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Christmas is many things but, perhaps, most of all, it’s memories.

Family, friends, places and presents so meaningful and special that they last a lifetime.

And, then, there are the wonderful memories….

Every year, around Christmastime, I think of many people who have been a part of my Christmas. I always  think of Mr. Grover Poole.

At Thanksgiving time, he would bring me two gallons of fresh cane juice from cane from his patch and “squoze” at his cane mill worked by his trusty mule.

At Christmas, Mr. Grover would hitch his mule to the wagon and he and “Miss” Molen would take a journey to Christmas on the long dirt road from their house into the woods.

I was fortunate to often be on the wagon on its Christmas journey. To me, that was what Christmas.  Riding on a mule-drawn wagon on a cold December day, sharing Christmas memories and singing our favorite Christmas songs. We weren’t great singers but on those Christmas journeys, we could have competed with the Morman Tabernacle Choir.

Often a cow would moo from behind a fence, a rabbit would hop across the road or a crow would call its joy of Christmas from afar. 

The cold wind would whip behind our backs and the clouds would began to gather. 

“We’d better go on home,”  Mr. Grover would say. “Christmas is coming. It’s going to be a good one.”

Those Christmas wagon rides are special Christmas memories for me and I revisit them every year. 

Several times, Mr, Grover would cut a Christmas tree, load it on the wagon for a picture for the newspaper. One year, we couldn’t find a tree to cut  so we went and borrowed one from a box store and loaded it on the sled. “Who would know?” we laughed. 

One memory that stands clear is the year we went on the wagon deep into the woods along with some “cowboys” on horses. They cut a tree, loaded it on a sled and pulled it out of the woods with a horse. What a wonderful Christmas scene.

That was the way I imaged it to be long  ago when daddies would take a mule drawn wagon into the woods and bring home the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to experience Christmas in the simple, old-time way one again.I am blessed to have memories to warm my heart on these cold, winter days leading up to Christmas.  

Merry Christmas to all!