My wife, Jean, has told me about her Grandma Steel’s Christmas Box several times and this year Jean wanted to repeat her Grandma Steel’s annual practice at Christmas time. This Christmas of 2006 was the time my wife made up a unique Christmas box for each one of our adult children.
Jean’s Grandma Steel was a very individual kind of lady, no frills — to the point that Christmas decorations were a red light bulb in the ceiling receptacle and nothing else — they never even had a Christmas tree. She didn’t hold back on everything in life though. When Grandma Steel made ice cream she always used real cream! Jean said you didn’t get “much” ice cream but what you got was real good! When Grandma Steel made potato salad she used a great big crock. Jean’s dad once recalled a time when he snuck into Grandma’s pantry to “sample” some of his mother’s potato salad and after he took a few bites he carefully smoothed over the surface to make it look like nobody had been in it.
The two meager examples above tell the story about Grandma Steel and to put it yet another way, “Grandma Steel was plain.” This annual practice at Christmas time to give her adult children a plain box of staples was just one example of her plain ways. There were three children in the Steel Family: two boys, Ray and Floyd — no nicknames in this plain woman’s mind, and the girl was simply named “Ruth”. No middle names for any of her children but when Ruth became a nurse she had to have a middle name so she picked one out of the air. The reason behind such short names was so no one could make up nicknames for her children. Grandma Steel’s Dad’s had a rather odd habit of nicknaming his kids. Grandma Steel’s Dad called grandma’s sister Lulu Ann, “Fred”, and all Jean’s Dad ever knew her as was “Aunt Fred”. Obviously Grandma Steel was tired of such foolishness and no child of hers would have nicknames if she could help it.
Jean’s Grandma & Grandpa Steel lived in the company house of the West Side Lumber Company as part of his pay and he shared that duplex house with another employee. Jean’s father made routine visits to his folks when he got off work (at the same lumber mill) and at Christmas when he stopped by Mom’s he picked up his special box from his mother at Christmas time. (Jean said they never went to Grandma Steels for Christmas but to Jean’s mother’s folks. This is no different than most families who share holidays.)
The special gift Ray (Jean’s Dad) would pick up was in a “Blue Ribbon Paint” cardboard box that had held four gallon cans of paint, which the West Side Lumber Company sold. Inside the box were “plain” items, a can of peaches, flour, sugar, a roll of toilet tissue and such but the box was full and had no Christmas wrappings at all. One year Jean spied a small bottle of Evening in Paris perfume — this she took for herself (of course she was the “girl” of her Dad’s family so it was obviously hers anyway–her brother sure had no use for it).
Jean has often wanted to duplicate this “special Christmas box of staples” with our children and this year she finally got it done. We did not cover the box with Christmas wrappings. The corrugated boxes we used were plain “commercial” boxes I picked up at a local print shop. Inside the box were staples like a couple boxes of tissues and paper towels, a small box of store-bought mint-chocolate cookies we got at Dollar General, a 2007 calendar, two containers of homemade cookies, a couple chap sticks, and chewing gum. Jean did want some kind of a label to identify this rather unusual “gift” so I made her a plain label simply identifying the box for what it was; but I wanted something extra in it to make it special and when Jean wanted to provide a recipe of the cookies, I came up with just one more special item to be included in the box. Since the two containers (we used whipped topping containers) of cookies were in the box I worked up a little booklet providing recipes for the cookies. For the record, I included the date authenticating the occasion and purpose of the little recipe booklet.
Was it a good idea? We thought so but that could be because both my wife and I are also rather plain people, however I hope as our children continue in their adult lives, hopefully one day years after we’re gone, they will remember their mother’s “Grandma’s Christmas Box”. Incidentally, we did give our adult children gift cards to go with the Christmas box.
THE WORDWRIGHT