Brown Christmas Stirs Up Memories

Across the Fence #372

I look out our windows and see a world of brown, with some pale green thrown in. It’s December, the day after Christmas, and the temperature at our place registered 44 degrees for a high today. It’s December in Wisconsin, 2011 style.

I’m not complaining. Those are just the facts. I could get used to winters like this. I know this is just the calm before the storm, but every day like this makes winter seem that much shorter, and it helps with the heating bills too.

I remember how cold and snowy it’s been during Christmas in the past. There were times when it was so cold the car wouldn’t start when we visited the farm during Christmas. Our kids never got to spend Christmas at our home in Madison when we lived there. We were always traveling to Platteville or Westby where our families lived. In the early years we’d spend Christmas Eve with one family and head down the road on Christmas morning to get to the other family before noon. At least it was only an hour and a half drive, except when the roads were bad. It was nice because we could spend time with both families, and grandparents always want to see their grandchildren at Christmas.

As most of you know, it’s hard to coordinate brothers and sisters in both families and try to find a time that works for everyone to get together. They have a second family to coordinate with too. Our poor kids never did have a Christmas at home, but somehow Santa always knew where they were on Christmas Eve and presents were waiting for them in the morning.

Some years we split the holiday, spending Christmas with one family and the closest weekend with the other. That was easier than packing up and heading for the other family in the morning, when the kids wanted to play with whatever Santa had brought. We were always at the mercy of the weather too, both snow and cold temperatures.

One year while in Platteville, it was so cold a tire went flat while we were attending the Christmas Eve candlelight service. Have you ever tried finding a service station open on Christmas morning that could fix a tire? We were late heading for Westby that year.

Other years it would be snowing and blowing and the roads would be snow-covered and slippery. It was great spending time with both families, but I don’t miss the stress that added to the Christmas season. I imagine most of you can relate to that same scenario at one time or another.

I don’t remember very many mild, brown Christmases during those days. I’d have welcomed the type of weather we had this year. Most were filled with lots of snow and very cold, windy weather. That made for drifting snow and slippery roads.

It also seemed like just mentioning the words, Thanksgiving and Christmas, was enough to bring every flu bug in three counties out of hiding. My sister, Janet, said, “When the kids were little, it didn’t seem like it was the holidays unless someone was on antibiotics.” How true that was, and probably still is, for all of you with younger children. It was usually the stomach flu, which made for interesting times when you were traveling and on the road. One year when we were going to Platteville for Thanksgiving, Erik came down with the flu in the morning when we were going to leave. Since we had planned on eating at Linda’s folks we hadn’t bought anything to have around the house. I checked several places that morning trying to find a place that had take-out turkey dinners. I finally settled on turkey sandwiches from the old Rennebohm Drug Store in Madison. They also had a lunch counter. At least we had turkey even if it wasn’t with all the trimmings. Poor Erik couldn’t eat anything that Thanksgiving. When I think of Thanksgiving, it seems that we usually had snow on the ground at the time and never saw the grass again until sometime in March. Now we’re heading toward the end of the year and everything is still brown.

Back to those white and brown Christmases. When we were young we always went to my Hanson grandparents, or to one of the aunts and uncles. Weather was never much of a problem since most of us lived within a couple mile radius. Most of us could have walked or skied across the fields if we’d had to. The only one that had to travel any distance was Ma’s brother, James, who lived in Indianapolis. He had a movie camera and took home movies of our get-togethers. He usually brought some movies of past visits to show us. James worked for American Airlines and got to fly places around the world that the rest of us had only heard about. He brought movies from those visits to show us too. Those places were exciting to see, but the highlight for us kids was a short Woody Woodpecker cartoon. Remember, this was before most of us had a television, or if we did, we only had one channel. Cartoons were a big deal to us.

These memories were all triggered by the brown December we’ve been experiencing. It just shows that you don’t need a white Christmas to remember.

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