Authors: Lee Smith

The Christmas Letters (6 page)

BOOK: The Christmas Letters

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Susan and Marybeth, let’s make a pledge that we will always stay in touch our whole lives long, and have reunions when we are old and rich and these little babies are taking care of
us!
I will never forget that heat wave last summer when the babies played in the plastic pool every day while we sat under the sprinkler in the shade to keep cool.

And what would I have ever done without
you,
Gerald Ruffin, and your insomnia which equals mine, especially during that same heat wave. . . . Oh, how many nights did we sit out on those lawn chairs talking the night away? while the bugs circled the light bulb and my nightgown stuck to my back in the awful heat! And even this fall, with the twins waking me up all night long kicking, I didn’t even mind so much, knowing you would be out there smoking, ready to keep me company. It has been a real education, Gerald Ruffin, and I thank you for it!

Speaking of education, I think it is great that you’re going to finish college early, Ruthie! We are all real proud of you, especially your nephew Andrew who calls you “Roofie” ever since he knocked out his front teeth. He looked exactly like a pumpkin at Halloween, it was the cutest thing, I wish you could have seen him! with that hair even redder than Sandy’s.

Joe, I have mailed a big thing of Sticks and Stones to you early, I thought you could share them with everybody else in the hospital. I sent you several other presents, too, I
just hope they will arrive in time for Christmas. Let me know. Mama says she prays for you every day and I do too, my version of this being that I
think
about you every day, and all the games we used to play and all the things we did as children. I only hope my own children will enjoy each other as much as we did, and love each other as much as we did. Please write, Joe. One thing in your package is a writing tablet and a whole bunch of envelopes already stamped and addressed to me at our new house.

We look forward to Mama’s visit when the twins arrive. This will be especially good for Andrew, I’m sure, who is likely to get his nose out of joint because he has gotten all the attention around here for such a long time—close to four years now! Sandy said he would get him a dog to make up for it, but Andrew now says he wants a kitten. Well, Sandy is just
not a cat person,
plus he thinks everybody should have a
dog,
and he is real strongminded, so I don’t know what will happen. . . . Families! You wonder how any of us survive them, don’t you? But we do.

I just wish you could all see our funny little silver tree with its blinking lights this Christmas, surrounded by presents and packing boxes stacked to the ceiling all around, not to mention
us
crammed in here tight as a drum, with me just pushing this big stomach around. Actually Sandy bought this little artificial tree because he says they are a better bargain, and I wept that he had bought a
silver
one
instead of green, but I must say it
is
pretty. Andrew stands in front of it by the hour, entranced by these blinking lights. This is a Christmas we will never forget, that’s for sure!

Love,
Andy, Sandy, Mary, and the
Twins-in-Waiting Copeland

P.S. I have finally convinced Mama to share her recipe for

TACO SALAD FROM BIRDIE’S LUNCH

1 lb. ground beef, browned and drained

2 bunches green onions

1 8-oz. bottle Catalina dressing

1 diced tomato

2 c. rotini noodles, cooked and drained

1 pkg. taco mix

Add taco mix and Catalina dressing to beef, mixing well. Add all other ingredients, mixing well. Serve over plenty of shredded lettuce, with taco chips on the side.

Merry Christmas from the Copelands, 1975!

(Especially to Susan and Marybeth, and all my good friends on Rosemary Street—I miss you so much already! Especially Elaine and Edie, remember all those crazy diets we tried? I guess I will just have to stay fat now.)

I write to you from our brand new home at 38 Hummingbird Heights, built by Copeland Construction of course! (Just like this Xeroxed letter also comes courtesy of Sandy’s company Xerox.) It is a split-level brick contemporary with four bedrooms and a big back yard with lots of room for the children to play. In fact our yard serves as the playground for the entire neighborhood, which is fine by me. I love to have company while watching the kids, and all the kids love to play on the huge wood-and-tire climbing thing which Sandy built for them. (Actually he designed it and then sent Randy and Tim over here to build it for us —thanks, Randy and Tim! It’s a big hit!)

The twins have turned out to be little tomboys—absolutely fearless—they scare me to death. This very minute, as I write, both Melanie and Claire are hanging upside down from the “monkey bars”—I can’t even look! Andrew is inside doing an art project for school. At 8½ he is already quite an artist. In Cub Scouts, he and Sandy made a Pine Box Derby race car which was a statewide
winner, and Sandy claimed that he didn’t have a thing to do with it. He says it was Andy’s design entirely. All Andy’s teachers have remarked about his talent, I know he didn’t get it from me!

