On the fifth day of Christmas, a Christmas memory gave to me, five a.m. milkings.
You have to say that with the same rhythm as the song -- FIVE A. M. MILKINGS!!
My big brothers would NOT have said those words with the same fanfare we use to sing "five golden rings," and I wouldn't blame them. Growing up on a dairy farm, those morning milkings came around very early, but I could never complain because my brothers were the ones who went out to help Dad milk the cows. Even on Christmas morning.
While they were outside in the biting Idaho wind, I was in the house with Mom, preparing Christmas breakfast, and learning the art of patience.
I had great faith that Santa had visited us during the night, but I wasn't allowed to peek into the living room, where our Christmas tree was nestled in the corner, until the guys came in from the barn. I thought the anticipation would kill me, right there in the kitchen. There were two entrances into the living room; a door from the kitchen, and a door from the hallway. My mother, in her wisdom, hung quilts over both doors so that I couldn't take a quick look before it was time.
Never had the wait been so excruciating as the year I turned ten, when my grandmother, who was spending Christmas with us, took a peek beyond the quilt, and with a great gasp, let it fall back into place. With eyes wide as saucers, she stage-whispered, "He's still here!"
I knew it must be true because she was not my grandmother who was prone to theatrics. My theatrical grandmother was far away, in southern California, still asleep with no 5 a.m. milkings to accomplish.
I thought I might burst! I pulled on my winter boots over bare feet, and my winter coat over my new Christmas jammies, and marched right out to the barn to see what the hold-up was.
My dad and brothers were making their way across the barnyard toward the house. All three yelled ahead to me, "What are you doing out here in the cold?"
"Santa is in the living room! Grandma saw him! You have to hurry!"
My brother said, "Oh, he's gone. I saw the sleigh take off just before you came out the door."
I turned around to face the back of our house and looked up. No sleigh. No reindeer. No Santa Claus. Yet, with a closer look, I was certain I could see the tracks made by reindeer hooves and sleigh runners. And with an even closer look, I noticed just how beautiful our little farmhouse looked with a warm glow at the windows and a fresh coat of sparkly snow all around.
"Our house looks like Christmas," I remember saying, as we all made our way toward Mom's hot cocoa and overnight cinnamon rolls.
My father smiled, "It looks like this every Christmas morning. A fresh coat of white to welcome Baby Jesus."
I think of that vision every Christmas; of hard-working brothers, of faithful parents, of the simple hope that Christmas could be about Jesus AND Santa. The anticipation. The magic.
It is there, in that memory, that I can still find the Spirit of Christmas.
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