Usually the first thought of December will be Christmas with all the decorations and glitter. Perhaps it is the fun or stress, depending on your point of view. There is this overwhelming hustle to December and it can be happy or depressing related to your own circumstances at this particular time in your life. If you have a job, a home, a happy relationship or perhaps a newborn child in your family, then all is well. Being spiritual can help, whatever your belief, it is definitely a positive mental attitude and each to his own preference is the best. Take away any of these parts and you are on your way to being stressed to the point of depression. December has all the ingredients to be the most wonderful or most stressful time of year even in the best of situations. December is a state of mind.

In my early childhood, on a small Irish Ridge farm called �the old Green house place�, December was a wondrous thing. Lots of snow, livestock tucked inside the barn slowly munching on the season�s bounty is a mental picture never to be forgotten. I was too young to realize that my helping Dad with the chores was more for me than actually getting the job finished. Perhaps this time gave Mom a few moments break from a four year old too. A four year old doesn�t really have a grasp on how much actual work he is doing in the scheme of things. I felt proud to be out there helping Dad with these daily duties. Besides, the barn was always warm from the animal body heat and the hay above provided a lot of insulation as well as a great place to play and hide. Back then I thought it was a great place to be when the snow was deep outside. The scent of the animals in that warm barn, cold wind blowing outside, is forever embedded in my mind. A big help for Dad? Not much in reality, but occasionally I did get a bit of feed to the animals. That smile of his said it all, I was proud to be Neil Greene�s son.

Inside our home in December had a completely different feel and by all means a different smell. Mom was a great cook and our home always had the smell of fresh baked bread or pies. That pot of potatoes steaming on the old wood stove filled the air with that great potato bouquet, yes I am part Irish. Mom, like most women of the time, wasted nothing. That potato water went into making bread or pancakes. There is no wonder why the �now packaged� pancake mix cannot recreate those wonderful pancakes Mom made.

Being a depression baby, I remember helping 'paperwrap' those apples and pears from the trees in our field, root beer ageing after being capped with that new bottle capper from the store, home picked and canned berries. That oh so cold water from the windmill water pump was a winter challenge, sometimes during the coldest weather it needed some warm water prime to thaw it and get it going. Water was and still is the one ingredient we cannot replace or do without.

Then there is the needed meat for hard working farm families, a simple thing now but then it involved the squealing pig, hanging by it's legs on the windmill, about to be slaughtered. When it came to beef it was matter of fact and about as humane as those years allowed. At age 20, my Aunt Esther Greene Phillips in her January 4, 1918 diary entry, told it plainly and said it like it was, �I helped milk then Neil and I went down to Uncle George�s after the pulleys. Hazel rode as far as the corner. Papa went down before to get the saw and rode home with us. Ray and Lisle husked a load of corn then Lisle cleaned out the barn. Ray went up and got Mr. Daugherty to kill Sadie for beef. They cut her up and Papa helped. Neil watered stock and did his chores. I crocheted most of P.M. Mama helped do the chores and work in the house, sewed and pressed the skirt. Agnes did some work and cut out a waist from Wilda�s old red dress. Wilda helped do the up-stairs work and did some of the other work.� The next 2 days, January 5 & 6, 1918 came the entries, "We did up the work and helped milk. Gladys's [Roy McDaniel] came up for a while. They took home some of the beef. We girls were going to a dance with Joe's but it was too far to go. We all did up the work then sat around and read and played some games. We all sang, Hazel and I played the organ. Uncle George and Uncle Henry came up to spend the day. Ray got home from Lodge, he stayed at Roy's the rest of the night." No romance here, but a family way of life, just the way it was.

Ah yes, the memories of those December Irish Ridge days have to include the snow that blew in though the crack and just stayed on the floor behind that red hot pot bellied stove in our living room. Bed time meant a mountain of down filled covers and mattress. Not too much heat came through that open grate in the bedroom floor even if it was above the living room and pot bellied stove. No forced air system here!

Oliver Hereford�s, � I heard a bird sing in the dark of December - A magical thing and sweet to remember.� I wonder, was he speaking about an actual bird song or was he perhaps thinking of those innermost memories that make us who and what we are today? No matter ... but if you do hear a bird sing in your December, let it be magical and sweet to remember, enjoy it to the fullest.