Christmas Along the Bayou

The Great Rivers originate somewhere in the north country. One trickle, then another and another, is joined by a brook and a rill and a creek, until they all converge and flow southward in a rush.

A bayou never rushes. In the South, a bayou will eventually deign to join one or another of the Great Rivers, but always on its own terms. Moving in its own tranquil fashion, a bayou shelters secret things and places beneath its dark surface.

I think our hearts are like the bayous. Each human heart harbors its secrets of good and evil, of yearnings and deeds and misspent time, in the still, deep places beneath its surface.

My sister and I, she a writer and I a teller of tales, wrote these stories as a Christmas tribute to the bayou country where we grew up. The people in our stories yearn for the perfect Christmas, with snow and sparkly lights and good will toward men and peace on earth, amen. Their lives, and their Christmases, usually turn out quite differently.

In the north country, far from her beloved bayous, a woman stands looking out the kitchen window, waiting impatiently for coffee to brew as she watches the falling snow. With what's already on the ground, this accumulation amounts to more snow than she saw during her entire childhood in the South.

For a moment, she yearns for bayou country, its smells and sounds and the soft, humid air.

"Leopard change her spots 'fore a Southerner forgets the bayous," she mutters.

By early afternoon, the house will be filled with children and grandchildren, laughter and the smells of Christmas cooking. Probably a dog or two the kids just can't leave at home. But for now it's peaceful, coffee time for her and her man.

She loads a tray with two cups, the fixings preferred by each of them and a small pitcher for hot refills, then heads down the hall to the bedroom.

Jimmy is sitting up in bed, waiting for her. He greets her with that smile, the one that still tugs at her heart. "Ready for coffee?" she asks him.

"Hmmmmm, I be ready for you," he says, gently mocking the bayou dialect she sometimes speaks.

Her blue eyes soften, dance with laughter. "Are you now? Then I 'spect we be working something out. You still love me after all these years?"

"With my life," he answers.

She knows he speaks the truth, and her earlier longing for the bayous floats away like so much smoke. They have a good life and she has no regrets.

Afterwards, they drift back to sleep, coffee cooling on the table beside the bed.

Lord, thank You for the pleasures and joys of marriage.

In a small room in a little country hospital in Middle Georgia, a young couple waits for the doctor to return. They are the only ones in the hospital; even the nurses have the night off.

The doctor's young second wife called two hours ago, angry that he wasn't home for their annual Christmas Eve open house. He left in a hurry, saying he'd be back before the baby was born.

The doctor was dead wrong. What the husband, a bayou country boy, knows about birthing animals is not enough to protect a human baby during a breech birth. Around midnight, the tiny baby gives up her struggle to breathe.

Neither the man nor his wife knows how to comfort the other. Silently, each prays for the soul of their little girl-child. Christmas Meddlin'

A small girl steps off the school bus in Mississippi delta country. She can hardly contain her excitement about the holiday, because she still believes anything is possible on Christmas morning.

Under the tree, she might find a pony, or a piano, or a whole wardrobe of beautiful new dresses.

Maybe a train, with a bridge and depot and a village dotted with tiny trees spaced around the tracks.

Rings and bracelets, with real jewels like she saw in the window of the jewelry store.

Or a dollhouse, with tiny little furniture and people.

She knows there will be games and books, jacks and jump ropes, but she still hopes for such miracles as curly hair and long eyelashes.

Just exploring, meddlin' Mama calls it, she spots a carefully hidden stash beneath the quilts in her parents' closet. Horrified, she tries not to look, but of course it's too late. The gifts -- a sweater her size, a ball glove her brother asked for, a tool set Daddy admired at Sears -- the gifts speak the truth.

Never again to believe that gifts appear under the Christmas tree, as if by magic, while she sleeps. She understands how limited the possibilities are on Christmas morning and that thank you's will definitely be required from now on.

She is grown before she discovers a treasure trove of gifts for all mankind, distributed as if by magic, while we slept.

Christmas Along the Bayou is published by

PCT, Inc.
4335 W. Piedras Drive, Suite 175
San Antonio, TX 78228

Copyright 1998 by John R. Griffin and Catherine G. Haynes

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, without the express permission of the copyright holders.

Printed in the United States of America

November, 1998

Copies of this book may be ordered through the following:

E-mail - BayouBook@aol.com

or write:
Bayou Book
c/o PCT, Inc.
4335 W. Piedras Drive, Suite 175
San Antonio, Tx 78228

or call::
(210)735-9141
1-800-433-6154
(210)735-9775 FAX

MC & Visa accepted.

Watch for the upcoming full length novel by the authors, currently in progress under the working title "Growing Up Southern".