PORCHSCENE: Exploring Southern Culture

A Southern Christmas Memory

by Deborah Fagan Carpenter

(First published here in December, 2016) 

“Imagine a morning in late November. A coming-of-winter morning more than twenty years ago. Consider the kitchen of a spreading old house in a country town. A great black stove is its main feature; but there is also a big round table and a fireplace with two rocking chairs placed in front of it. Just today the fireplace commenced its seasonal roar.

A woman with shorn white hair is standing at the kitchen window. She is wearing tennis shoes and a shapeless gray sweater over a summery calico dress. She is small and sprightly, like a bantam hen; but, due to a long youthful illness, her shoulders are pitifully hunched. Her face is remarkable – not unlike Lincoln’s, craggy like that, and tinted by sun and wind; but it is delicate too, finely boned, and her eyes are sherry-colored and timid. ‘Oh my,’ she exclaims, her breath smoking the windowpane, ‘It’s fruitcake weather!’”

—Truman Capote, A Christmas Memory

In the late fall of 1966, I accidentally stumbled upon the ABC premier television production of Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory, starring the incomparable Geraldine Page. I was unfamiliar with this story and knew nothing of Truman Capote’s work, including that he had written a novella that was made into the well-known film by the same name, Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The captivating television rendition of A Christmas Memory was a lovingly created interpretation of Capote’s beautifully written autobiographical story of his tender friendship with a distant cousin in Depression-era Alabama. It was enchanting and made even more special by the writer serving as narrator and by the brilliance of Geraldine Page’s performance, for which she won an Emmy.

The original short story is a warm account of the holidays during the author’s four or five-year residence in Monroeville, Alabama, living with the harsh relatives with whom his Mother had left him. A distant cousin in the same house, whom he called “Sook,” became his confidant and closest friend, and the story gives the reader a glimpse into their intimate friendship. Truman Capote was only four years old when he went to live with his Alabama relatives, and “Sook” was, in many ways, much the same age. The story of thier bond is also a revelation of the beauty of simplicity and the importance of heartfelt, but humble generosity.

Truman Capote’s skillfully crafted narrative is an insightful look into  country life of the poor in the South during the Depression, while  shedding light on the early impressions that fueled the author’s complicated and often tumultuous existence. It quickly became an example for me of why giving and sharing— even in the most modest way— with those special  people in our lives is what sustains the magic of Christmas. I was bewitched by this quintessentially Southern Christmas story, and reading or hearing it read each year reminds me of the need to participate in that magic.

 We at PorchScene hope you are busy creating your own special Christmas and Holiday Memories!

Kitchen image with Geraldine Page is licensed under CC By 4.0 — linked to elderrantings.blogspot.com