I didn’t even try to pick out paint colors or wallpaper for this house, for instance, I just left the whole thing up to Sandy, he has a much better eye than I do. I can’t even hang pictures on the wall, according to him! He says I hang them too high. So Sandy has done it all, and I must say, everything has gone much more smoothly as a result. And this house really does look
great!
In fact it looks so good, it often seems to me that it must be
somebody else’s
house. . . .

Oh, I guess I was just attached to that old “fixer-upper” on Rosemary Street, and to the trailer before that, if you can imagine! Sandy says I am “hopeless,” and I guess I am! It is a good thing that
somebody
in this family is so modern and forward-looking.

I remain very busy with “the here-and-now.” Little James is already learning to walk, and I can tell that he is going to be a holy terror before long. (I feel like every baby I have gets wilder and wilder—more active, at any rate. Especially as compared with Andrew, who was so
good.
. . .) But Sandy gets a kick out of James, saying that he is “all boy,” which is certainly true.

We took the whole family to Halfmoon Island for two weeks again this summer, and really enjoyed it, though
Sandy left after a few days of course, he just had to get back on the job! (He is building 9 more houses here on Hummingbird Heights, all of them in the $75,000 range.) But Mama and Ruthie and I got to catch up on everything, and all the kids got along beautifully, they practically lived in the water. We had great weather the whole time.

After several job changes, Ruthie is now in the sportswear business in Atlanta, working as a “girl Friday” for a young entrepreneur named Jay Moretz who has started his own line of leisure wear which you may have seen in the stores, named “Saturdays.” Their logo is a little red sailboat, I know you have seen them.

When I asked Ruthie
exactly
what she does, she said she “makes Jay Moretz possible”! (In my own way, I could identify with that.) Anyway, Ruthie is just as crazy as ever, still a “firecracker,” as Daddy used to say, bless his heart.

We were having this conversation while sitting out at the beach under a pink striped umbrella on the prettiest day of the summer, all bright blue and yellow, a day to break your heart. (Now why did I say that? I sound just like Gerald Ruffin!) Anyway, the waves were rushing in and the sun was shining on them in a way that really did make them look like they were “dancing,” and the air was so clear, not that kind of haze you sometimes get in summer, but clear as glass, I felt like I could see all the way to
England where I have always wanted to go. All my children were in view—the twins, running out and back endlessly, chased by the waves and then chasing them, squealing and squealing—James, asleep for once, on the blanket beside me in the umbrella’s pink shade—and Andrew alone up the beach a ways, poking in the sand with a stick and staring out at the horizon, thinking deep thoughts, which he is (probably unfortunately) prone to. Mama sat in a beach chair beside me while Ruthie lay stretched out flat in the sunshine a few feet away, covered with baby oil and iodine, wet cotton balls on her eyelids, tanning herself scientifically with the kitchen timer. She turned over every 20 minutes. Sandy had gone back up to the cottage to make a phone call but now he was coming back down the dune, kicking sand like a boy. From where I was, he looked like a boy, and Ruthie still looked like a teenager. I, by contrast, felt old, though I am not but 31, of course. The twins were squealing and squealing, the sun glinted off the waves, and for a moment I felt breathless, don’t you remember this, Mama? You asked me if I was all right. Then Sandy came and ducked back under the umbrella and sat down beside me and lit a cigarette and squeezed my knee and I really
was
all right again. It was only for a moment that I had thought,
Oh Lord! Who
are
all these people?

Now I hope you will not think I am too crazy, reading
that last paragraph, because I
do
love everybody so much, and I am so proud of Sandy—our life really
is
the American Dream come true! Of course Sandy works all the time while I am busy running after the kids and driving car-pools and keeping the books for Copeland Construction Company, but I must say I
enjoy
this job, as it is just me and Sandy up way late into the night sometimes, just the two of us, trying to make it all balance out . . . once we sent out for a pizza at 1
A.M.!

Also I am still teaching Sunday School at our church, following in Mama’s footsteps once again, I guess (just like the Christmas Letters), though now we have become Methodists (Sandy’s choice) instead of Church of Christ. The Methodist Church is right down the street from us here in Hummingbird Heights, so Sandy thought it would help us all get adjusted faster to our new lifestyle, and honestly, one church is as good as another as far as I’m concerned! The First Methodist Church has a very active MYF, so the kids will like it better anyway. The singing is not as good, I must say, but I love the prayers and responsive readings in the back of the Hymnal, which are just pure poetry in my opinion. That may not sound very religious, but it is true!

Anyway, as you can tell, life is full and good—maybe it is
too full,
but it is still good. We only regret that it did not
work out for Joe at Copeland Construction, but we wish you good luck, Joe, in whatever field you decide to go into. This goes for everybody—here’s to a happy and productive 1976!