First Christmas in Alabama

Christmas in Alabama is not much different than Christmas in Mississippi, but I will never forget the first Christmas we spent in Alabama.

I spent Christmas in Tennessee until my Dad found a house in Center Star, Alabama and we moved before Christmas when I was 12 years old. He had been looking for a home for a year or two because he had to travel from Lawrenceburg, Tenn., to the newspaper in Tuscumbia, Ala., every day. He was happy to find a house in Center Star because it was halfway both ways.

It was a beautiful home that was located in east Lauderdale County. I had only lived the city life in the small town of Lawrenceburg, so it was a slight adjustment. But it didn’t take long to love hiking in the woods and fishing along the riverside.

The living room and dining room were combined, and the large fireplace separated the kitchen from the dining room. It was a big enough room for my brothers and sisters to create a Christmas play. That’s is right. It was not just any play. It was a Christmas play.

My oldest brother, Jimmy, thought it would be nice to of film the play so we could watch it year after year. My Dad had recently bought a video camera and had shown my Jimmy how to use it. He was chosen to be the cameraman.

My two other brothers, Charlie and Bobby, were the shepherds, and my sister, Mary Ellen, three years younger than I, played Mary, the mother of Jesus.

We were a little short of characters, but we made it work.

Charlie and Bobby’s costumes consisted of their red, yellow, green, and white striped terrycloth bathrobes. The only thing we could find that resembled what Shepard’s wore on their heads in biblical times was Mom’s white pillowcases. My brothers used a piece of cloth tied around their heads to keep them from falling off their heads. Charlie used a dust mop and Bobby used a mop handle for their shepherd’s staff.

My sister, Mary Ellen, was dressed in a long light-blue dress (that I had worn three years before when I was dressed as Mary on the school’s Christmas float). She also wore a pillowcase case on her head.

For the animals, we pulled out every stuffed animal we could find and placed them around my sister’s chair, where she was holding baby Jesus (her baby doll).

The set was ready and the actors – The Birth of Jesus, the Christmas Story, was ready to be filmed.

We were all proud of what we had put together. We practiced and then my brother filmed the play.

We even had music for the play. It was complicated since we used the old 8-track player for Christmas music. If you grew up in the sixties you will remember the 8- track players.

We argued a little bit through the scenes, but we all had a great time, and I will always cherish the day we filmed the story of Christmas.

This weekend, we will all be celebrating Christmas with family and friends. I’m hoping everyone will have a safe and wonderful Christmas weekend. Remember, the reason for the season. Merry Christmas.