Christmas Day

I THOUGHT when I woke at 6:30 that there was thick fog, but then I realized that it was snow falling fast, already an inch or two on the ground, and lying in ermine richness on the pine trees … a perfect white Christmas! There is no wind. I ran down to get our breakfast ready and tucked Judy up in my big bed in her new vermilion wrapper. For how many years have we had Christmas breakfast in bed and opened our stockings? I opened the French door in my bedroom so we could look right out into the snow and it was rather like being in a tent, snug inside and all that lovely whiteness falling, falling around us. That wonderful present-imaginer, Maureen Connally, had sent a package of things for our stockings. Tamas waited patiently for a bite of toast. (Bramble had suddenly leapt out the window at around five and had not yet come in.) Maureen had even remembered that in Belgium one of the traditional things is a marzipan pig, and there he was in my stocking, also two velvet and “pailletted” black-and-white pandas.

After a while I went down and tidied up the library, a chaos of wrappings and ribbons (we had opened presents on Christmas Eve). I don’t believe we have ever had such a perfect tree, about six feet tall and beautifully wide-branched all around. Yesterday was a rather up-and-down day, in fact, a day of violent mood swings, but the sweetest half hour was when Raymond, the handyman as he calls himself (he is really a gardener, but does many odd jobs for me because he is so thoughtful and kind) and his sister came for tea and to exchange our presents. Both have a twinkle in their eyes, and we tease each other. Raymond teases me because I am impatient and I tease him because he gets things done always at the eleventh hour when I am about to have “a nervous breakdown,” as he says. I guess one of my best Christmas presents was his rhyme on his Christmas card. He began these communications when I first came here and they arrive now and then and make me smile with pleasure and the sense of belonging that he, more than anyone, has given me. Here it is:

The roses are hilled and the flower beds covered

By the handyman whom you discovered

Hanging around like a long lost soul

When you took up residence at Wild Knoll.

The garden is tilled, the raspberry patch made ready

By this same guy who is so slow but steady.

If all gets done wouldn’t it be great?

Then this old bear could hibernate.

What’s that? You say it’s Dec. twenty-four?

Yawn—Hohum—So sorry—Snore …

T.B.W.S.T.C.

I couldn’t figure out the signature, and finally he told me that it was (of course!) “The bear who slept through Christmas.” One of our jokes has been about his need to hibernate once the autumn chores are done.

But I have such sadness about Judy! She is going from me, from us all, little by little, and I feel helpless and often terribly irritated by her repeating the same phrase over and over as she does. Now, as I write, she is resting in bed with Bramble at her feet, and Tamas lying on the floor beside her, and we are listening together to the Mozart Piano Concerto, Number 21. It is marvelous at last to hear music in this house.…