Rachel Beckwith was approaching her ninth birthday, complete with party-planning and all the anticipated gifts. But then she heard about Charity: Water . . .
When I first married a hundred years ago, it was understood that every Christmas morning we would migrate to my husband’s grandmother’s home for a breakfast feast shared with everyone else in the family.
It was the morning of Christmas Eve, and I was frantically trolling the aisles of Walmart (please don’t judge me . . .), looking for the last of the elusive stocking stuffers, ‘cause at our house stockings are always stuffed, most often to overflowing.
In just a week . . . seven days as I write this . . . Christmas will arrive in all its magical splendor, followed closely by the New Year with all its promises and hope.
It was December 25, 2009 and I was sitting in the combination living room/den at my in-laws’ house, surrounded by my husband’s family and a mountain of ribbons and shredded wrapping paper.
It was one of those family-gathering occasions, the kind where the house is filled with laughter and conversations and at least two children running wild.
A few weeks ago I was supposed to be in Memphis, spending a considerable amount of time in the great outdoors, specifically in cemeteries (which, if I can’t be in the middle of a forest, is the next best thing). According to the weather on my handy, dandy phone, this was not advisable.
It’s that time of year. The time when we drag our traditions out of the closets and boxes and begin spreading them about the house. When recipes and recollections join together to create new memories or give life to old ones.
Earl Columbus Strawn was 21 when he registered for the draft on June 5, 1917.
