ANOTHER SKIMPY CHRISTMAS -- DAY 21

It’s the Monday before Christmas – wash day. The family followed through with this routine so that the laundry would be mostly out of the way for the holiday celebration. Ethel was good help and glad for Sadie to see how laundry was done on the farm. Electrification was changing the world, and Ethel knew that this way of life would disappear in Sadie’s lifetime.

The homemade gifts were all finished and mostly mailed. Shirley just had to add a little embroidery to some of the dress protectors she was making for those here at home. She would have to sneak off somehow to finish them. Perhaps Ethel could be persuaded to visit Aunt Bertha some afternoon soon. But not today. Today was washday at every household. One knew better than to call.

Sadie was a delight and the apple of her grandparents’ eyes. Oh, they didn’t spoil her. The rules of old-fashioned child-rearing were too engrained for that. But – the soft look of love in their eyes said it all, especially when Sadie was being good. And with Christmas coming, she was being as good as a five-year-old can be when Christmas is so near.

Sadie had visited the farm often in infancy until Ernest and Ethel moved away, but she didn’t remember those days, so this was her first experience at the farm, and she loved it. The only problem was that going outside or to the barn required a full snowsuit, so she couldn’t go on a whim.

After the noon meal, Aunt Shirley helped her “suit up” and they went out to make a snowman. It was just a little one, about Sadie’s height. They found gravel for eyes, and Ina provided a carrot for the nose.  They picked red berries off a bush at the pond for the mouth. Grandpa Jack found an old worn-out cap in the barn that he allowed them to put on the snowman’s head. They had lots of fun with Mr. Snowman, and there were no other kiddies to knock him down.

And then, Grandpa Jack saddled a horse and he and Sadie rode out to the mailbox. Today they had packages as well as Christmas cards. Jack tied the packages onto the saddle and tucked the cards into his jacket. Before they arrived at the farmhouse, Sadie was asleep.

[In reality, we have no snow here. It was actually a warm day – in the 50s. After all Mike's work on the snow plow, it looks like we'll have a “black Christmas.” This evening, Mike and I went out to look at Jupiter and Saturn in close proximity in the southwestern sky.]