A Very Peggy Christmas

There is no Christmas like a Peggy Christmas.  I think about it every year, because I have adopted Peggy’s Christmas rules.  Like, each kid will have an equal number of gifts under the tree.  Even if you have to wrap a box of Nestle’s hot chocolate to “equalize” things. 

As soon as Thanksgiving was over, Peggy would start getting excited about Christmas.  She sang “It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas!”  and did a little prance/dance while she sang it.  Peggy BLASTED Handel’s Messiah through the house while she rolled logs of cheese biscuit dough for freezing and beautified the house with floral arrangements she designed herself:

Yes that is a framed picture of Robert E. Lee.  Don't judge.
 

Stringing lights on the Christmas tree was an ordeal.  Lots of screaming at Dad and us until we all just left the room so she could just do it “her damn self.”  Gifts accumulated in old white boxes under her bed.  These boxes were re-used for a decade – our names scratched off and new names assigned.  My favorite part about the boxes under her bed is that they remained unwrapped until right before Christmas.  So, if I had a big date or a party to go to, Peggy would typically sigh and say “alright I’ll be right back!” and would return with a pretty sweater meant for Christmas, but gifted early because the time was right.  Peggy procrastinated wrapping the presents because she found a slow accumulation under the tree revolting.  It was best to just sling them all out there at once and get the hyper-consumer humiliation over swiftly.  Also, she hated wrapping presents.  Which is why some of them were only sort of wrapped.

Peggy’s tendency to overdo gifting extended beyond our family.  Does your church have an Angel Tree?  Ours did, and we would review the sad paper-angels together.  “Denise” wants a pair of size 12 jeans.  Her sons, ages 4 and 5, would like new underpants and a t-shirt.  Peggy could not stand for this.  So we would pile in the carpeted van and haul off to the Wal Mart where Peg would select entire wardrobes, gadgetry, towels, makeup and whatever toys were “in” at the time.  These angel families were treated like extended members of the Lawton family.  I will never forget the year she bought a microwave oven. 

 

But back to us.  So you do not worry whether the Lawtons were conducting a FoxNews War on Christmas, we knew the Reason for the Season in Peggy’s house.  We talked about the beautiful story at length.  Nativities were all over the house.  (Nativities were so important to Peg that when Ginny and I got married we both were gifted with nativity sets worthy of a church narthex).

She sang hymns all the time – off key, but still.  Scripture verses were taped up all over the house in weird places, like behind the cabinet door where you go to fetch the trash bags.  She was so pleased when I agreed to sing Oh Holy Night as a duet in the Christmas Eve Service.  When I asked her how I sounded, she said “nasal.”       

Christmas cards.  Peggy sent them. Grouped us together and tried to get us to smile: 

 

Y’all, say CHICKENSHIT!

Will, don’t smile like that.

 

We are going to do this ONE MORE TIME!  Will, smile like a normal person.  Say BOOGERS!

 

 

DAMMIT WILL!! THIS IS OUR CHRISTMAS CARD PICTURE.  SMILE!!!

 

Santa mysteriously knew what I wanted every year.  I don’t know how he knew because I don’t remember asking.  The year I "adopted" a Cabbage Patch doll was magical, as my doll was so pretty.  She looked like this:

And she happened to have been assigned the EXACT SAME NAME as my childhood imaginary friend:  Alice Alicee.  It was on her birth certificate.

Gin got a Cabbage Patch Doll too that year, but I think Peggy was trying to teach Gin a lesson in diversity, or vocational possibilities, as her adoptee was a Hispanic- American Circus Conductor:

 

The next year Santa tried again, because the Cabbage Patch dolls were still the rage.  I think Gin got this doll the next year:

For some reason Gin always felt jilted after Christmas.  I don’t know if it was because my stocking was a custom made felt piece of art and hers, well, had glitter on it . .

Gin may have always felt jilted because her presents were usually a "cousin" of my presents.  The same Barbie, but not as cute.  The same sweater, but in a weird color.  A keyboard the year after Gin quit piano lessons. 

To be fair to Peg, Ginny brought most of this on herself because she didn’t really LIKE anything.  Other times of the year, Peg would give us each $10 to spend in the toy store.  Will would go straight to the Star Wars junk.  I always got a Barbie.  Gin would scan the aisles, not sure if I want that, not sure if I need that, not sure.  She really liked the year Santa brought her a weaving loom.

The truth was, Christmas was most always for Will.  In the weeks leading up to Christmas, Peggy would tell us “this is Will’s Christmas.”  She was trying to justify purchasing not one of the insanely expensive Star Wars spaceships, but all three.

I don’t remember Gin and I being particularly jealous.  His toys were always so interesting.

Huh.  Wonder what Will got?

 

It’s not as if Peggy favored him.  It was just, he was WILL.  Look at the most adorable child in your household.  Now imagine that your child is 10 times more adorable than that even.  This was Will.

Notice this is not the same Christmas as the one above.  This is a DIFFERENT Christmas, with three DIFFERENT Star Wars spaceships.

Also, from the time he was TINY Will completely understood Christmas.  At least the Santa/Presents part.  He made so many requests, Peggy kept a little booklet in her bedside table so she could keep up with it all.  When Will entered the living room on Christmas morning, he didn’t dive like in to his gifts like Gin and I did.  Instead, he behaved like the manager of a store stockroom. Are all of these items in place and properly constructed?  Are there any important items missing?

I will complete the buttoning of my footed pajamas at a later time.

Ginny says her best Christmas ever was the year Will got his go-cart.

After the explosion of wrapping paper, Peggy always made us waffles.  She pronounced it Wall-Fuls. 

 

Peggy is making Wal-Ful mix in a salad bowl.  That's popcorn on top of the fridge.  In a doctor's family, you get lots of prescription drug samples year round, and duplicate tins of popcorn that say "Valium" on the top at Christmas.

 

And Noni was there.  Peggy’s mom wasn’t like other grandmothers.  You know how your grandmother bakes wonderful enticing goodies every Christmas?  You know how she spoiled you with gifts and special ornaments?  Yes, Noni was not like that.  Noni pretty much tolerated us at Christmas.   

I miss my Noni tolerating me.

It has been over a decade since she has been with us, and Peggy still gets sad every year.  Actually, the time where Peggy gets sad about her Momma starts sooner every year.  Like this year, when she asked me “you know how blue I get this time of year?” I really had to think about it, because the nearest holiday was Labor Day.

So Peggy Christmas ended the same every year.  Back in the van, everyone holding a paperback novel, and off to the movies.  (The novels were important because we got to the movies too early).  Once the movie was over, back to the house to eat the chocolate pound cake with fudge icing.  Peggy’s pound cake did not have an empty circular center, because she filled that hole up with fudge.  This was as it should be.

I think this is the first year I won’t see Peggy for Christmas.  She’s at Gin’s house.  But I will honor her.  I am going to sing some hymns later.  My kids will enjoy an obnoxious explosion of gifts.  I have wrapped a box of Nestle’s hot chocolate.  I said some swear words trying to make a Christmas card.

And if I get my way, tomorrow we will go to a movie.