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Stitches for Christmas, tiny bags full of sand
By Justin Raines Staff Writer
The only time I can remember not having to work on Christmas Eve was when I was 5 years old. My mother had just finished a fresh loaf of pumpkin bread, which was cooling on a cutting board just out of my reach. When she left the kitchen to answer the phone, I reached up to carve myself off a slice of the steaming, spicy bread.
Suddenly the heavy, metal bread-knife flew from my young grasp and landed on the kitchen floor with the serrated blade pointed straight up. I came down off my tiptoes directly on top of the knife and slid across the floor. What happened next remains in my family history as the most traumatic Christmas episode of all time.
The knife sliced through the arch of my foot, stopping only after it hit bone. My mom found me holding my foot so tight that the bleeding had not even begun. My 3-year old sister had just endured open-heart surgery two weeks before and was watching me scream from the edge of the kitchen. She had a row of staples holding her chest together, and my foot was laid open to the very tendons. What a scene! My mother almost lost it.
Three hours and hundreds of layered stitches later, I was sitting on a couch near the Christmas tree with my foot in a cast. It was the only year I got out of luminary duty.
Growing up on St. Simons Island, my family lived in a marsh-side neighborhood called Epworth Acres. The area was rich in Methodist history, and many of the residents were retired preachers. For three decades, the neighborhood had carried on a tradition of lighting luminaries, candles in sand-filled paper bags, which were set out on Christmas Eve in a ceremony intended to lead the Christ child into our homes.
Somehow, my mother was put in charge of the luminaries during my youth, and in the weeks before Christmas, our house was filled with huge stacks of paper bags and large flats of candles. The entire neighborhood took part in the celebration, and the job of the children was to assemble the luminaries for elderly residents that couldn't get out to do their own.
On Christmas Eve, truckloads of sand were unloaded in strategic points throughout the neighborhood. Folks would take wheelbarrows to the sand piles and load enough dirt to weigh down their luminary bags.
The bags themselves were typical brown-paper lunch sacks. They were filled with a cup of sand to weigh them down against the wind. A candle was placed into the bag, and the tops of the bags had to be folded so the edges wouldn't be blown into the flame.
After dark on Christmas Eve, the candles were lit, and hundreds of people from the islands and Brunswick came to Epworth to see the glowing luminaries.
The neighborhood put out 10,000 of the luminaries, and after the first hundred or so bags, the job got very tedious. Kids who had been pressed into service would look for any chance to escape from the boredom. We had magnificent dirt clod wars in the sand piles. Wheelbarrow demolition derbies were also held when the adults weren't looking. The best distraction was after dark when the candles were lit.
Sometimes folks would be out of town for Christmas and would hire the kids to set up their luminaries. After dark we'd ride our bikes to the vacant houses and set up the fire slalom course.
The “igniter” would run down the rows of paper bags and kick every other one down so that they caught fire. The rider would take his bike and ride a slalom course between the flames. It was high-stakes fun, especially when the lawn caught fire.
I don't think I'd know how to act if I wasn't working on Christmas Eve. I'd probably fidget on the couch looking for dishes to wash or brown bags to fill with sand. So, it feels like second nature to be here at the sports desk banging away on this column while Santa greases up the sleigh.
And now, with the hourglass of last-minute shopping spilling its sand, it's time to wrap this thing up and head to Wal-Mart to buy socks and chocolate for my family. Merry Christmas Rabun.
Suddenly the heavy, metal bread-knife flew from my young grasp and landed on the kitchen floor with the serrated blade pointed straight up. I came down off my tiptoes directly on top of the knife and slid across the floor. What happened next remains in my family history as the most traumatic Christmas episode of all time.
The knife sliced through the arch of my foot, stopping only after it hit bone. My mom found me holding my foot so tight that the bleeding had not even begun. My 3-year old sister had just endured open-heart surgery two weeks before and was watching me scream from the edge of the kitchen. She had a row of staples holding her chest together, and my foot was laid open to the very tendons. What a scene! My mother almost lost it.
Three hours and hundreds of layered stitches later, I was sitting on a couch near the Christmas tree with my foot in a cast. It was the only year I got out of luminary duty.
Growing up on St. Simons Island, my family lived in a marsh-side neighborhood called Epworth Acres. The area was rich in Methodist history, and many of the residents were retired preachers. For three decades, the neighborhood had carried on a tradition of lighting luminaries, candles in sand-filled paper bags, which were set out on Christmas Eve in a ceremony intended to lead the Christ child into our homes.
Somehow, my mother was put in charge of the luminaries during my youth, and in the weeks before Christmas, our house was filled with huge stacks of paper bags and large flats of candles. The entire neighborhood took part in the celebration, and the job of the children was to assemble the luminaries for elderly residents that couldn't get out to do their own.
On Christmas Eve, truckloads of sand were unloaded in strategic points throughout the neighborhood. Folks would take wheelbarrows to the sand piles and load enough dirt to weigh down their luminary bags.
The bags themselves were typical brown-paper lunch sacks. They were filled with a cup of sand to weigh them down against the wind. A candle was placed into the bag, and the tops of the bags had to be folded so the edges wouldn't be blown into the flame.
After dark on Christmas Eve, the candles were lit, and hundreds of people from the islands and Brunswick came to Epworth to see the glowing luminaries.
The neighborhood put out 10,000 of the luminaries, and after the first hundred or so bags, the job got very tedious. Kids who had been pressed into service would look for any chance to escape from the boredom. We had magnificent dirt clod wars in the sand piles. Wheelbarrow demolition derbies were also held when the adults weren't looking. The best distraction was after dark when the candles were lit.
Sometimes folks would be out of town for Christmas and would hire the kids to set up their luminaries. After dark we'd ride our bikes to the vacant houses and set up the fire slalom course.
The “igniter” would run down the rows of paper bags and kick every other one down so that they caught fire. The rider would take his bike and ride a slalom course between the flames. It was high-stakes fun, especially when the lawn caught fire.
I don't think I'd know how to act if I wasn't working on Christmas Eve. I'd probably fidget on the couch looking for dishes to wash or brown bags to fill with sand. So, it feels like second nature to be here at the sports desk banging away on this column while Santa greases up the sleigh.
And now, with the hourglass of last-minute shopping spilling its sand, it's time to wrap this thing up and head to Wal-Mart to buy socks and chocolate for my family. Merry Christmas Rabun.
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