If there was one thing Nanny could do well, it was decorating for Christmas. She couldn’t give good presents, she couldn’t cook tasty holiday meals, and when we went to visit, she was neither merry nor bright, but judgmental and rather sour. But 'she played good Christmas music' and her Christmas decorations were somehow great. There was a hanging bell that played carols, a wreath that had the front parts of a couple of deer poking out the outside door, with their hindquarters hanging on the inside, candles in wreaths, and ribbons with bells. But the one thing that always fascinated me was the Noel banner, and looking closely at it you can see why.
She had made it herself, using this McCall’s pattern. Where she got all the little things she sewed onto it I have no idea, though there are some obvious gumball machine prizes and little animals. When Nanny passed away, her Christmas stuff fell to Mom’s lot, and when Mom passed away, this is the part of the Christmas things that I got.
Looking at the ‘N’, you cannot fail to see the spot where (well-remembered from my youth) there used to be a little plastic figure of an infant, that filled the place of Baby Jesus between Mary and Joseph. How it came to be missing (and it looks to me to have been removed on purpose; no other trinket is gone) is a mystery that will probably never be answered. My own theory is that in Nanny’s waning years her Dark Master would no longer allow even so oblique an image of Jesus Christ within her cold, hopeless dwelling. But I’m open to other explanations.
For that last statement I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact, and was in no way fair comment, and was motivated purely by malice, and I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused anyone or their family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.
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