Kathryn Tucker Windham
  • Home
  • KATHRYN'S WORK
    • PHOTOGRAPHY
    • BOOKS
    • TELLING STORIES
    • AWARDS
  • Biography
  • VIDEOS
  • OUR STORIES (Blog)
  • Contact Us
  • Purchase Prints
  • NEW 8 x 10 Prints

Preparing for Christmas

12/18/2017

16 Comments

 
PictureKathryn loved Christmas.

My mother loved Christmas.  The Windham family didn’t have a lot of money for expensive gifts, so Mother directed our assortment of handmade gifts for friends and relatives.  There were colorful woven potholders, decorated soap dishes made from cockle shells and other crafts, along with fresh baked cookies and date balls.


One of our most anticipated days of the season was my sister Kitti’s birthday, December 17, when we would get our Christmas tree.  It generally would come from some little tree sales out in the country, and it was always a cedar.  Then we’d climb up the pull-down stairs into the attic and haul out boxes of ornaments and other decorations, many of them handmade by us through the years.


When the three Windham children moved away to go to college and start careers, Mother continued the December 17th tradition of getting and decorating a Christmas tree.  As she aged, she decided the climb into the attic was not especially safe, so we would come home to find the tree decorated with pinwheels or other dollar store procurement.  One Christmas, Mother was particularly ambitious and made a garland for the tree from all her green prescription bottles. 


Sometime in the early 2000s, Alabama artist Charlie Lucas moved in next door to Mother.  They became fast friends, and, at Christmastime, they would go together to land owned by one of Mother’s friends who’d given her permission to cut her tree there.  


On one such occasion, Mother and Charlie loaded themselves up in Charlie’s pickup and set out to chop the Christmas tree.  They pulled off the two-lane road and headed into the woods to find just the right one.


Meanwhile, a concerned citizen driving by saw the two of them going off into the woods.  Alarmed, she quickly called 911 and got the Selma Police Department on the phone.  Questioned about her emergency, the woman breathlessly reported, “I just saw a black man take an old white lady into the woods, and he had a hatchet!”


Sometimes it pays to live in a small town where everybody knows everything about everyone else.  The policeman on the other end of the line chuckled.  “Don’t you worry, ma’am.  That’s just Charlie taking Miss Kathryn to get her Christmas tree.”  


Merry Christmas, everybody…

16 Comments

    Archives

    November 2022
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016

    We welcome YOUR comments on our blog posts. You will see a "comments" link at the top and bottom of each page. Feel free to join in! 

    Want to get alerts when new posts are added to this Blog? Visit and "Like" our Facebook page and you will see the new posts there when they are added!
    Click here to visit the new Kathryn Tucker Windham Facebook Page.

    RSS Feed

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Photo Courtesy of Ted Tucker

    RSS Feed

Picture
Photo Courtesy of Ted Tucker
"Some people are important to intellectuals, journalists, or politicians, but Kathryn Tucker Windham is probably the only person I know in Alabama who is important to everybody."      

​–
Wayne Flynt, Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at Auburn University. 
CONTACT US

​Dilcy Windham Hilley
Email:
dilcywindham@gmail.com

© 2023 - Dilcy Windham Hilley.  All rights to images belong to the artists who created them.

Site by Mike McCracken mike@myworkonly.com
Picture
  • Home
  • KATHRYN'S WORK
    • PHOTOGRAPHY
    • BOOKS
    • TELLING STORIES
    • AWARDS
  • Biography
  • VIDEOS
  • OUR STORIES (Blog)
  • Contact Us
  • Purchase Prints
  • NEW 8 x 10 Prints