It’s Christmas Eve – –
– – It’s Tuesday, Christmas Eve in 1974. Our 80′ long mobile home has Christmas showing everywhere, and the clock is ticking.
The Christmas Eve church service in Buffalo Lake begins at 7:00 sharp. Carrie and Kevin are prancing up and down the long hall way reciting the pieces that they will deliver with their Sunday School classes in front of the entire congregation. Kevin is so sure of his delivery that he takes time out to straddle the hall walls and climb them high enough for Carrie to walk under him, with her shrieking the entire time that he is sure to fall and mess up her hair.
Christmas Day will be at Grandpa and Grandma Wendlandt’s for the day and there are food dishes that I am preparing to take along. Grandma’s house will be festive as their four kids (me being one of them) and their children will be there. No one will be enjoying the day more than my Dad. I know he has been busy in his wood shop in the basement. The time he puts in for making unique gifts can very well hold a candle to what my Mom has been tackling on her sewing machine. It’s amazing how fast doors have closed in various parts of their home when I have popped in unexpectedly. Fun times and no one goes hungry.
As luck would have it, Orlin has been on the day shift at 3M in Hutchinson this week. Some of Orlin’s brothers and their wives are coming later this week for an evening of fun and the kids have been encouraged to keep the house tidy. Art and Julie will be coming from Hector, Arvel and Gloria are here for the holidays from Colorado, and Elroy and Marlys will be joining us from Willmer. Carrie and Kevin will have fun staying over at Grandma’s for the night. Grandma will most likely have them playing cards with lots of holiday treats.
On my list of things to do before the in-law company comes, I still do have to fix the kitchen floor. The vinyl floor that has a small tile pattern in autumn colors seems to have picked up a circular pattern of no pattern. At a time when the kids have been home alone, pop corn was fixed. Where else would you put a pan that had been picked up with a hot handle and no pot holder close by? I know I can pretty much match the colors and the random look of the tiles with my Tri-Chem oil paints and then use a poly spray to secure the colors. I am sure it may not matter if I do a great job, as I can hear Kevin declare, “Uncle Arvel, see where Mom fixed the floor?”
It has been a very cold spell and we hate to be too far from home as several times the wind would catch the pilot light on the furnace just right and . . . it could get really cold before it was noticed. I think a service call is going to have to be made.
I know that getting the kids to settle down tonight will be useless. We’ll let them stay up and take in the offerings on TV with Christmas shows after we get home from church, with the hope that they will sleep in before racing into the living room to raid the Christmas tree and their gifts that have been left.
This Christmas Eve and its hubbub is much like many before, but it is important for me to cherish them all and remember as many special events as possible. They can never be physically repeated, but the memories can be played in my mind over and over and become sweeter with time.