Across the centuries,
in alien land,
Once wise men knelt and dreamed of kingdoms won -
Unsceptered still the Christ - child's open hand,
Yet they perceived great destiny begun.
Bitter the fare of
our atomic day,
Diminished now the glory of their dream,
For many things for which we used to pray
Now most unlikely and illusive seem.
Yet where the
Christmas candles shed their light,
Behold how kind the face of Christ tonight !
"On Christmas Eve
we light the candles in the windows to light the Christ Child in, and this is a testament
of faith. I always hope the real spirit of the Christ Child will burn in our hearts as
clearly as the pointed candle flame. And although I love the new elegant candles - the
little winged angels and cherubs and the big twisted heavy red and blues and whites - I am
always mindful that it is the flame that matters."
When the first snow arrives, I really give
myself up to winter. The air comes cold and sharp and there is a quickening in the blood,
a feeling that the seasons are rolling around quite the way they should, and all is well.
Snow has fallen heavily for two days. In the country the dogs are happy. They roll in it,
they gulp great mouthfuls, they shake their fur ecstatically, they race up and down and
around the house.
The Book of Stillmeadow
 The
snow falls so softly, with such tranquil flakes. It is the quietest thing in all the
world, except perhaps the midnight moon on still summer water. Around Thanksgiving we may
get snow, usually a scurry of clouds and whirling light frothy snow. But the week before
Christmas we begin to see the sky colored like the breast of a seagull, and the air has an
intensity about it as dark falls sudden and soon.
Then one day it comes, first one starry flake, then a few more, and
whiteness silently fills the whole air. Now it is really snowing!
The little towns in the valley are beautiful in the snow. All the doorways are green with
pine; the tall trees in the center of the village greens are blossoming with colored
lights and red and blue and green balls. The children pull their sleds out, although the
grass is hardly covered yet. In their warm peaked caps and bunny suits and fuzzy mittens
and boots, they look like children from a German fairy tale. At the post office the
villagers gather, the men stamp their galoshes on the stoop and cast an eye at the sky,
and wait to hear what Ed Munson says about the weather. Ed has been watching the weather
for eighty years, and he knows how long it will snow.
Stillmeadow Seasons
In the city the
street - cleaning department looks on snow as a crisis. There is always a terrible to - do
over snow in New York. One would think New York was a tropical city, and snow an unheard-
of phenomenon. Generally, before the snow is carted away there are various battles. The
head of one department accuses the head of another department of inefficiency. Taxpayers
write in to papers about their streets. The mayor issues orders to car owners. The taxis
never have chains; they skid into one another and the drivers get out and shout furiously.
The snow is loaded in trucks with machines like hay loaders. Finally, as the last load
roars away, the weather turns warm and it rains.
We shovel the paths
at Stillmeadow with an old broken coal shovel. Or else we flounder from drift to drift in
careless fashion. Nature in the raw is easier to take in the country - perhaps that is it.
 Star has just come in with ice - balls
between her toes. she wants them all taken out, and she says so quite plainly. Ronnie
looks like a black seal against the white bank of snow. Sunbonnet has snow on her absurdly
long black lashes. But Honey, of course, stays quite dry, even in the snow. A few flakes
may lie on her tawny coat, but she shakes them off and walks dry - footed to the fire.
Little Pussy flies through the air like a swift dark bird. The earth will hardly hold that
one, with her wild shy spirit. sometimes I think the two pussies are only mortal because
they love their humans.
Spring Night and Seductive both quiver with ecstasy when they are held,
but there's a faraway look in their eyes just the same. Big Pussy grows a bush of fur in
winter; it makes her face look like a baby panda's.
"Do they
really understand what you say to them?" asked a non - doggy guest. "You just
talk to them like people."
"Every
single word," I assured her.
I am
constantly amazed at their understanding. They do respond to every word - or to the tone
quality of the word, which is more important. Perhaps they wouldn't get so much if they
were spoken to in a monotone. But the only limit to their understanding is the range and
color of my own voice. Everything I can express they respond to. If I tell them something
exciting is going to happen, they are wild with excitement. They prance, throw balls in
the air, skip around the furniture, jump all over me, and their tails spin like tops. The
littlest puppy will listen as I say, "Oh, why didn't you use the paper?" and fly
to me to be comforted for his own mistake. "Who's my own darling Honey?" brings
on an attack of devotion from even the remote and beautiful one.
