Christmas In An Unlikely Season

How could my children and I share in the joy of the season during a time of terrible sadness?

- William H. Armstrong

That 21st of November was grey and overcast. One best remembers such a day if he watches it, as I did, after a sleepless night. There is time to watch the day build up if you have to stay in bed. That was where the doctor was keeping me. Mumps is no lark at 43.

Outside my bedroom window, I could hear the sheep going down the hillside to the lower pasture. Five of the sheep were belled, each with an individual tone. On this particular morning, they seemed to make music.

Just a week before, the last of my many big jobs around our farmhouse had been finished. A strong wire fence now surrounded all the land. The sheep were secure from dogs.

I didn’t mind much having to take some time off from the all-boys boarding school where I taught. September and October are hellish months, getting schoolboys adjusted and organized, so I needed this rest.

I really would miss only five days. This was Saturday. Thanksgiving would be next week, and the students would go home for the holidays. I could lie here and dream.

I felt a warm sense of security now that our home was completed. My wife, Martha, and I had first looked at this rocky Connecticut hillside when the old apple trees were in bloom. Could we buy it? We wondered. Standing 400 feet up on the bony ridge, we looked down the Housatonic Valley. The sound of rapids from the river in the valley came up to us. How many nights their gentle roar would lull us to sleep.

I decided to build the house myself from trees on the property. Could trees be cut and sawed, and lumber piled to dry? Could stone be hauled in for chimneys and terraces? Sometimes people planted seeds of discouragement.