Christmas in Fontanet

Even though I am an only child, I got the best of both worlds at Christmas time. First thing in the morning on Christmas Day, I woke up to find under the Christmas tree that my mother, father, and I had carefully selected from the fresh trees available at a local gas station and decorated at our home in Terre Haute, Indiana, a massive number of presents. The vast majority of those presents were mine. All mine. Mine and mine alone.

After waking up my parents to demand what was mine, my dad would drive my mom and me over the river, through the woods, and across several train tracks to Grandma and Grandpa Dowell's house in Fontanet, about 20 miles from Terre Haute where most of my dad's side of the family had already gathered. We had seen them on Christmas Eve, as well, where I would get the first look at an even greater mass of gifts, most of which were not mine but still gave me the same thrill as if they were.

Five of my seven cousins were close enough in age that we played together, and we occupied each other quite well with games of our own making played in the enclosed front porch and an adjoining bedroom. Susan, three months my junior, and I were inseparable, whether we were playing with dolls or putting on imaginary talent shows. The magic of Christmas kept us all on our best behavior, although I don't remember this six pack of cousins having conflicts any time we were together, although I do remember being annoyed when my four year old cousin Gary hit me over the head with a Coke bottle one year.

All the family except my dad's only sister, Ruth (who was called "Auntie" by her nieces and nephews), and my mom, dad, and me lived at least 70 miles away, so they would spend the night in Fontanet on Christmas Eve. One time I begged to do so and found myself assigned to a cot in a room full of people on cots and sofas. That didn't bother me, and I found that the periodic whistles of trains going past the house along the track across the way gave me a feeling of stability in a world of movement and change. What I found intolerable was the snoring of one of my uncles on the sofa bed on the front porch. The harshness of the sound combined with the uncertainty of when my uncle would emit it gave me the feeling that an unworldly spirit had nestled itself into the house. I never asked to stay again.

Unwrapping all those presents on Christmas morning created an intensity of motion that far exceeded my own little fury in ripping off pretty paper and carefully attached ribbons. Auntie would conduct the show, handing the Six Pack gifts to deliver to adults scattered through the house. Not everyone could fit into the room where the tree was, so my uncles would take some photos or even film part of the event with primitive cameras that required someone to hold up a row of bright lights while they filmed and then departed for the back porch where Grandpa would sit quietly smoking a pipe while the women and children of his big family celebrated.

Grandpa and Grandma naturally got the biggest haul because they got gifts from everybody. Initially each of my aunts would buy for each of the nieces and nephews, but soon we were converted to the system that determined who would buy for which of our parents, uncles, and aunts. The Drawing of Names, which was held when the family gathered on Thanksgiving, was a system that allowed for the purchase of gifts totaling not more than $20 for the person whose name you drew. Grandma for a long time bought for everyone, an amazing feat which I suspect at times meant that she enlisted the help of other family members, because I recall conversations among her and them about how much was owed for which item. My cousins and I were quite satisfied because the event itself was as much of a gift as the toys and clothing we received.

With the presents unwrapped, the scene of this two-day family tradition rapidly shifted to the kitchen where a team of cooks had worked under the guidance of a master chef to produce a meal that was as dependably fine as any restaurant's. I have no idea if my grandmother had learned to cook through on-the-job training or if her mother had taught her, but I know that a cookbook was not a part of the instruction. On rare occasions she would forget to salt something, but all-in-all her success record was impeccable. Her orchestration of Christmas productions, not to mention daily dinners, Thanksgiving dinners, and Easter dinners, continued over decades--into her 80s--and illustrates the importance of quality, creativity, precision, and dedication in keeping house.

As I've learned more about the cuisines of Europe, I've tried to figure out which dominated Grandma's menus and come to the conclusion that her meals were American, which at the time meant a combination of German and English cooking. She lightly sizzled green beans in bacon grease before boiling them, which enhanced their flavor to no end although somewhat decreased their nutritional value. She also fried chicken in bacon grease, and I have not had better fried chicken than hers. Her dumpling-making is, I fear, a lost art. Cooked in chicken or turkey broth, they came out thick, tasty, and chewy, rivaled only by my mother's equally fine noodles, and were for me the highlight of the meal unless she was also serving macaroni and cheese with cheese that came not wrapped in airtight plastic but in white paper from the little grocery store that had become the primary source of supplies in the town since 1914, when the thriving city was devastated by the explosion of the nearby powder mill that damaged or destroyed most of the town's buildings. Adjoining the grocery was the second biggest business in Fontanet, tavern that had been run for years by Grandpa's sister Hat and her husband Firman Allen.

Grandma never neglected dessert, especially not for Christmas dinner, and usually served a cake and several types of pies. She knew I was an admirer of her lemon and coconut pies, so she would frequently serve one of the two as well as a couple of fruit pies, including the perennial pumpkin. This was well before grocers offered pre-made crusts.

The kitchen was big, but not big enough to fit the whole clan around the table, so a couple of card tables were set up for the kids in another room. This was fine with us for a range of obvious reasons plus the fact that Grandpa frowned on children talking at the table and the excitement of Christmas made it really hard not to talk. The house hummed with conversation during dinner just as it had the night before when beer loosened the adults' tongues, leading to some heated discussions of the political issues of the day. But on Christmas, the conversations kept to less controversial subjects such as conveying updates on neighbors, friends, and extended family members.

With dinner over, the cooks turned into dishwashers, and the men and children adjourned to the other rooms in the house. My uncles would either sit with Grandpa on the front porch or go into the living room where the Christmas tree stood without the obstruction of all those wrapped packages to watch football on the house's only TV, a big console model with a picture that people nowadays probably would consider barely watchable. Despite the whole family being home, the house never seemed crowded to me--except when snoring was evolved--even though it consisted of only four rooms and two enclosed porches. Now days only one bathroom is considered inconvenient in a house, but we were all thankful it was there--an outhouse was the only option until I was about eight years old.

The well water coming into the house was nearly undrinkable (although not unhealthy), so periodically some family member would have to go to the other well out in the back of the property in the chicken yard to pump by hand a couple of buckets of water that tasted at least as pure and clean as the stuff that is sold for $2.00 a bottle in vending machines today. The house was heated by two coal stoves, one in the kitchen and a huge one in what was known as the middle room. I remember well making a point of watching Grandpa as he brought in a chunk of coal from a coal bucket outside, open up the big stove, and toss it in. The inferno inside was just that--all you could see was red and yellow flame.

As dinners digested, my uncles, aunts, and cousins would head for home. Sometimes they would stay another day, I suppose depending on work schedules, but most times I remember them leaving before us so that finally I would be eager to get home because with no one left to play with, the lure of the big haul back in Terre Haute had become irresistible. Grandma and Grandpa must have felt both satisfaction and melancholy at another fine family Christmas come and gone, but I think they also had an unavoidable feeling of relief that they could get back to normal, knowing that it would not be long before the family or parts of it would come home again.

My grandparents' house in Fontanet remains standing, but another family occupies it, and if it returned to my hands for one more Dowell Christmas, the attendees would for the most part be ghosts. Nevertheless, the traditions that I value for my own family Christmases remain inextricably tied to those days although my energy level and patience pales in comparison to Grandma's. But I still want the vast majority of the massive amount of presents under the tree to be mine.