Days that are ordinary, but special
We couldn’t just decide to skip those chores today, since the health and well-being of the animals would suffer, and we would eventually suffer the consequences of their deprivations. If we were too sick to take care of the chores today, then we had to find someone who could step in and take care of things.
As I think on it, I believe that living with the interaction of ordinary routines and demands along with the special events of life has contributed to my attitudes toward life in a way that I treasure a great deal. Even Christmas, in being special, could not escape the ordinary needs of the day. On Christmas Day, I would wake up wondering if Santa Claus had come, and what we would be getting for Christmas. We always had Santa Claus presents under the tree, as well as other family pres- ents that would be shared later in the day. We kids could start Christmas Day by checking what Santa had brought. But that didn’t mean that the day could turn into just a play day. Once we checked out Santa’s presents for us, then we took off for the barn to see about the morning chores, to do the necessary milking and feeding and watering, and to remedy any problems with the livestock. After the chores were done, then there was almost always time on Christmas Day to play with our presents for a while.
Noon on Christmas Day was always a big family gathering occasion for us. Often it would mean going to Grandma’s house. That would normally be our Grandma Ellen Nichols’ house, either on the farm just north of ours, or in the big house on the hill in Pea Ridge (often known today as the Laughlin House or Lois Day House). My Grandma Retta Clement died in 1941, too early in my life for me to remember her. Grandpa Clement’s house north of Bentonville was also Aunt Goldie’s house (Mom’s sister), with my cousins Don and Bill Sisk. Sometimes we might go there for Christmas dinner with them. A few times we had a big family gathering at our house for Christmas dinner, with grandparents from both sides there.
In those days, for a farm family in the Ozarks, dinner was always the noon meal. We were vaguely aware that some city people had dinner in the evening, but for country people like us, the evening meal was suppertime, and the noon meal was dinnertime. The mid-day meal was the time for the big occasions, since the evening time would be occupied with wrapping up the farm chores for the day.
I know that some people would find the way of life I have described as boring. Some of my friends, whose lives were similar to ours, often seemed to see the farm routines as boring. On the other hand, I think I have always been discovering interesting and fascinating things that show up during the ordinary routines of life.
Some of the Biblical scenes of the first Christmas would at first seem to be ordinary things, daily routines, not expected to provide experiences of great fascination. For example, Mary and Joseph were not on the way to Bethlehem with the intention of having their child in a special place; they were going to Bethlehem to take care of their very inconvenient tax obligations. How unexciting is that? The shepherds out in the fields, keeping watch over their sheep, were spending an ordinary and routine night, guarding against predators, and were not expecting to have something momentous revealed to them. Bethlehem was not a fascinating special place, it was an obscure little village, existing in the shadow of greater places. To a citizen of the great cities, in Babylon, or Egypt, or Assyria, Bethlehem would be like Nowheresville in their eyes.
The point is, that not all of the great events in life take place in the glittering cities. Not all of the powerful and significant things, with implications for the ages, will make it into television specials or newspaper special editions. Sometimes the Lord chooses the most ordinary and routine of places to shine a special light. As a boy, to me a manger was one of those ordinary everyday things, a feed box for feeding calves, an area for feeding hay and grain to the cows as they were milked. A manger is not usually a place to lay a newborn baby. And yet, in the instance of God’s Son, the ordinariness of the manger takes on an humble appropriateness, and the whole humble scene shines with a special magnificence.
••• Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist, a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at joe369@ centurytel.net, or call 6211621.