This picture was taken just after Christmas, me on the left as you face it, and my cousin Shelia Babe in the early 70's with my Mom's new Polaroid Camera. You know, the kind you would take the picture, the camera then spat it out, and one would flip it back and forth until magically, a picture would appear? Yeah, we were fascinated by that.... back then. I'm thinking of this now because I am surrounded by excess. Excess in the way that our family has come so far, I now witness the kids in our family SWAMPED, almost sadly, in a way, with all they may wish for...and more. Don't get me wrong, I am THANKFUL for our collective blessings, and for my family. They are good people and my gosh, we have been blessed. But, at the time this picture was taken, my family lived in a four room house, one room of which, my Dad built onto the front, the one pictured here, the living room. We had no running water. We, my Brother Randy and me, would pack our drinking water from a hand dug spring, (my Dad, indeed dug that very Spring) several 100 ft from the house. We carried the water in the plastic milk jugs we'd save after they were emptied of the intended purpose. We carried our water to wash clothes from a creek to fill the wringer washer my Mom would use to clean our clothes, and then she would hang them out to dry on a line, Winter...and Summer. Life, was not easy, but anything worthwhile, never is.... I reckon. 

Christmas was a wonderful time of year for us though, not because we had so much, but because we appreciated what we had. I remember this very Christmas here, because you see, there is the 'Barbie Beauty Center, proudly displayed behind my Cousin and me that I picked out of a sale flyer of the local toy department. Dad, and Mom would hand the flyers to me and Randy, Robert, and then David was a baby, so..they asked us to circle what we'd like to have, and we would get ONE of those very special wishes. I can see that Bracelet on my wrist, it had big purple stones, and there was a matching necklace. I wore that proudly, felt like...Cleopatra! But, I also see those BIG RED WASHINGTON STATE APPLES that cousin and I have there. Those were Christmas treats! My Dad would go all out on Christmas! He would say "Food is a bargain at any price, just try and live without it". So, at Christmastime, on a Friday evening, Dad and Mom would go shopping together. Then, in they would come, Dad carrying in snow on his shoes and loaded both arms carrying a FULL box of these Apples, they were a sight! You'd pull off the top of the box and be almost... overwhelmed with the scent of the sweet Apples, the first layer carefully covered each in fine tissue paper that proudly heralded *Washington State*! Then, more trips into the snow to the car, yielded not a few, not bags, but a crate each of Tangerines and Oranges! With four rooms, there wasn't much space so the crates sat near the Refrigerator, which wasn't far from our Warm Morning coal and wood stove. The heat from that would warm the fruit so that all during our Christmas break from school, the house smelled like....well, fruit!

 The Christmas pine would come to us in the way of a Cedar tree my Dad would go out himself and cut. Mom would then decorate with those big hot Christmas lights, and the heat from those lights, next to the tree would permeate the house with the scent of Cedar. So, four rooms, four kids, and a Coal Miner Dad and a hardworking Mother (who had the most beautiful hands on a woman I have ever seen), no running water, toilet outdoors, 100+ Chickens, a Dog, and 2 large Hogs, deep Southwest Virginia snows, and where we all pulled our weight EQUALS Christmas memories of a little girl who felt herself to be an ancient Queen, who never failed to remember that her family was THE most important thing we can have in our lives. It's not what we have, it's how we appreciate what we have that matters.