laid over my comforters, little piles of snow that had drifted silently down in the night. To a child this was joy. The magic of winter beginning...

For a child there were other joys. Snow ice cream for one. Cream, nearly as thick as butter, always sat in the big brown bowl in the milkhouse. To scoop that on snow piled in a dish, stir in sugar and vanilla, and then stand with your back to the kitchen stove while you eat it-even McGee's Ice Cream Parlor could offer no greater delight...

And there was the tiny homemade sled for coasting - up Carnahan's hill, and down again, swoosh!

I am remembering too, when I was too old for coasting, hanging out the wash, and bringing in sheets frozen so solidly I could not fold them.

Everywhere snow, wet and cold, outside, but oh, so cosy inside. When I was little I sat and watched the flames through the isinglass windows of the old black stove. Later there was the big fireplace where you toasted homemade bread on a long handled fork...and toasted yourself very cosily too...

There was the winter-I was in high school then-when a heavy freeze followed one of the worst floods in Valley history. Every pair of skates in every home (and every pair in the Sears catalog too!) was commandeered for skating on flooded fields turned to ice. High up on our hill the swamp below the old barn was flooded too. Art, who had learned to skate and ski on the ice and snow of Norway, was with us then, and in the evenings he tried to teach me to skate. 'Learn first to fall,' he said, falling with the grace of a feather floating to earth. I, alas, fell only with the grace of a baby bear climbing its first tree, and with the same resounding bump...Ice melted and I never did learn to skate, but Art did teach me to dance. Not one-two-three-round as in gym class, but the music singing through..

There were the cold frosty mornings when Mother had only to call, and dozens of hungry Canada Jays ('Camp Robbers' the loggers called them) would come flying from the fir covered hills to the north, to light on her hands and take the good bread. They liked her homemade soap too! And when she put it out to cool on the porch, in square black pans, they would perch on the edge and nibble at it...

And always we went walking. I loved best the deep wood. Especially in winter. There is no stillness like that of a forest muffled in heavy snow. The quiet stretches endlessly and there is only snow and all things are hushed. There is no sound at all, not even from the tiniest deer-mouse, but only the quiet that is very close to holy, and you and the forest people are bound in common awe of the falling snow and the One who sends it. You are small, like the deer-mouse.

Never mind, as you turn back, the snowy branch that slaps you in the face, or the one that drops a dollop of snow down your neck. You'll soon be back in the log house with its warmth of crackling fires-and the love and laughter that warm the heart.

The love and laughter that warm the heart.

These be yours, this Christmastide.

Alice

Robinswood, 1992

As you might expect of a grandmother, I have been thinking a great deal about Small (not-quite-two) Shauna, and wondering as Christmas approaches, what the Tree will mean to her this year. And I have been remembering another Tree, and another small girl.

It is Christmas Eve in the log house, nestled in its own little valley in the high hills. The light from the oil lamps shines from the unshaded windows, but there is no one to see, for the collies lie quietly in the porch, sure sign that the forest folk are snugly in their homes. There is no one else in all the little valley, nor for a long way beyond.

And I am very small, that Christmas Eve, for it is the first one I remember. But I have remembered it every year since; fires crackling in the old wood stoves, the smell of freshly scrubbed wood floors blended with that of newly ironed clothes, the acrid scent of sadirons pushed to the back of the stove to cool. There is the peaceful feeling of after-supper, with the dishes washed, and the outside chores done.

The Tree has been there in the front room for sometime, and everyone has had a hand in decorating it. But tonight, the candles are to be lit. (And somewhere, be very sure, my father will be standing at that time with a pail of water in each hand, and a watchful eye on every candle.)

But I must have fallen asleep after supper, for I remember being awakened, and being brought into the room to see the Tree, and the candles have already been lit. And I can only stand, as one still in a dream, and look, and look.

The Tree is tall, taller than any tree I have see since! And all twinkly with candles from top to bottom, mysterious and beautiful, with its narrow twisted ropes of tinsel and the colored bead chains in graceful loops mingling with the paper chains that Jean has learned to make in school. There are pictures of angels, out-lined in tinsel, and pictures of Father Christmas; in one he stands beside a sleeping child, in another he trudges through the snow with his pack of toys. And there is one of Santa, too, filling Christmas stockings. There are a few brightly colored glass balls shining in the candlelight, and others, clear, with painted designs. There are the candleholders, weighted with heavy gold balls, and on top of the tree the shining ornament my mother loved, just touching the ceiling, a fantasy of shape and color, and only chipped in two places...

