Yesterday, I left you shivering, but I don’t want you to get the wrong impression. I didn’t hate my childhood on the farm – I loved it.

But I wouldn’t do it again for a billion dollars.

Our Christmas was not typical because we worked every day, and because my parents were committed Southern Baptists. So was I, except at the end, and even then I was a closet unbeliever. They never asked, and I never told, so even during my last two years at home I went to church three times a week, sang the hymns, prayed aloud when called upon (that was particularly hard) and lived a Godly life.

My parents appreciated Christmas, but not as the secular holiday it has become. They saw it as a celebration of the birth of Christ.

There was no Santa in our house, although no one was offended when someone sent a Christmas card with the old fellow flying his sleigh. From my first memory, I knew Santa was only a myth that other parents told their children about. It was fun to hear about Rudolph in the song on the radio, but at home we sang Silent Night and O Little Town of Bethlehem.

We had a tree, decorations, Chiristmas cookies, presents, lights, ornaments, and all the rest. But nobody came down the chimney, and the presents were labeled from Mom and Dad, or from Grandpa, but never from Santa.

We didn’t do Christmas morning anyway. We opened our presents on Christmas Eve after the evening milking and supper were over. That was a matter of practicality. Christmas morning, like every morning, began with three hours in the dairy barn.

It was still fun. One year Hallmark came out with lick and stick ribbon, and taught classes in how to use them. My mother took the class and taught me. That year all the presents I wrapped were decorated with ribbon snails and ribbon roses.

It was fun, but it wasn’t jolly. My parents were quiet people, and since I had no brothers or sisters to bounce off of, I never learned to be boisterous. Even today, when I see people cheering on their favorite sports team, I have no real understanding of why they act that way.

There was no Christmas service at church unless Christmas happened to fall on a Sunday. The business of the church, we were reminded often, was not fun and games or helping our neighbors with their troubles. A good Christian might help a neighbor in need, but the church did not. The church was in the business of saving souls, and nothing else.

If Christmas fell on Sunday, the sermon would begin with the story of Christ’s birth, but somewhere around the middle it would morph into hellfire. The only reason the birth of Jesus means anything, we were told, is because of the crucifixion and resurrection at the other end of his life.

Still, I enjoyed my life and I enjoyed Christmas. If it looks a bit grim in hindsight, at the time it just seemed normal.

Recently, PBS did a special on the Pilgrims. They were the no-fun champions of the world, ranking right up there with jehadis. As I watched, I was amused by the knowledge that it only took a couple of generations for their offspring to kick over the traces and become Baptists, because even that seemed like more fun.

Eventually, I left home for college in Michigan. The first year I was there we got the snowstorm of the century, 24 inches in 24 hours. The campus was snowed in for a week and I loved every minute of it.

The summer after, I met the girl who would become my wife. She was filled with a massive and infectious sense of joy. We were married in 1969 (post 27.  That Was My Childhood) and that first Christmas was wonderful beyond anything I could have imagined. So were the next forty-four. Likewise the forty-sixth, when it comes next week.

A white Christmas – it’s a cultural heritage, even for those who never share it directly. Hawaii and Florida get their snow on TV and Christmas cards. Californians go to the mountains where the snow is cold and deep, then return home and string Christmas lights on their palm trees.

During my childhood, Oklahoma was on the border of the snowfall. We had snow, but it was rare and sparce; never fluffy, but hard and small like buckshot. We occassionally had no-school days because of snow, but not for reasons you could anticipate. An inch would fall during the night, accompanied by monster winds. Come morning, the fields would be blown brown and bare, and all that snow would be deposited in the roadways, trapped between the barbed wire fences on either side, three feet deep and impassible.

I do remember that the front yard was once covered with snow, an inch deep held up by the brown, dead grass. It was a chance to make my first snowman. I rolled snow for what seemed like hours and finally had stacked him up three feet high – a lumpy, anorexic figure with stick arms and nose, rock eyes, and a borrowed hat. Unfortunately, the whole yard was rolled bare to make my snowman.

Oklahoma in winter was brown everywhere – except where it was green. There were fallow fields, winter stripped trees, prairie grass pastures cropped close and brown by cattle, but there were also field of winter wheat. Planted in the fall and harvested in the spring, those fields were as green as Ireland throughout the winter. Our dairy cattle were grazed on winter wheat. It was a major boost to our income, but what green wheat did to their digestive output I won’t detail in a family friendly post.

For two thousand years, Christmas has been part of the agricultural cycle of the seasons. Even in the sixties, the seasons ruled our activities. In spring, we harvested winter planted crops and planted for the fall harvest. In summer, we bailed hay both commercially and for ourselves. The cattle were bred to drop calves in autumn. Through the summer they were mostly dry and needed little care, but they came into milk production just as the last fall harvest was over, and kept us working – and earning a living – through the long months of winter.

And it was work; and it was cold. The coldest I remember was five below, but zero was not uncommon. That might not seem like much, but come along for the ride.

Each day began about 4:30 when my dad opened the bedroom door and growled, “Get up!” in a voice you wouldn’t even consider not obeying. I would spend the next half hour crouched in the living room in front of the space heater putting on three layers of clothing, warming each piece individually. I don’t know why I bothered; the wind pierced to the skin within the first five seconds of leaving the house.

Morning milking took about three hours. Unlike the other seasons, I didn’t have to go get the cattle; they were waiting impatiently for the grain they would get while they were being milked. I won’t describe the process again (see post 47). The floor was concrete, deep frozen overnight, and the cold telegraphed up through thin boot soles all the way to your knees. At least when I had to walk outside, I didn’t sink; the mud-manure mixture was frozen to brown cement. When the milking was finished, my dad would drive out into the pasture to distribute hay while I stayed behind and washed up all the milking machines, strainers, and milk cans. Then it was a mad rush through breakfast and a bath (twice a day, every day, you can figure out why) in order to dress and catch the bus for school.

I loved school, and not just because I was scholarly by nature. It was warm inside.

Home in the afternoon, with an hour to do my homework, then out to the barn to do it all over again.

Every day, seven days a week, all winter. Including Christmas.   More tomorrow.