Ronnie talks back. He murmurs under his breath, interspersing his
remarks with long sighs. Meanwhile he lies upside down in my arms, and when I stop rubbing
his stomach he lifts a paw and taps me, much after the manner of Grandma Star.
"Go
on," the paw insists, "go on. I like this."
It's a
good thing to read a few lines of poetry before going to bed, in between letting cats in
and dogs out. This winter I meant to reread also such books as Walden and the
letters of Keats, and Wuthering Hights, and all of Katherine Mansfield - I can't
read her often enough.
I wish Katherine Mansfield could be a visitor at Stillmeadow. she would
feel the beauty of every small branch; she would understand Esmé. Probably our cockers would be too vigorous for her, except for the
remote honey. I would have her tea absolutely boiling. Imagine sitting by the fire with
Katherine Mansfield, while her bright delicate wit enchanted the household.
Sometimes I play a game with myself on these snow - deep days when even
the mailman comes only as far as the corner. I choose an imaginary companion, and how real
and close they come. My friends range from Charlotte Brontė to Keats. I'd love to have
Emily, but she wouldn't come. Charlotte is easier, though shy and retiring. Keats goes
right down to the fruit cellar to see the "lucent syrops tinct with cinnamon,"
the jams and jellies. Keats had such a zest of life, a rich and deep perception of beauty.
I don't feel so much at home with Shelley. Any minute he might turn
that dazzling gaze on me and say, "Let's try the great adventure now," and set
the house on fire. He was slightly notional. Byron, I admit I would rather meet at someone
else's house. but Byron would be horribly bored with me. Not being dark or slim or
beautiful, never being able to "walk in beauty like the night," I wouldn't get
any attention from Byron and I wouldn't have the kind of small talk to carry it off.
Now, in the deep heart of winter, the heart turns in on itself for content. Imaginary
companions, music, poetry, whatever the wind cannot assail nor the snow bury, have their
season. If you are really isolated, as we are so much of this month, you dig down into
your own resources.
The Book of Stillmeadow
In a queer sort of way, we New Englanders are proud of winter. We have had
many hard winters, some easy ones, some almost arctic ones. But I haven't heard anyone
complain about the weather. "Quite a storm," the postman may say, "but we
have to expect it."
"Pretty cold last night," says the grocer. "Went down to
ten below on my thermometer. This time of year we generally have some cold."
Even when it took our neighbor, Joe, four hours to shovel us out after
one storm last winter, he only said, "Lot of snow fell this time."
Cars stall, motors freeze, wires go down sometimes. Roads drift deep in
powdery snow. Branches crack and crash down. But neighbors get out to help one another and
there is a good deal of joshing as to whose thermometer falls to the lowest mark. Winter,
I think, is a common denominator, as well as a challenge to Yankee staying power.
Stillmeadow Sampler
I know there are people who
come out even with their Christmas wrappings, but I am not one of them. I always run out
of silver tying cord while I still have yards and yards of splendid paper left. Or I have
so much ribbon that the cats play all over the house trailing it in clouds of glory while
I search frantically for just one more bit of star paper for that last book. Sometimes I
wonder if those sets of ready - matched wrappings would solve the problem, but in my heart
I know they wouldn't. Because no two presents are the same size.
I always hope my friends will like the gifts as well as I do. I love
things, pretty, fragile, colorful things. Buying the right present for someone is a heady
and exhilarating joy.
The loveliest part of Christmas is often an unexpected remembrance. A
box of gardenia sachet in white satin made me glow all day last year because it came from
an admired and well - loved person.
My mother always said that she wanted to express her feelings about
people while she and they were still alive. She sent many a little gift surreptitiously,
and bought many a small bunch of flowers for friends. "I don't believe in sending
flowers to funerals," she said, with a lift of her fine, dark brows. "It's while
we live we need flowers!"
When I think of my mother, I know how much she knew of gracious living,
and wish that I, too, could have her fine quality of living like a gentle lady, warm, and
wise, and generous. And I wish I could tell her, as the year rolls around, her daughter
still tries to walk in the ways she trod, stumbling often, but very willing.
