~ WINTER ~

It’s here! December! The most awaited month of the year.

Everything’s shifting. The sun’s moved further away, and the world is darker when we get up. The house takes on a permanent chill. But even in these dimming days, sparkles begin to blink in the distance. Christmas lights come closer and brighter, as they dance about in our heads, crowding almost everything else out.

One of Daddy’s favorite sayings when we’re pokey is: “What are you waiting for—Christmas?” That’s exactly what I am waiting for, and have been all year. Anticipation tingles in my bones, jingles all through me. Only this year, the joyous expectations are marred by all that’s happening around me, and doubts push in to dim some of the dancing lights.

To save heat, our sitting room and bedrooms are closed off, their heat registers shut. The kitchen, with the coal and wood burning cook stove, becomes the family gathering place, from the time we get up in the morning till we warm our pajamas on the open oven door at night.

We kids all sleep in the spare room, also our play room, off the kitchen now. The daybed’s opened up, and four of us sleep in it sideways. Buddy sleeps on the floor alone, under the thick goose down blanket. Mitzy’s also in there, in her crib.

We go to bed earlier, anxious to snuggle under those fat layers of covers—giggling, telling stories, rubbing each other’s backs. Only a curtain separates this room from the kitchen, so heat and light seep through.

Mama stays up late, working in the kitchen. I hear her moving back and forth. I like having her that close at night. It sometimes warms me even more than the covers.

No one talks about it, but so many things tell me we’re poorer than ever. Daddy doesn’t work with the junk man anymore.

“Nobody has money to even buy junk these days,” he mentions to Mama.

He keeps telling us, more than before, “Don’t keep those lights on so long...Close the doors tight, so heat doesn’t get out...Shut that water off, we have to pay for that water, you know.”

We share bath water, adding more hot water from the reservoir in the kitchen stove till the last Saturday bath is taken. Mama even makes her own soap from ashes, lard, and lye.

The daily paper’s stopped coming. Our neighbor, Mrs. Yaeger, brings her paper over when she’s done with it. She lets us use her telephone, too, if we need to. But we don’t know anybody who has a telephone, so there’s nobody to call, unless we need to reach the police or fire department.

The burlap bags of leaves we gathered from the parks in the fall are piled around the basement windows and the chicken coop to keep the house warmer and the chickens from freezing.

“We really need these eggs this winter,” Mama says, carefully counting those I bring in, my chilled fingers lingering on the warm shells. “And no Sunday chicken dinners for a while—at least not till next spring.”

Meals are stingier too. Breakfast is still a pot of cooked oatmeal. Mama buys cans of condensed milk by the case. She punches a hole in the can top, pours the contents into an aluminum pitcher, then fills it with water, making a big pitcher of pale milk, which seems more watery than usual these days.

We hardly go for secondhand bakery anymore, or even to the grocery store. Most of our food comes from what’s stored in our basement: bins of potatoes, carrots, apples, and Mama’s jars of canned food, colorfully lined up on wobbly wooden shelves.

“I just hope that basement stockpile lasts through the winter,” Mama keeps saying.

There’s a big stone crock of sauerkraut in the pantry, topped with a plate and a big rock. It smells pretty stinky, but we don’t complain. It wouldn’t do any good. Besides, it tastes much better than it smells, especially with spare ribs—when we have them, chewing into the insides of the soft bones.

We all come home from school for lunch at noon. Usually it’s a big kettle of homemade noodles Mama just made from flour and eggs, adding tasty red sauce from her jars of canned tomatoes. Sometimes, there’s cottage cheese mixed in, my favorite, well, after macaroni and cheese with a crunchy top. There’s even freshly baked bread most days. Mmmm. Tastes specially good spread with melting lard, then dipped into the spaghetti sauce.

Supper is mostly potato soup these days. We sop it up with dried bread. Sometimes, if there’s lots of eggs, Mama makes Yayetska— beaten eggs, onions, and bits of bacon, all put into the big iron skillet. It swells up and gets crispy, then she cuts into pieces like a pie. We all like it. It’s Daddy’s favorite too.

“A good Polish dish,” he says, wiping up the last yellow bits with his crusty bread. Sometimes Mama cooks Daddy a ring of Polish sausage. It smells good, but we don’t get any.

“Daddy’s the one who needs meat the most,” Mama says, “because he works the hardest.” Mama works hard too, but she never gets any either.

Sometimes at night, we kids make fudge or taffy, dipping cups of sugar from the big 100-pound bag sitting on the pantry floor. Taffy’s such fun to make. We pull it into long, stretched-out shiny twists. But it’s getting near the sugar bottom, and Mama says to wait each time we ask if we can make candy.

