It's been quite a few years since we were all together for our “Norman Rockwell” style Christmas family gathering. I was well aware of the paintings by that famous artist but not until it was all gone did I realize we had that.
Hazel Wicker Underwood (my Mother) was one of five sisters. Jennings, the lone male of the siblings, was lost over the Pacific in World War II. All of the sisters lived an hour or less from Jackson, except for Beulah Belle, (aka BB) whose husband Kearney Thompson was a Methodist minister, and was sometimes a bit farther away.
Our house on Decelle Street in the Fondren area of Jackson, Mississippi was the primary gathering place for the family, and what gatherings they were. Five sisters from Smith County, working together in joyous fellowship preparing the meal. Five husbands, all there, having coffee and discussing the ways of the world, catching up on their goings on and sharing tales of honey do’s. Then there were the children of these five couples, 12 kids, bringing the house count up to 22, scattered out in about 1,200 square feet. Maybe because our table wasn’t as big as the one in the painting, is why I never made the connection, or maybe the artist missed the opportunity of having kids’ tables so they could escape the adults’ table and carry on their own conversation, who knows, but I know one thing, I thought it was so normal to have such a grand gathering, one I miss so much now.
After the excitement of Santa’s surprises, after the wrapping paper was cleared away to prepare for the guests to come, as a child I’d often be on lookout, standing on my knees on the sofa looking out the front window, awaiting the excitement to come. Soon the first car would arrive, and then another, and before you knew it the house would be full, full of people, full of excitement, full of the aroma of the Wicker girls’ great cooking, I loved my aunts and uncles as if they were alternate parents. I loved my cousins like they were brothers and sisters. We were one big family. Each of us had some interest that another would have, boredom was banished. It was the best of times. It wouldn’t take long for this grand meal to be on the table and we all gathered in the “den” (which was also the dining room) and Uncle Kearney would “return thanks” for “the blessings of Jesus Christ to the world and the food we were about to receive, and those hands that have prepared it.” I can still hear him say those words. Here’s a fabulous misconception I had. We had a preacher in the family to say the blessing, doesn’t everyone have a preacher in the family? Nope. I didn’t realize that, just like I didn’t realize that having 22 people in your house for Christmas was special, 25 percent of them being the best cooks in the whole wide world. I do now. I was (and am) truly blessed. Thanks be to God!!
Al Underwood is a Northsider.