Beneath the Tree there are little boxes, round, without lids, that my mother has cut from salt cartons, and covered with wall paper. (Pete and Bill always gave us their sample books.) I think the little boxes are things of great beauty, and I long to touch them. In the morning they will be filled with hard candy in wondrous shapes and flavors, but I do not know that now. There will be gifts under the Tree, too, on Christmas Day, but tonight it is just the Tree, and it is enough. Looking at it-and I stand there a very long time, looking-I can hardly bear the wonder of it.

And each year since, when the new tree has been brought in, and the dear old pictures have been hung, and the scent of evergreen fills the house, I find that the child has slipped in somehow, too, and the wonder with her.

May happy Christmas memories fill you hearts this Christmastime!

Alice

Robinswood, Christmas 1997

We are reading, Shauna and I, the Little House on the Prairie series (for the fourth time). And I am reminded of another little house on the prairie and another little girl's Christmases. And I think it is time to tell Shauna about them, and I thought perhaps you would like to hear them, too.

'It was while we lived on the preemption,' my mother said, 'that we had the Big Christmas, at home. Ally and Mag (older sisters) had been "working out", and they must have spent almost all of their wages on presents. They came home awhile before Christmas, and we little ones were not allowed up in the attic where they were "getting ready for Christmas". It was all very exciting to us.

'Lolly was Aunt Ally's little girl, born on the same day I was. Lolly and Lily. Not twins, but niece and aunt. Not unusual in those days of big families.

'Christmas Eve came at last, and Pa told us Christmas stories from England, and then we were tucked into our trundle beds. When we woke in the morning, we looked toward the stove in the kitchen where we were sleeping, and there on a clothesline, stretched behind the stove, hung two big china dolls! Not china all over, of course, only the heads and hands and feet. But how lovely they were! Both dressed in turkey red calico, securely sewed on. And how we loved them!

'For Otis there was a poor little tool chest, not good enough for such clever fingers. But he loved just the feel of the tools. For Eve and Delia, the little glass set of creamer and sugar and butter dish. What tea parties we all had with them, with Mason jar lids for plates! And for Pa a set of Charles Dickens books, which he loved and which later became such a treasure chest for me.

'The next year--I would have been six years old--I went to my first "Christmas Tree". We drove to Uncle John Nesbitt's house in Mina, sleigh bells jingling. The girls sang and joked and I lay and stared up at the stars. And thought how bright they were, and how many. After supper we all went to the schoolhouse for the "Christmas Tree". Of course there were no trees in Dakota Territory, so the committee had hung sheets over ropes stretched at one end of the room. They had decorated the sheets with strings of popcorn, and strips of colored paper.

'There would be no Christmas trees in any homes, so families brought their gifts for each other, and hung them on the "Christmas Tree" to be opened after the program. First there were "pieces" spoken by the Mina schoolchildren, and there may have been music as well. My own personal tragedy overshadows most of that event in my memory. For when we first came into the room, I looked at the "tree" and saw, high up at the top, a large doll in a red velvet dress. I knew it was my doll. I just settled contentedly to think about it and to wait until they gave it to me. Not one slightest doubt that it was mine entered my mind until it was taken down and handed to another little girl. Then I disgraced my family by my sobs and tears. They opened my little parcels wrapped in brown paper and showed me the little cup and saucer and the little brown owl they had contained. And though these became treasured possessions later they did not comfort me then.

'I had gotten my big china doll the Christmas before, and I suppose they did not think I would ever need another doll.

'I remember going back to Uncle John's and being put to bed...'

Well, there. Two Christmases and only one doll. Christmases my mother never forgot.

Years later, when she had little girls of her own, and there was no money to spare, she made wonderful dolls for them. Other years there might be a new doll from the store; if not, there would most certainly be a new dress for last year's doll.

And sometimes she would tell us about the prairie years, and about the two Christmases. I don't think there were ever any other Christmas dolls for my mother. She would have been considered too old for them. And I know she was soon caring for a small niece younger than Lolly, and twin nephews...

And now there is another little girl, and two Christmas trees all in one year! A little one at Baba's, and the big one at Mama's and Shauna's house.

And we'll look at them, so green and so twinkly with lights, and we'll think a little about dolls hanging from a clothesline, and sheets decorated with popcorn strings and colored paper, and they won't seem quite real. But then we'll remember the stars that hung so low in the clear Dakota sky, and we'll remember that they are the very same stars we see--a little misted sometimes!--and the faraway little girl will seem close, and so will Christmas.

And all the Christmases far away and long ago will all be very close indeed. And that, I think, is the very best part of Christmas.

Wishing you Christmas in the heart!

Alice