Christmas is for making memories.
Getting together with friends and family, remembering anew "the true meaning of Christmas," savoring good food, enjoying seasonal decorations, sharing, cherishing the small gifts, struggling to reconcile fact and fantasy - these are all elements of a precious time of the year, say some residents of northern Carroll County.
Rachel DuBard is 68, retired and back home in the Jefferson community after spending 25 years as a missionary in Africa.
"When I was growing up," she said, "Christmas was getting new clothes, a bicycle maybe you had to share with someone else. Today, it's all about the birth of Jesus Christ and the things He did that we might have eternal life."
Her spiritual focus as an adult notwithstanding, DuBard's childhood memories mingle warmly with those from a lifetime of Christmases spent with her family in the same quiet community, where the cornerstone of all of it is her church, Liberty Baptist. She is now the church's Sunday School director and Women's Missionary Union coordinator.
When she was a child in the 1940s, "Santa Claus would come at home.
Then we'd come to our grandparents' house, right here in Jefferson, where Dad and his brothers and sisters were born," she said. "Our first cousins, and there were many, would wear a new sweater, a jacket, boots, shoes, and bring games Santa Claus had brought us. We would enjoy the good food, too, right here where we are at this moment."
Nowadays, it's "nieces and nephews and one grand-nephew," plus other older family members who get together.
Her grandmother, Mrs. Jesse DuBard, cooked traditional feasts. "Chicken and dressing, potato pies - oh, so good! She made her own cranberry sauce from fresh cranberries, I remember that very well. It was better than what we buy in cans today, of course."
These days, cooking duties are shared, and there's a different home to come to, although very thoroughly "broken in" since the old house burned in 1972.
"After learning the truth about Santa Claus, I remember being amazed that my parents could really get for me the things I'd really dreamed of," DuBard said. Live trees were rounded up, and, she said, "we always had an angel on top of the tree."
Yvonne Gray, whose modest-sized yard north of Carrollton is turned each year into a sort of wonderland of elves, angels, candy canes and wise men, obviously has Christmas on the brain.
This year, she and her husband, Sheriff Don Gray, have a new family member, 11-month-old Chip Gray, who is bringing a fresh focus.
"Now, I hope Don and I can raise Chip to know the true meaning of Christmas," she said. "I want him to know to the best of our ability not to let the fantasy part rule."
As she was growing up with two older brothers, she remembered, "We'd go to church Sunday night and exchange gifts, then we'd go home, and there was Santa Claus. You know there comes a time when suddenly Santa Claus 'isn't real,' and I got it all confused.
"Now, Chip isn't going to have an older brother or sister running around saying 'There's not a Santa Claus.' When the time comes, I don't want him to grasp for the understanding the way I had to," Mrs. Gray said.
Gray said he and his wife have had an early Christmas gift from their son. "Last Sunday night, he took his first several steps by himself."
A Christmas memory that stands out for him comes from when he was 9 or 10. "Mom and Dad had bought me a toy gun. I found where it was hidden, and she let me slip it out and play with it while Dad was away. She may have really told him what she was doing, but I really thought we were keeping it from him," Gray said.
Mrs. Gray said, "I was always more excited about the brown bag of goodies than about presents. Each of us had one with our names on it after Santa had left. One year I remember my brothers told me if I'd go to bed, they'd wake me up when Santa came. They went outside and rang bells. When I woke up they told me I might not be able to see Santa, but I could hear him."
This was in "1967 or 1968, when I was about 7,"she said.
She has always loved viewing outside decorations, and the Grays have been adding to their own display over a period of 8 or 9 years. They get their painted plywood cutouts from Mrs. Buddy Shackael in Montgomery County.
"One of our favorites is a Nativity scene we got three years ago and have added to. It's all right to decorate for Christmas, but we shouldn't leave Christ out," Gray said.
"Each year I make a manger and put some hay in it to set the images on. This year, we added a lighted cross."
The Grays estimate there are 56 Christmas characters in their yard display, and they're planning on more next year.
Chancery Clerk Sugar Mullins remembers "waking up and smelling the apples and oranges. You knew Santa had made it. Then we'd go to our grandmother's in the Valley community, where Dad's family grew up.
Her name was Willie Clementine Mullins. We didn't get all that much for Christmas, nothing like what kids get today. Some fireworks, maybe."
County offices being closed through Monday, Mullins hopes to be able to execute a special Christmas deer hunting trip with his young son, Taylor.
Carey and Robert Deaton, whose family enclave farther out New Bethel Road from Carrollton has attracted many spectators this season, spell "Merry Christmas" in red wood letters 28 inches high in front of the splendid evergreen her grandfather, Malcolm Dunn, whose home is next door, set out years earlier.
"Robert's a carpenter, and he cut out the figures from patterns, and I painted them," Carey Deaton said. "He made the Santa and sleigh three years ago for the hospital's float in the Greenwood parade then just set them up out here. We added reindeer this year."
Both Deatons work for Greenwood Leflore Hospital.
Other stars in the display include the metal pink flamingos a pal gave her, which are outlined in tiny lights, and on their house, a scene of elves with "disgusted looks" on their faces pushing up Santa.
All of the decorating and other trappings of the holiday may be good fun, but what Carey Deaton has to say about the "true meaning of Christmas" is this: "It's when family gets together - and 'pigging out,' of course. I can't think of anything I want for Christmas except for us all to be together."
