The Coral Gables Times

Chimney Piece thought of filling them to overflowing

BY PEARL BUCK author of "The Good Earth," "Imperial Woman," "A Bridge for Passing," etc. now. I have been busy all this while, half remembering, half thinking, and in between listening to the music from the other room. "What Child is this—on Mary's ...east—" We sang the carols as every family does, every year, and we will sing them again this year around the piano, the young mothers holding their babies, the young mothers, whose mother I am, and the babies will listen, wide-eyed. THE MIDDLE-SIZED stockings next, and these belong to my youngest daughters, those whom the world has given to me, one from Germany, two from Japan, fathers American soldiers, beautiful world children who by some good fortune for me found their way to this house and to me as their mother. Sixteen, four...en, and thirteen, and a ring goes into the toes of two stockings and a gold thimble into the toe of the third, for the one who likes to sew. "No candy this year, please, Mother," and so no sweets to these fastidious three who are beginning to know they are pretty. I put in the lipstick for the eldest, and next year I shall have to put in a lipstick for the next one. Fifteen is the beginning of such decorations in our family, but a necklace goes in for each one, a silver hand-wrought necklace bought in Darjeeling, when I was there visiting the Tibetan refugees last spring. They are brave people, working hard to support themselves though exiled from their beloved and beautiful mountain country. I write a little message to go with the necklaces. "Wear this with reverence for the pair of hands that worked so carefully to make something beautiful." I am glad, too, that I bought the Tibetan jackets for the little boys and the gay Tibetan dresses for the tiny girls. I am glad I bought the hand-wrought brass candlesticks for the young married ones, I am glad I bought the two fine rugs for myself. I want to remember those noble people working to begin life again, anxious not to become a burden to their Indian hosts. Ah, here is a treasure for my tall, dark-eyed daughter, an emerald, rough-cut, from India. She is clever with her crafts, and she will set it into a gold ring, or perhaps a clip. That goes into the toe of a very long stocking, so long that I wonder if I can fill it. A fan from Japan, that helps, and then the nonsense things, and last of all a paperback book for the top. It is of course essential that every stocking must appear to bulge and certainly to overflow at the top. Dolls, of course, for the tiny girls, little dolls, not competing with big ones under the Christmas tree, and small trucks for the small boys, not competing with large vehicles to-morrow, and for the older ones the paperback books that curl up nicely, or any other such objects that protrude pleasantly from stockings. Candy canes always, for what is a Christmas stocking without a candy cane, red-and-white-striped, harmless to all alike? The value of stockings is apparent on Christmas morning when the older folk must get breakfast ready—a simple breakfast, remembering turkey and plum pudding later, ample in numbers, however. While the table is set, with the orange juice and eggs and bacon in preparation, the stockings are unpacked. The little ones concentrate on the delightful task, and the older ones perform the same task en route between table and stove. By the time we sit down the stockings are limp again, and between sips and mouthfuls we exclaim and compare and the little boys swallow with dangerous haste, so that they can get down on the floor and run their cars. BUT THAT is tomorrow morning, and it is still Christmas Eve. I finish the last stocking and hang it on the chimney piece and sit down in the big chair to survey the noble work. A fine array, each year more stockings than the last, and peace descends. It is almost midnight. I wait, as we always did, until I hear Big Ben from London. The logs are a mass of coals, crimson under the gray ash. The music comes to a close in the other room, and the one who made it tiptoes in and curls up beside me on the floor. I put out my hand and she takes it. Mother and daughter we wait. Midnight. Across the ocean we hear the bells in London. Christmas Eve is ended again for another year. I refuse the mist of sadness that might envelop me if I allowed it. Tomorrow is Christmas Day. This silent room will be filled with life, new life, life renewed. Another Christmas, for this world in peril, and goodwill too scarce, but, thank God, another Christmas!

ILLUSTRATION BY GERRY GERSTEN

Suburbia Today, December 1962 11