Not everyone can be with their family at the holidays, and not everyone wants to be with their family at the holidays.
Let’s face it, there can be a lot of old hurts hanging around when it comes to family and those hurts seem to cut a little deeper when the Christmas trees light up.
On the other hand, there is no reason that we can’t pull out good memories, too, and use them to warm us when the December wind blows cold.
I am sure everyone has their own favorite holiday story. For example, one year when I was about five, we got a pony for Christmas.
Can you imagine? Three little girls and a shaggy red Shetland on that frosty Florida day.
Years later, we would find out ‘the rest of the story.’
My father had gone to see a man who had some ponies to sell, selected a sweet, fat, roly-poly mare that would be safe for three little girls to love and ride.
Except when he went to pick up said mare on Christmas Eve, the seller had accepted more money from someone else for the sweet, gentle little mare. The only pony left homeless on the lot was a twoyear old unbroken stallion. He had probably been handled a little, but still he was a bit hot for kids.
Yet what was a father to do? Everything was closed. He chose the only route open to him. He ran the pony up a chute into the back of our pickup truck with racks and brought him home.
On arrival the first problem arose. The pony would not jump out of the back of the truck to the ground. Luckily it was a smallish pony, and my middle brother was a big ole boy. He wrapped his linebacker arms around the pony front and rear and pulled him down to terra firma. Problem solved.
Until the next morning. My father had always had horses, and it never occurred to him that the paraphernalia for those horses – bridles, saddles and the like – would not fit a pony.
It didn’t matter to us girls. Somewhere there is a picture of myself and my little sister in our flannel pajamas on the pony. He has a piece of bailing twine twisted around his head for a halter and is being led (dragged?) by the same large, long suffering brother.
As far as I know, the pony, who we named Foxy, never really got ‘broke’ to ride. He was gelded and simply gave up and submitted to becoming a good safe partner to little girls.
We owned him the rest of his life and he died on our farm when he was about 32.
But he – and that first sketchy day as a family pet – come back to life in my memories just about every Christmas, even if the other little girls are far away celebrating with families of their own.
And memories are enough.
Closed caption to those of you who have missed seeing me around at various holiday events: we have been dealing with heart and renal failure in the last 30 days, which taps time and energy. Thank you for your well wishes.