It was nearly Christmas and my dad was laid up in a Shreveport hospital recovering from kidney stone surgery. That was a major ordeal back then.
When it became obvious that he would not be back on his feet in time to take care of all the things he did for the holidays, my mother went into a long crying spell.
She didn’t drive at night or out of town, so neighbors and church friends were taking her to Shreveport every day to the hospital. My brother and I went along on a few of the visits.
My dad assured us that he would be out in time to find a good Christmas tree in the woods by the mill ponds. Then he would build a stand to mount the tree at a lopsided angle as he always did.
He took care of other holiday details like getting holly and mistletoe for decorations, climbing a ladder to get the big star on top of the tree and coordinating the Christmas Eve fireworks show.
It was Dad who sat at the dining room table a few weeks before Christmas every year with a Sears-Roebuck catalog helping Santa decide what to bring everybody.
We figured he had probably already taken care of all that before the kidney stone knocked him down, but my mother was not sure. She didn’t get involved in juggling the savings account, loans and monthly installments that were needed to help Santa with Christmas.
When the doctors finally told us that he would not be out for the holidays, my brother and I started thinking of things that needed to be done before all the kinfolks arrived. My mother cried.
She managed to get herself together enough to start making the fruitcakes, divinity candy, pecan pies and other sweets she always cooked for Christmas and to plan the holiday meal.
My dad never did any of the cooking anyway, so his absence would not be a factor in the big Christmas dinner of fresh ham, turkey, chicken, cornbread dressing, candied sweet potatoes and other things my mother made every year.
But just a day or two before relatives would start arriving from Texas, Florida and up north for the holidays, we still didn’t have a tree and other decorations.
My mother unlocked the hall closet where Dad hid the things from Sears that he asked Santa to bring us. When she discovered that he had not finished the shopping before his emergency surgery, she cried again.
With Christmas just a couple of days away, we visited my dad in the hospital. He asked us to make a long distance call to one of his paper mill friends. I think his name was Mr. Fryer.
I knew it was an important call not only because he asked us to step out of the room but also because he didn’t talk on the phone long distance unless there had been a death in the family or something like that.
The next day, some men came to the house with a Christmas tree and put it up straighter than ever. They placed the star on top and helped my mother with lights, silver garlands, icicles and other ornaments that shined and shimmered from the big evergreen tree.
They hung mistletoe and holly from window sills and doorways, sneaked secret packages into the hall closet and created a stockpile of roman candles, firecrackers, bottle rockets and other fireworks on the front porch.
Kinfolks came after stopping by to visit my dad at the hospital. The Christmas dinner was a feast as usual. All us kids marveled at more presents than we ever expected. My uncle helped us have one our best fireworks displays ever.
My dad loved everything about Christmas but especially the days that he and his paper mill friends delivered food and toys to needy families.
We were not considered needy except for being deprived of our dad that Christmas, and the mill men came through to make our holiday brighter as they had been doing for people in that community for years.
When Dad got home a couple of days after Christmas, he saw the perfectly straight tree and all the other decorations. He flashed his famous smile and said it looked as if Santa had made it even without him.
My brother and I showed him our skates, BB guns and other presents, and our mother cried some more.