Christmas 'do

When I was in the fourth grade, my family began attending First Christian Church in Sebring, FL. I was the youngest person in the church, followed by my brother, then my parents. It soon became tradition that I would sing some Christmas song that spelled Christmas out, explaining what each letter was for. C is for the Christ child, born upon this day, H for how the Herald angels sang. R is for Redeemer, I for Israel…I can’t remember the rest. Anyway, you get the picture. It’s a cute song and apparently, I looked pretty cute singing it. I wore this little red and green taffeta dress, with a strange square white collar. I also had “awesome” hair. I know it might sound strange to some of you, but my hair wasn’t always curly. I had this little chin length bob, and mom curled it all under, curled my bangs, and then applied so much hairspray that a nuclear bomb wouldn’t have disturbed the ‘do. It looked a lot like a helmet, or some sort of video game person. I was embarrassed by this hairdo, but the dress and the fact that every single old person in the church (the entire population) told me that I was beautiful, adorable, or amazing in some way or another seemed to make up for it. Apart from the hair and the weird collar, it was nice.
The first Christmas Eve night that I did this my Uncle and his family had come down to visit my Granddaddy. My Grandma also came down for Christmas, so the entire family was there to watch me sing! After church my Uncle and his family and my Grandma all came over to my house to open presents. Grandma made all the grand kids matching PJs. Well, the boys had boy PJs and the girls had nightgowns. I remember thinking as I was pulling that flannel nightgown over my helmet hair (which hurt by the way) that it was a little embarrassing. Not the nightgown. I loved it. I loved nightgowns. It wasn’t even embarrassing that my older cousin (of 4 years) and younger cousin (of 8 years) were wearing the same nightgown that I was wearing. It wasn’t embarrassing how we all had to sit on the overstuffed chair and have our pictures made together for no less than 5 pictures.

It was the hair. But luckily, I have plenty of pictures to remind me of it.