Merry Christmas and happy holiday to all! Christmas is a tense morning wherever the Meads gather, as we jump whenever the telephone rings. There’s an old South Carolina custom that when two friends or relations greet one another on Christmas morning, the first one who says “Christmas gift!” gets to select one of the other person’s presents. I’ve never known anybody actually to get an extra present this way, but in my family we are nothing if not determined and we all continue to try. If you call us on Christmas Day, don’t expect anybody here to answer with “Hello?” and give you a chance to say “Christmas gift!” We are onto this trick and to protect our rich hauls of presents we always answer the phone with an aggressive “Christmas gift!” to get in first. So don’t call us unless you are ready to part with a present.
For the Mead clan, this is our fifth Christmas without the woman who was for so long the heart and strength of our family. My mother died in September of 2013, and the memories of her love jostle with our grief over her loss as we gather in her absence. The Yule Blog was one of her favorite features on the site, and as her sight failed, she asked my father to read them to her in the hospital. As I go through these posts to prepare them for another year, I am sustained and encouraged to know that these essays meant something to her in that last difficult year of pain and decline—and inexpressibly sad not to be able to share them and so much else with her as the season rolls round once again.
Back when mammoths ruled the earth, a first-class postage stamp cost three cents, and my idea of a great adventure was to cross the street without holding hands, my parents used to set up a manger scene every year. During Advent, the four weeks before Christmas, Mary and Joseph would set out en route to the manger, passing through the different rooms of the house and getting a little closer each day. On Christmas Eve, they got to the manger and on Christmas morning, they would be there with the baby Jesus, an ox, a donkey, and the requisite shepherds and angels.