This is the time of year when happy memories of Christmases past start surfacing — especially those of my boyhood when we relied on nature for our holiday trimmings.
When I was growing up on Johns Island, South Carolina, near Charleston during the 1950s, the week after Thanksgiving was when my mama sent my older brothers and me out to get some “nice Christmas stuff” for the house — which meant that she wanted boughs of holly loaded with red berries and a pretty, sweet-smelling red cedar for the holiday tree.
For the holly, we walked to the edge of the salt marsh adjacent to our farm, where several wild yaupon holly bushes grew. (Yaupon is one of several native holly species in the Southeast.) We snipped off several berry-laden boughs and hauled them back to the house, where we helped Mama adorn nearly every room with them.
It was a fun time, and even now when I see a holly tree with its shiny evergreen leaves and bold red berries, it evokes warm memories of the holidays.
Other happy holiday memories surface when I smell the rich fragrance of a red cedar. Our Christmas tree each season was a red cedar that always came from a small, uninhabited island, or hammock, in the salt marsh.
Red cedars grew in profusion on the marsh island, probably because of its sandy soil sweetened by lime from oysters, clams, snails and other marine life.
To get to the island, which belonged to my family, my brothers and I paddled our old handmade boat across the marsh at high tide.
We would walk around the island to find a cedar that we thought would meet Mama’s approval — but not too big since we had to carry the tree in our boat back across the marsh. After sawing down the tree, we would shake it hard and inspect it to make sure that no fiddler crabs or other creatures were hiding in it.
Back at the house, we would set it up in the living room, where its wonderful scent pervaded the air. I’ve never forgotten that aromatic smell, which still triggers memories of a carefree boy at Christmas.
IN THE SKY: From David Dundee, Tellus Science Museum astronomer: The moon will be first quarter on Sunday. Venus is in the west just after sunset and sets three hours later. At sunset, Mars and Jupiter are in the east and Saturn is in the west. Saturn will appear near the moon tonight. Mercury can’t be easily seen now.
Charles Seabrook can be reached at charles.seabrook@yahoo.com.
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