RRN Online Volume 27

December 16 '96

Volume 27

Christmastime Main Street Pontotoc

This year each December night viewed along Main Street in Pontotoc, MS, is a picture postcard of Christmas in a small town. Each block of Main Street is lined with Bradford Pear trees, still stubbornly holding much of their colorful fall foliage. The trees are illumined by the soft glow of turn of the century style street lights. The amber rays emanating from the modern sodium-vapor lamps and diffused by cut-glass, single globed, 15 feet high lampposts, add a special richness of hue to those tree leaves remaining.

Every tree has been trimmed in tiny, white lights, the same now used by millions of celebrants of the Christmas Season. The small park that forms Court Square adjacent to the County Courthouse is also decorated by tiny white lights that ring its deciduous trees. A solitary cross, outlined in lights, reminds one and all of the reason for celebrating the season.

Except for visual clues revealing modern modes of transportation and the unavailability of drifting white snow, it is possible to imagine this rhapsodic scene as it might appear on a Currier and Ives print. It is too bad Norman Rockwell never visited this community or he would likely have been inspired to spread a canvas with his interpretation of Christmas in Pontotoc. Artistic impressions of Pontotoc may never achieve wide acclaim, and history may never ascribe any significance to this fair community, but the citizenry of this county-seat town are well aware of the cultural and aesthetic opportunities afforded its residents.

The special glow of the present scene will soon fade as an old year dies, and a new year is birthed. The seasonal decorations will be removed, the streets and buildings will again assume a business as usual appearance. Yet, the special glow that is the Spirit of Pontotoc will remain. Though it cannot be captured on canvas, or photographic film, it exists and burns brightly within hearts and shines from the faces of all who are priviledged call Pontotoc...home.

Another Gene Thing

My sister has outdone herself. It is one of those you have to see-it-to-believe-it things. I don’t quite know what gets ahold of Sarah during the Christmas Season, but I suspect it is an inherited trait passed down from Frederick "Fred" Crausby. Fred Crausby or Papa as my mother referred to her father was a man who enthusiastically loved Christmas.

Papa died when my mother was young, but Mama was old enough to remember how special her father treated Christmas. I recall her telling about all the food he would buy like great chunks of cheddar cheese, sometimes even a full hoop (that’s about 25 pounds of cheese, folks). The traditional fruits and nuts would also be abundant. There must have been an air of intense excitement as Papa fueled the minds of his three daughters with his own tales of past Christmases.

My mom’s family might have been just poor country people, but a bit of extravagance was necessary from Papa every Christmas. Whatever the girls may have lacked in material possessions was more than made up in a time of celebration led by their papa. A Christmas memory lasts far longer than toys or dolls or other material things.

Sarah is a lot like Fred Crausby when it comes to preparing for Christmas. Her own children will, no doubt, remember many happy events associated with their childhood Christmases, and among these will be the cookies, cakes, fudges, and finger foods prepared by their mom. Home crafted decorations for outdoors, drawn, painted, and sometimes sawn by their creative mother will seem endless as they one day recount childhood memories.

Exterior flood lights, staked in the ground, light the entire front of Sarah’s home on East Oxford Street. The front door and wall are adorned with hand crafted wreathes. Garland is arched above the front entrance which is guarded by life-sized toy soldiers that only weeks ago were shaped from a 4 by 8 piece of plywood and then painted in bold British red and black.

Sarah’s son, Brett, managed to overcome his fear of heights just long enough to staple strings of lights along the sides and front edge of the roof of house. Brett claims he is not getting back on the steep roof to remove the lights. I will probably help with that chore.

My niece, Felicia, has found her calling to be tree decorating. The women of the house have placed and decorated a tree for each room; that includes both bathrooms, but not the laundry room. A couple of these are not the traditional green firs, but are the now naked limbs of once living trees, and having been painted a snowy white, are trimmed in white lights and/or balls and beads.

Fits of crafting and decorating for Christmas seem to have bypassed me, yet another year. If I have any of the Fred Crausby genes, they are dormant or benign. In recent years, my decorating initiative has been pretty much limited to fetching all the boxs of Christmas decorations and the artifical tree from the attic. Other family members usually put up the tree and the inside decorations. Caught in a time crunch to decorate, as well as a house in need of a general cleaning, Barbara and I invited Felicia to decorate our tree. After all, she does love so to decorate; why not give her the opportunity.

With Brett’s help, I got the decorations from the attic. Right after lunch this past Sunday (12/08/96), Felicia, with her mother helping and Barbara supervising, flung the tree into a corner of the living room, and in less time than you can say Martha Stewart, the tree was up and decorated. Felicia had to show Sarah and Barbara the Martha Stewart method of wrapping each limb with lights. Felicia had seen the method demonstrated 5 times and was certain she had it down pat.

Shortly after 3:00 p.m. Barbara and I had our cars loaded and were on our way back to Greenville. Thanks to cleaning efforts we had made on Saturday and the decorating efforts of Felica and Sarah on Sunday afternoon, we could say of the house in Pontotoc, "Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas."

Now, if it would only turn cold and snow on Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas to all.

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