With
your permission I am repeating a Christmas story that I used in this column two
years ago.
Christmas
Ann
and I were born and grew up in Utah but began the process of moving to Seattle,
Washington in September of 1956 when Ann was nineteen and I was 21. We had a brand new baby, born in August, a
brand new job paying $1.735/hour, no money in the bank, no arrangements for a
place to live, and a hazy future. I headed
to Seattle without Ann so that I could get processed into my new job and find a
place I could rent where our family could live when Ann arrived later. Ann and the baby stayed with Ann's parents while
I was house hunting, and while she was recovering from the birth and the shock
of moving away from her family right in the middle of trying to learn the ins
and outs of motherhood.
I
probably wouldn't have made it those first few weeks except that my dad gave me
twenty dollars to help me with expenses as I was leaving for Seattle. Now Twenty dollars might not seem like much in
2014, but in 1956 it was more than my dad could afford. Even then the only thing I could afford was
to rent a bed in an attic room shared with another fellow who I didn't know. There were no cooking facilities and so I
just bought a sandwich wherever I could find one at a price low enough to
afford. Once I had gotten my first pay
check I found a little two bedroom house to rent for $95/month and sent for
Ann. Her parents moved her, the baby,
and all our belongings to Seattle. It
took one very small U-Haul trailer and a few things in the trunk of their
DeSoto car. We lived in the Seattle area
for the next fifty years, but we drove to Utah almost every year to spend
Christmas with Ann's family in Porterville, a little farming community just outside
of Morgan, Utah. Vic and Zylpha Shaw,
Ann's parents, had lived in that little 150-year old house since early in their
marriage.
Over
the years the roads we traveled between Seattle and Porterville varied from dry
to wet to blizzards to solid ice, but every year we returned to Porterville for
Christmas … like lemmings to the sea.
One Christmas we wrecked our new car, but pushed on to Porterville by
bus because that was our tradition.
Spending Christmas anywhere else was unacceptable to us and our
children. The home of Ann's parents,
were we stayed, was small with one tiny bathroom, but the kitchen was big and
so was the love that we all felt there. Christmas
eve was hot, homemade chili cooked on a coal stove, and pan-fried bread made
fresh from dough rolled and kneaded by Zylpha on the kitchen table. Outside it was cold, but inside it was warm
because Zylpha carried buckets of hand selected coal and tended the big
fireplace that heated the front room.
Napping on the floor in front of that fireplace was a warm and delightful
way to spend a lazy afternoon.
Remember
that Christmas is first about Him whose birthday we celebrate, and then it is
about family and tradition and caring about others. To Quote Thomas S. Monson, "...our opportunities to love and give
of ourselves are indeed limitless, but they are also perishable. Today there are hearts to gladden, kind words
to say, deeds to be done...." So
from the Muddled Male and Ann, his wife, we hope that you have a Christmas
filled with the happiness of family and traditions of love. And if you are faced with challenges, we wish
you understanding and hope.
