“Everyone is happy, healthy and home.”
My Grandma, Georgia Lee Jones, often repeated that phrase — or something like it — from her lofty place in the maroon recliner at the head of the hall.
It was her observation at Christmas. No one was seriously ill or had any trouble. Everyone was eating and laughing and having a good time. And, all of her nine kids and their spouses and her grandkids and great-grandkids were with her under the same roof. Indeed, if all of us were there at the same time, there would be about 60 of us packed in to that little farm house near Schlatterville in Brantley County.
Christmas weekend’s bone chilling cold weather reminded me of being together for some reason.
When it was cold we had to stay inside in close quarters. A couple of Christmases, 1983 and 1989, were like that.
Those Christmases, we stayed close to the fireplace in the front room and the propane gas heater that squatted on the floor next to the television in the den. The hall was generally partitioned off with a heavy curtain to wall in the heat.
The gas heat would warm one side at a time and the benefit of it soon faded. Most of the time, we wore sweaters to help combat the cold.
There are many more memories though, than just the cold weather.
Grandma couldn’t afford to buy Christmas presents for me and all of my cousins, but we were all happy, healthy and home.
My childhood self sometimes did not understand that at the time. Christmas, when I was that age, was a time when you looked forward to getting things. It takes years of age and maturity before you realize those are not the important things.
The important things were being happy, healthy and home.
I have spent the last few days remembering those special times.
The house seemed palatial when I was growing up, but it has shrunk over time. Built in 1920 by Grandma’s sister, Ethel, my grandparents moved in January 1, 1945. It had a long porch across the front and a long hallway end-to-end down the middle. The den and kitchen were at the back of the house. The bedrooms lined the front hall. The kitchen featured a large, century old, dining table built by Grandma’s grandfather, James Griffin Jr. It was the center of our world. Grandma’s place was always closest to the refrigerator and stove. That was her domain.
Her table was always loaded down with good food. If you went away hungry, it was your own fault. There were few rules, but among them were take off your hat, the men folks had to have a shirt on and you had to be polite and pass the bowls from right to left when they came to you. I don’t remember anything from that table that wasn’t good. I suppose the thing that stands out to me is her biscuits. They were about the size of the inside of the palm of your hand. They were perfect. And, as a purist, I never would sully them with butter, jelly or syrup.
At the end of the table, in the corner, was the safe, or as my Grandma called it, the “safet”. It had a wooden latch that swiveled, but I don’t think that ever kept us from the good stuff that was stored inside it.
There generally were cakes, pies, cookies and candy of all kinds and sorts.
With all that large assembly of family, we ate in shifts and at smaller, folding tables, and at the bar in the kitchen — all set up wherever there was room.
Even in December, if the weather was nice, some of us ate outside along the breezeway at the “pump shed” as Grandma called it.
There we would sit and talk about the latest happenings in our lives.
When the weather was nice, the kids all went out to play kick ball or freeze tag. We had to watch out for her old timey rose bushes, because they would reach out and tag you, too. Grandma had a couple of dogs over that time, Buster and later, C.J., who thought they were kids, too, and would romp and run with us.
Thinking back on all these things this week, I have a new appreciation for everyone being happy, healthy and home.
Those things, my friends, can’t be bought with all the silver and gold on earth.
• Jason Deal is a staff writer for The Blackshear Times. Reach him at [email protected].