There’s still popcorn left on the cobs we grew. We shell off enough each time to make big kettles of popcorn on the kitchen stove. The popping sound brings everyone in, and warm popped corn fills us up pretty good. We can’t put butter on it, like that good stuff we smell at the movie theater, because “We can’t afford butter, that’s why.”

I like to imagine there’s butter on my home popped corn, even licking it off my fingers. You can imagine a lot of things about food, making up what it might taste like, holding those thoughts in your mouth, till you can almost smell and taste them on your tongue.

We also make root beer at home, using a bottle of Hires Root Beer Mix and yeast, keeping the mixture in a big crock in the basement till it’s ripe. Then it’s put in saved root beer bottles, capped with the bottle capper, and stored in the basement—waiting for Christmas, when we each get a bottle of our own. Sometimes, the bottles pop ahead of time, sounding like an explosion in the basement. I don’t even like thinking of all that good root beer going to waste. If possible, I’d try to scrape it up from the basement floor and put it all back in the empty bottles.

Washed clothes hang on ropes strung across the kitchen, because Mama can’t hang them outside now—the clothes would freeze stiff.

We bundle up before leaving for school, huge scarves wound around our necks and over our faces till we can hardly see. Whatever galoshes fit our feet become ours to trudge through the snow that is already piling up on both sides of our sidewalks.

We hardly play outside when it’s so cold. We’d much rather huddle around the kitchen stove. In the evening, we shell dried beans, or crack hickory and beechnuts that we gathered in the woods in fall, for holiday cookies and fruitcakes.

I even help with darning socks, because Mama can’t keep up with all the holes. Catherine might read aloud to us, part of a book each night, as we do our busy work. We do homework or play games around the kitchen table on the worn, cracked oilcloth. So far, we can still listen to the radio, even if we sometimes have to listen in the dark to save electricity.

We’re busy making Christmas presents for each other, trying to keep them secret and hidden. Buddy’s down in the basement, sawing and hammering. Catherine’s busy at the sewing machine, the treadle going up and down. Last year, she made me the prettiest dress with pink bows. I hear Mama sewing late at night now too.

I take out books from the library showing how to make different things into gifts, from milk bottle caps to safety pins and old pieces of cloth. For Daddy, I’m cutting up an old bed sheet and hand-sewing squares into big handkerchiefs. For Mitzy, I’m making monkey dolls from Daddy’s old work socks. There’s a recipe for flour and water that you can form into figures and then paint them. I’m trying to make Buddy some toy soldiers without him finding out, using the molds he uses to make lead soldiers.

Mama’s gift always has to be something store bought. I made sure I saved ten cents from my bean picking money so I can buy her an extra nice gift this year.

On Saturdays, Sonny and I sometimes go downtown and walk through the stores to see what they have. I mostly look at things in the Kresge Dime Store. The store lady behind the counter asks if she can help me, but I say, “No thank you, I’m just looking,” which is what Mama usually says.

Then one day I see it, at the dish counter, on a higher shelf—a beautiful ruby red wine glass, sparkling like diamonds. The sign says “Ten Cents.”

“Look, Sonny,” I point, “Isn’t that beautiful? Mama could put it on the kitchen window sill, and when the sun shines, it’ll sparkle, just like the stained glass window at the doctor’s house.” My mind’s made up—no more searching. “That’s the present I’m going to buy for Mama, but not today.”

I just hope nobody else buys it before I do. I enjoy anticipating and thinking about something before I get it, so I don’t mind waiting.

We go downtown again the next Saturday. This time I ask if I can look at the wine glass, saying “please.” The store lady takes it down for me. I hold it, oh so carefully, turn it around, marvel at its beauty, then hand it back. Mama doesn’t have anything as pretty. Our sugar bowl, goldish Carnival glass, is the nicest dish she has, but it’s old, the sparkle’s dull, and the cover’s gone too.

There’s Christmas music playing in the stores now—“Santa Claus is Coming to Town” over and over. They’re beginning to put up decorations inside and outside the stores. Huge green arches hang across the downtown streets, with shimmering lights and dangling tinsel. You can look down the street; the same decorations are repeated far as you can see, as if it were endless mirror reflections.

A really big manger is put up on the Court House corner, with a large sign in front that says “PEACE ON EARTH.” Nearer to Christmas, different groups sing Christmas carols in front of the manger. I like to go and listen, to hear real people caroling, instead of the radio or record singing. Baby Jesus isn’t in the manger till Christmas Eve.

Toy departments open in the big stores. Mama’s not too happy about this. “Can’t get their stuff out early enough to sell, can they? Pretty soon, they’ll be decorating way before Thanksgiving!”

