Dec

24

Christmas Traditions.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

December 24, 2007 |

I mentioned previously that I have two very personal holiday traditions, and that one of them is reading A Child’s Christmas In Wales by Dylan Thomas. The other is that I read another Christmas story, A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote. This is a kinder, gentler Capote than the one who wrote In Cold Blood, or even Breakfast At Tiffany’s, although A Christmas Memory was included in one edition of that book, along with two other short stories. You can hear Capote himself read the story here.

The story memorializes his childhood friendship with a distant relative of his mother, Nanny Rumbley Faulk, whom Capote went to live with when he was four and left at the age of nine. She was, in both the story and the novel A Grass Harp, a wonderfully eccentric person, but a wonderful friend. As Truman explains, “She calls me Buddy, in memory of a boy who was formerly her best friend. The other Buddy died in the 1880’s, when she was still a child. She is still a child.” Later on he gives us even more insight into what made her such a fascinating character:

In addition to never having seen a movie, she has never: eaten in a restaurant, traveled more than five miles from home, received or sent a telegram, read anything except funny papers and the Bible, worn cosmetics, cursed, wished someone harm, told a lie on purpose, let a hungry dog go hungry. Here are a few things she has done, does do: killed with a hoe the biggest rattlesnake ever seen in this county (sixteen rattles), dip snuff (secretly), tame hummingbirds (just try it) till they balance on her finger, tell ghost stories (we both believe in ghosts) so tingling they chill you in July, talk to herself, take walks in the rain, grow the prettiest japonicas in town, know the recipe for every sort of oldtime Indian cure, including a magical wart remover.

She and Buddy also make fruitcakes. Their tradition is to bake thirty cakes every winter. As he explains, they’re for friends, but,

 

Not necessarily neighbor friends: indeed, the larger share is intended for persons we’ve met maybe once, perhaps not at all. People who’ve struck our fancy. Like President Roosevelt. Like the Reverend and Mrs. J. C. Lucey, Baptist missionaries to Borneo who lectured here last winter. Or the little knife grinder who comes through town twice a year. Or Abner Packer, the driver of the six o’clock bus from Mobile, who exchanges waves with us every day as he passes in a dust-cloud whoosh. Or the young Wistons, a California couple whose car one afternoon broke down outside the house and who spent a pleasant hour chatting with us on the porch (young Mr. Wiston snapped our picture, the only one we’ve ever had taken).

Most people cringe whenever they think of fruitcake, but my mouth always waters at the thought of how good Ms. Faulk’s cakes must have been, made with pineapple, raisins, walnuts, cherries, vanilla, ginger, and sprinkled with bootleg whiskey. They must have been heavenly.

The thoughtful, present-tense style of the story is evocative, as are Capote’s subtle, thoughtful details. It’s also sad. Close to the end of the story she comes to a wonderful, startling epiphany which she shares with Buddy while they fly kites and eat Satsumas, but the life they share can’t last. For all her childlike innocence, she is still older than Buddy, and life separates them. The story reminds me of all the Christmases behind me, all those close to me whom I’ve lost, but, in reading the story’s final revelation, I feel there is much in the present to rejoice in, and even possibly something to look forward to.


Comments

1 Comment so far

  1. Christmas Traditions. on January 15, 2008 12:57 am

    [...] Christmas Traditions. I mentioned previously that I have two very personal holiday traditions, and that one of them is reading A Child’s Christmas In Wales by Dylan Thomas. The other is that I read another Christmas story, A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote. This is a kinder, gentler Capote than the one who wrote In Cold Blood, or even Breakfast At Tiffany’s, although A Christmas Memory was included in one edition of that book, along with two other short stories.  You can hear Capote himself read the story here. [...]

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