Dear Family,

This warm Christmas Day reminds me of one 30 years ago when temperatures were also in the sixties and Tresine and Audrey enjoyed riding their new bikes up and down the driveway all day long.

And it also reminds me of the warm Christmas Day in 1955 when I received from Santa the wished-for bride doll.  The backstory is that earlier that month, returning home from school, I happened upon Mama at the sewing machine making a tiny dress, and she told me she was making clothes for the new baby (due in a couple of months.)  Puzzled, I inquired, "But what if it's a boy? "   The next day I found her making a pair of tiny corduroy pants (to cover her story.)   When Christmas Day came, I discovered a little red suitcase filled with clothes that fit my new bride doll, which wore a lovely satin gown with delicate pearls around the heart-shaped neckline.  As I carried my prized doll outside on that warm Christmas Day, all of a sudden it came to me that Mama, not Santa, had made all those doll clothes--for I recognized one of the dresses and the little corduroy pants.

In February when nearly-ten-pound Jack arrived, he was way too big for any of the clothes anyway!  Here is Mama about that time.

And here is Dad around the same time:

In 1955 we lived near Burkesville, KY, where I was in second grade at the school where Dad was principal.  Always one to promote exercise, no matter where we lived during my childhood, one to the first things Dad did was hang a swing from the tallest tree and fashion a wooden seat with notched edges for holding the two sides of the rope.  How I loved the tall swing at that Burkesville House.  I would pump my legs and fly as high as I could, and I can still remember the exhilaration and joy of swinging in all those homemade swings. 

Love, 

Sylvia