I don’t tell Mama, but Sonny and I go to the toy departments any time we can. It’s like stepping right into Storybook Land. There are so many big, beautiful, brand new toys. It’s even better than looking in the Sears catalog. Here, we can view them close up, touch them. We watch the small trains go round and round and the windup toys jiggle about. But my favorite thing to do is stand and look at the Shirley Temple doll, smiling at me from her cellophane box on the top shelf. I can’t wait to hold her.

She just has to be mine for Christmas.

This one night, I can’t get to sleep. I hear Mama and Daddy talking around the kitchen table. I sit up and try to listen harder, catching only some of the words.

“It’s not right, to lose the house now, after all these years paying on it. It’s just not right,” Mama keeps saying.

“I know,” Daddy’s talking now. “Lots of families are losing their houses these days.”

I don’t understand—how can someone lose a house? They’re just too big to lose.

“Where would we go, with six children?” Mama sounds worried.

“I don’t know—I just don’t know.” Daddy’s quiet for a bit, then says, “If we didn’t have the house, we’d be able to get Relief.”

“Go on Relief! Oh no! That’s not for us! We need this house for the kids more than we need Relief.”

“At least we’re not starving. And we still get the rent money.”

“Ida’s not sure how long her job’s going to last—people aren’t buying as much tinsel this year.”

“This month’s mortgage payment is all we need to get past right now.”

“And the one after that, and the one after that. Every month, the same old bills. Then comes year-end taxes—”

“Maybe I can chop more wood this week. Sell some of the extra.” “You’re not going out chopping wood, not in this freezing weather. You just got over the influenza. I don’t want you coming down with pneumonia! That’s all we need—pneumonia for Christmas.”

Daddy was real sick for a while with flu, and we had to stay away from him so we wouldn’t catch it. I don’t know why Mama didn’t catch it, since she’s always so close to him.

“But my influenza’s better.”

“Only because Dr. Mack took such good care of you—even if we can’t pay him.” Mama then adds, “I don’t know what we’d do without his help, with the kids getting sick all the time.”

I didn’t know you had to pay doctors, just that Dr. Mack comes to our house when we are sick. I thought it was because he liked us. He’s big and tall, and carries a black bag filled with all kinds of doctor things. He stands over our beds, pounds our chests, looks down our throats, then talks to Mama.

That’s what doctors do, don’t they—take care of sick people? Why would you have to pay them?

“The wood’s going down pretty fast,” Daddy continues. “We’ll need more wood soon.”

“Can’t shut off any more rooms.”

“You’ll want to heat the sitting room for Christmas.”

“Yes. That’s one day that room has to be warm.”

“I can try checking for loose coal at the coal yard again.”

“There has to be some place we can borrow money from.”

“I tried. Banks need collateral. Our only collateral—six children.” I don’t know what the word “collateral” means. Why would banks need children? I never understand much when they talk about banks and mortgages.

“How can they foreclose, when there’s no work anywhere!” Mama sounds mad at somebody.

I don’t know what happens when they foreclose. Does it mean they close up the house? Why would they do that?

It’s quiet for a while, then Daddy says, “Lizzie, what about the Christmas Club?” I listen more intently.

“The Christmas Club?” Mama lowers her voice, “Oh no, that money is never to be spent for anything else.”

“I just thought—”

“That Christmas Club money stays right where it is. I work hard for those dollars. Set them aside each week, so the kids can at least have one happy day a year. Every penny is pinched and squeezed till there’s no more squeal left in them.”

I know about pinching pennies, but it’s the words “Christmas Club” that stay in my head. I remember the time Mama mentioned it at the doctor’s house. I can’t hear the rest as they talk more quietly.

I need to know more now. It’s important. I poke Catherine in her back. She stirs in her sleep.

“Catherine, I need to know. Tell me, what is the Christmas Club? Why does Mama need money for the Christmas Club?”

“I don’t know,” she answers sleepily.

“Is that when they have their friends over at Christmas time and play cards?”

“I don’t know, I guess so.” She goes back to sleep.

I can’t stop thinking about it. Why would Mama need to spend money on friends and think that would make us kids happy? Why would she work so hard to save money for the Christmas Club? Their friends coming over—that doesn’t make it a happy day for us children. Maybe Mama thinks we’re more happy because we get the leftover food and drinks? Must be some reason.

I want to ask Mama about it, but then she’d know I was listening to things I shouldn’t be listening to. And these weeks before Christmas, I have to be on my best behavior, because just maybe, there might still be a chance of getting my Shirley Temple doll.

I try to get back to sleep, so all this new talk circling in my head will be gone by morning.