Here on the East Coast we are experiencing a very dry and unusually cold early December. The exact conditions are unusual and triggered my remembrance of this time of year long ago. When I was three my parents had a second baby, and they decided that it was time to move from their suburban rental home in the Northeast, to a large rural home with acreage. It took them a year to find the one they both eventually agreed to. The home had been built in 1850 and though it was architecturally quite beautiful, it would take a great deal of their time, their consideration, and money for the next fifteen years. I hadn't thought of this day or evening in many years, but the weather conditions and the bitter cold and the smell of this time of year have been an effective trigger. The cold day and night in which we moved into that house is as clear today, as it was when I was three. It was a magical day, with so many things departing from the routine I had known.
My mother had packed most everything, and early that morning, my father had disassembled our beds and rented a U-Haul trailer. The trailer was smaller than they needed, but it was all that had been available. Three of my father's friends, a couple of whom worked with him at the time, came with their trucks to help him move. The men loaded everything into the trailer, and their trucks, and some of it had to go in the car with my mother, the baby and I. It still wasn't enough room, and Dad said something about having to come back after unloading to collect the items that were in the basement. I hadn't even considered that ! I realize today that the old house, and the new one were only forty miles apart, but prior to the existence of many of the interstate highways that exist in that location today, this was a long trip on back roads, especially in temperatures in the teens.
It was dark before one more friend arrived with a truck for the beds and the mattresses which we would need that night. This was very exciting to me because my mother had explained that I would be up very late that night, and I normally went to bed around six in the evening. The men who worked with my father didn't know the rural township where they had bought the house and so all of them proceeded rather slowly mostly on back roads so no one would get lost. I still remember seeing house upon house with glorious Christmas lights, first in the town we were leaving, and then in the villages, and towns in between. It was the first time I had seen Christmas lights and I still have never forgotten. By ten o'clock our caravan stopped at a restaurant that specialized in excellent hamburgers, that my father knew. I remember that I was very tired, and my toes felt frozen in my little brown boots. The hamburger restaurant was empty except for our group, and they had their heat up. They had lots of square brown tables with red and white tablecloths. I still remember being grateful for the toasty warm air. My father paid for everyone to have a hamburger or two, and I remember being shocked when the woman took my order and asked me if I wanted fried onions on it. To my way of thinking that evening, she should have known that no three year old, articulate or not, would never want fried onions on her burger with a toasted bun ! The dinner was glorious and we were all hungry in the cold. Eating did make us behind schedule, and so we proceeded in our caravan form, to the new house. In the country, there were no street lights and I wondered how anyone could know where we were. Perhaps we were all lost and the adults just didn't know yet.
The deeper into the country we got, the fewer homes had Christmas lights that year. Eventually, I must have dozed off. We all arrived at the house just before midnight. I remember all of the lights were on in the house and there were no curtains. It seemed spooky to me because the windows were so large and tall, and anyone outside could have seen into the house. My father unloaded the mattresses in a room downstairs and my mother put sheets on them. We would be sleeping in the living room that first night. My father friends unloaded furniture and placed it all on the main floor. Then they would go home. I saw my Dad giving each of them money for their generous help and for their gasoline. Despite the fact that it was now well after midnight, my father would be going back to to the other house, and collecting the items in the basement, placing them in the U Haul and bringing it to the new house before he could sleep. He also needed to return the U Haul the following day. I remember feeling badly for my father who had worked at his job that day before having to move the family. It was a terribly long day. On reflection today, I don't think it was an easy day for my mother either who packed and moved with two young children, including a breast feeding infant, but somehow her challenges escaped me as a three year old. She was also spending the night in a new rural home with a baby, and a three year old, in a home that did not yet have a telephone, and without her husband that first night. She would also need to assemble a Christmas there that year after setting up a large house.
I have never forgotten the December move to the house where I would grow up. To this day, we still get Christmas cards from one of the men who helped us move. May your Christmas memories be as enduring as this one.
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