My favorites Christmas memories gathered around our mountain home in Otey. Dad would fire up his Jeep with me and our beagle in tow, our ears flapping, to find the perfect tree. Clark Griswold had nothing on him. The wood stove in the parlor was gloving red. Mother rushed form the ham in the oven to logs on the fire. She unfolded Dad’s old bathrobe that yearly played a role in the church Christmas pageant, although it might have been pre-dated the Shroud of Turin. “Backward, turn backward, O’ Time, in your flight/ Make me a child again just for tonight!”

Submitted by Prof. James S. Angle