The Christmas presents are
stacked under the tree on Christmas Eve. and the best - loved are not the most expensive,
but the ones that make you feel the giver just knew what you liked! Homemade are the
dearest; they involve effort and thought. The best one of my whole childhood was the
doll's house my father built all himself, a magnificent edifice with a front porch and
railing, an elevator, and a fireplace in the parlor. Every room had different wallpaper,
and there were carpets from wall to wall. that was a long time ago, the doll house gone
the way of all things; but in my memory it is still flawless. The tiny baby rocks forever
in the pink, lacy bassinet. And the mother dressed in black lace, stands forever in the
parlor on a bright green carpet!
We have a family
characteristic that we have always had. We often buy gifts and secrete them - and forget
them. They turn up in odd places later in the year, and are greeted with pleasant
surprise. In fact, a pair of pajamas I bought for Cicely last Christmas turned up just in
time to put under the tree this year! Any way you look at it, this adds an element of zest
to closet - cleaning and drawer straightening. Almost anything may turn up. And it is
rather nice in August to discover a new manicure set labeled happily, MERRY CHRISTMAS.
There are two distinct schools of thought about Christmas gifts. One
school believes gifts must be luxuries, never anything you need. The other believe people
should get what they actually and badly need. I veer wildly between the two schools. I
indulge in a useless gadget like a box of sachet, and proceed to stockings and underwear.
Books go to my head like strong drink, because books belong in both categories. Who could
live without them?
As we get ready for Christmas
I go over the jars in the fruit cellar, for I think homemade jams and jellies are fine
gifts. I always make a little damson plum conserve and some extra chili sauce and garden
special for friends who cannot put things up. Gifts of good food are welcome anywhere now.
The gifts I love most are those that make me think the giver has a
personal feeling about me. I have two handmade dishcloths which I treasure because of the
thought that went into them. But the loveliest gift I have had in a long time was not a
Christmas gift.
I met a group of people at a neighbor's swimming pool one breathless
August day. One woman wore a pair of flat disk earrings, and being an earring addict I
couldn't help saying, "Oh, how beautiful your earrings are!"
Eight months later we met frequently and became friends. One day we
were having a farewell class in flower arranging, when Ruth came up to me and said,
"I have a little something I want you to have. Hold out your hand, and please don't
object. "I held out my hand and she put something in it, and when I looked, there
were those earrings!
"This," I thought. "is what giving really means. All
those months she remembered how much I admired them, and knew how pleased I would be to
wear them." And I thought, "If all the world could get a small bit of this
generosity, we should not worry about problems, for there would be none. What a happy
world we should have!
Loving - kindness is what we need. And it does not involve money; it
involves the heart. So as I get ready for this Christmas season, I wish every woman could
stop the fretting and rushing and buying, which is making inflation a monster to swallow
us all, and simply sit down and think of what she has right in her home that someone would
enjoy. If the gift says, "I cherish the thought of you, my friend," it is a fine
gift.
Christmas we must keep. We
must have a tree, and sing carols and light the candle for the Christ child. For we are
dedicated, in American life, to the preserving of certain ideals.
As we celebrate this year, we must resolve to keep our lives free of
racial intolerance, from bigotry and hate. We must do everything we can do to defeat
cruelty in our own country.
I must think of these matters, and as we let the candlelight shine over
new -fallen snow in our small spot of earth, I must remember the long centuries which have
passed since this birth. I think of all the great and good men who have walked the earth,
giving their strength and their lives for humanity. There have been enough of them to
counter - balance these others - yes, there have been enough.
And surely Christmas is a time to rededicate ourselves to the good, the true, the
beautiful. To remember our own dead under white crosses, and keep Christmas for them, too.
Please
Continue on to Page Two of Christmas at Stillmeadow
Or,
See
Gladys' "Christmas Blessing" page
Gladys
Taber: Page 1 / Gladys Taber: Page 2
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Email me at: stillmeadow@oocities.com
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The
music you are listening to is, " Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring" - by J.S.
Bach
Portions of
the photograph at the top of the page are not real.
The house is, but I painted an image of Gladys into it.
Webpage design by Susan Stanley
I created this background and title
graphic especially for this site.
Please do not take.
Copyright © 1997, 1998. Susan Stanley.
(I did not make the bells, bird line, red bow, tree, holly,
cardinals or the mailbox.)
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