Robert Frank Remembers Christmas

 

Many nights in my father’s home with seven children we would circle around the table, a coal oil lamp in the center to give light, while we read and prepared lessons for school the next day.  Sometimes one would read a little too loudly or shake the table in writing and Father was called to help us compromise.  This helped us to be considerate of one another and love grew and waxed strong in the family.

 

Christmas day was always my dear mother’s day, and as the family grew and began making homes for themselves, Mother still had that Christmas dinner for all until she reached the age of 65 or 70.  I remember her last dinner when Father said, “We have eaten the last of our roosters, and it’s too much work for Mother so this will be it.”  We did continue to meet often, but Mother was the guest.  Father lived past eighty and Mother past 93.  They were so kind and loving.

 

Now about this time we had one ward in Smithfield.  The Tabernacle was our church building.  Bishop George Farrell was the head of the ward when the building was started in the year 1882.  I can remember well of one Christmas eve when the ward had a tree and Santa.  After the program, Santa gave out gifts.  I received a long telescope which I could use to look at the lights, and the crystals inside looked like the stars in the sky at night.

 

I will relate one instance of my faith in Santa.  I can’t remember my age at that time, but I can remember of the family hanging their long woolen stockings which my dear mother knit, under the mantle on a rod behind the wood stove.  That night my older brother and I were sleeping together in a bedroom on the second floor of my father’s home which we built in 1878.  I awoke and looked out of the window and saw lights flickering upon the snow.  I woke my brother and said, “I think old Santa has come as I saw his lights.”

 

Now thinking back at that time, I am sure the light was from Father Santa’s candle going about the room while Mother Santa was filling the stockings.  Well, later we slipped quietly down the steps in our nightgowns.  The steps seemed to squeak and woke father.  He said, “You go back to bed.  It’s not morning yet.”

 

Well, we obeyed after unpinning our stockings and taking them to bed with us.  They were filled with nuts, apples, oranges, candy, and home-made cookies.  Next morning when we went downstairs, there on the mantle were some cloth mittens, shoes, games, and one thing I was happy about, a single-shot air rifle.

 

Written by Robert Frank Tidwell for The Citizen on November 30, 1972