The Day after Caroling

'Twas the day after caroling 
And up in the house 
The boys were still sleeping
As still as a mouse.
Their clothes were all scattered
And littered the floor
Where they had been thrown 
The night before.

Their eyes were all swollen,
Their hair was fright,
For they had been out
Over half of the night.
I thought as I listened
I heard them humming
Although it wasn't 
Much more than a mumming.

Silent Night and 
Joy to the World,
Come and Worship
With peaceful wings unfurled.
Their voices were hoarse
And the carols all jumbled;
My heart was touched
And just a bit humbled.

When I thought of their errand,
All through the night
While I in my bedsheets
Was snuggled down tight.
So I tiptoed quietly
Right past their door,
"Let them sleep," I said softly,
"They've earned it for sure."

But I heard one of them call
As I tipped down the stair
"Merry Christmas to all,
And a happy New Year!"

My mom wrote this poem in December of 1986. She says it is a dramatization of actual events.

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Nostalgia

What is Christmas all about? How should it make me feel?

Along about November I start thinking about it. Just a little. It feels good to just think the word ‘Christmas’.

I think about gifts and family gatherings, coffee, stars at night, carols, and school programs.

In December I enjoy shopping. I sail through the choosing and come home satisfied with what I bought. Sometimes I go back and exchange something. No big deal.

I notice the early sunsets and late sunrises. I like the winter dusk. I like it and I don’t. I get restless toward evening. What should I do? This year I especially struggle with that. Vicki isn’t here.

What is Christmas to me now, all these years since the first Christmas I remember? Even Redstone Valley Farm, where our children grew up, seems long ago. Our children all have homes of their own. I am by myself now, and wonder where to go and what to do. So I get out the candles and make some Christmas things — candy or cookies. I think of my childhood home in Missouri. How I loved Christmas then! And I think of those Christmases when my children were small. I remember Harold reading Mickey’s Christmas Carol out loud to them. What long ago times!

Now here I am, a wordless longing in my heart, a restlessness I cannot understand. Dusk is falling. The countryside is peaceful and cold. Everything is perfect outdoors. Inside, my wood-wick candle crackles on the windowsill. A puzzle is scattered on the table. It is perfect indoors, too, except the table is set for one. I miss the talk of plans or dreams, the fragrance of meat roasting, the anticipation of friends and family walking in and helping get dinner ready.

Only nostalgia has come to visit me tonight.

— by Loretta Yost, my mother, Christmas 2017

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When the fiddle stopped singing, Laura called out softly, “What are the days of auld lang syne, Pa?”

“They are the days of a long time ago, Laura,” Pa said. “Go to sleep now.”

But Laura lay awake a little while listening to Pa’s fiddle softly playing and to the lonely sound of the wind in the Big Woods. She looked at Pa sitting on the bench by the hearth, the firelight gleaming on his brown hair and beard and glistening on the honey-brown fiddle. She looked at Ma, gently rocking and knitting.

She thought to herself, “This is now.”

She was glad that the cozy house, and Pa and Ma and the firelight and the music, were now. They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago.

–last lines from Little House in the Big Woods

❄️❄️❄️

Thank you mom (and dad) for all the Christmas memories around the woodstove and the table at Redstone Valley Farm. I remember auld lang syne. And now I am feeling nostalgia close by, and what should I do? I guess I will go to the kitchen and make something Christmas-y, and then take a walk in the new sparkly snow.

And here's a hand my trusty frien'
That gi'es a hand to thine
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne

–Liz

P. S. To mention a book! Home for Christmas by Lloyd C. Douglas. It’s 1930’s and five brothers and sisters find themselves reunited at the old homestead for an old-fashioned Christmas. The story is lighthearted and sweet. If you have a copy, treat it well. If you borrow it, treat it even better!