Aunt Connie's Christmas

My Aunt Connie loved Christmas.

I'm not sure how her love for the holiday began, but I vividly remember when I was first introduced to her brand of holiday celebration.

It must have started with a subscription to Southern Living or some other fancy decorating magazine. I don't know that for sure. All I really know is that we ended up in Alabama one December and received a verbal invitation to tour my Aunt Connie's house. We're not a formal family. The invite was probably something like, "Y'all have GOT to go see Connie's Christmas decorations."

It was a sight to behold. I had never known anyone to put a Christmas tree in every room. There was a peppermint tree and a gumdrop tree and a several other full-sized evergreens all decked out in colored lights and shiny tinsel.

I distinctly remember Aunt Connie proudly showing us the flickering poinsettia candles floating in her bathtub. I thought right then and there that my Aunt Connie must be rich. I had never known anybody with floating candles before.

That must have been the beginning of Aunt Connie's Christmas obsession. Each year after that she added decorations to her display, inside and out.

When my hometown changed up their Christmas decorations, they sold or gave them to Cave Spring, a much smaller little hamlet halfway between our house and my Aunt Connie's. That, of course, meant Cave Spring had extra Christmas decorations, and they put their old ones up for sale. My Aunt Connie bought them and added them to her display, which had spread to the vacant lot beside her house and the barnyard across the street.

It's the barn that I remember most.

An angel in the hayloft watched over a nativity down below, and it was all illuminated by the wonderful warm bonfire my Uncle Johnny (or some cousin) built in front of the barn. Circled by a ring of rectangular hay bales, my family gathered night after night from Thanksgiving to New Year's Eve, toasting marshmallows, roasting weiners, picking guitars and singing.

My dad would bring his guitar, and one of my aunts or uncles would inevitably say he was the best straight-out picker these parts had ever known. A couple of years I brought my friend Michelle to join in the sacred circle. Michelle could make a banjo talk, and my family immediately fell in love with her.

My Aunt Margie, whose clear, high tenor almost always took the lead, would sing "Daddy Looked at Lot Like Santa" and "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus." I remember my dad and his graveled baritone singing "Christmastime's a Comin'." I always wanted to join in, but I didn't. Even though I sang at school and all through the house, my family's music was sacred, and I didn't feel like I had paid the price of admission. There was a sincerity and commitment to every note that told me I didn't have a right to join in. But, oh, how I wanted to.

Why had I chosen the stupid piano for an instrument. You can't take a piano to a campfire, not that I thought my playing would be worthy go join in.

One year my Aunt Connie dressed like Mrs. Claus and she made my Uncle Johnny dress like Santa. They waved at people who drove by to see the lights and sang and smiled and laughed and loved.

I vaguely remember that there were behind the scenes dramas, usually involving moonshine or a hidden fifth or pint of cheap whiskey, but it didn't matter. This was Christmas. Crazy lights, close harmonies and family.