The older I (RHS ‘66) become, the faster my pace of
life becomes.  If I did not know any better, I would
assume that hours have been eliminated from time.  A
twenty-four hour day now seems like a fourteen-hour
day.  Life in the world of today goes by at such a
hectic pace.  How ironic is it that we pay bills on-line
because we do not have time to drive to drop a bill in
the mail?  How ironic is it that we email our friends
and relatives because we do not have time to
communicate with the personal touch of a
handwritten letter or even a telephone call?  I never
will forget the first letter my mama wrote me when I
was a freshman at NC State.  “Hi son!  I’m your
mother.  Remember me?”  Her question made me stop
and think about what was most precious to me: my
home, my family, and most precious of all, my mama. 
Forget the excitement of sitting in the stands with
forty thousand plus fans going ape over Wolfpack
football.  Forget the new college buddies who later
became life-long friends.  Forget the exciting
challenge of preparing for a new career.  Forget the
college girls I had dated.  Forget the new restaurants
and their cuisines I had eaten.  Forget the big city
nightlife of Raleigh.  Mama’s handwritten question put
me on the front seat of Wayne Ussery’s (RHS ’66)
1953 four door Oldsmobile as we rolled south down
Highway #1 on my way to Rockingham the following
Friday.  I seriously doubt I would have gone home if
Mama had emailed me (this communications vehicle
was not readily available as it is now).  It would have
been too convenient to simply email a reply.  How
ironic is it to use a drive-thru window when we do not
even have time to stop and go in to eat, of all things,
fast foods?  Time flies by in this hectic world of today.

However, I can remember times in my adolescent
years when time seemed to stop.  I can remember
looking at the big white-faced clocks on the
classroom walls of Roberdel Grammar School and
convincing myself that they either stopped or were
running backwards.  I wondered if: a) the recess bell
would ever ring, b) the lunch bell would ever ring, and
c) the dismissal bell would ever ring.  I can remember
looking at a calendar and wondered if: a) summer
vacation would ever arrive, b) my thirteenth birthday
would ever arrive, c) my sixteenth birthday would ever
arrive, and d) high school graduation would ever
arrive.  As a college student, I often wondered if: a)
the last class on Friday would ever end, b) the
weekend drive home would ever end, and c) the
school year would ever end.  Likewise, as a working
summer college student in the Martha Baum plant of J.
P. Stevens in Rockingham, I often wondered if: a) the
daily shift end would ever end, b) the work week
would ever end, and c) the summers that began so
titillating and exciting but became so dull and boring
with so many freedom restrictions at home with
Daddy and Mama ever end.  Yes, I wished my life away
while living in Rockingham under the roof of my
parents as life sometimes moved at a snail’s, no a
slow snail’s, pace.  Yet, time seemingly came to a halt
and stood still for five to six minutes in our living room
yearly.  The culprit behind this time warp was the
observance of a family tradition.

Every Christmas at our house was a Norman
Rockwell painting.  Gary (RHS ’71), Ken (RHS ‘68), and
I eagerly looked forward to the first Sunday after
Thanksgiving.  At this date in time, family tradition and
Mama demanded that Cecil (RHS ’41) and sons scour
the McDonald woodlands in search of the perfect
Christmas tree.  It was not an easy find.  The sandy
soils of Rockingham made an excellent bed for
growing pine trees, blackjack oaks, and sandspurs. 
On the other hand, a cedar tree needed an ample
supply of water to develop into the perfectly shaped
Christmas tree.  Generally, we would find the prettiest
trees in the swamps and branches on our land. 
Occasionally, we would venture behind Grandpa Scott’
s house and cut one off the banks of Ledbetter Lake. 
Daddy would let my brothers and me take turns at the
handsaw as we cut the tree down.  Likewise, we
grabbed a branch and helped Daddy carry the tree
back home or back to our car.  Once we stuffed the
tree into the trunk of our 1953 Plymouth, the fun was
just beginning.  We could hardly wait to get back
home, open the car doors, and scream for Mama to
come see our treasure.  Daddy, Gary, Ken, and I knew
Mama would be even more excited than we.  

The artificial Christmas tree had just been invented. 
The tree came in all heights and extremes.  Some
trees were so large that they could only be assembled
in the location you intended to display them.  Yet, the
most stylish tree was a small, shiny aluminum tree
that could be placed on a table in front of the picture
window of a living room.  This little tree required a
three hundred and sixty degree rotating kaleidoscope
of bulbs that illuminate an ever-changing array of
colors.  Many homemakers bought into this new
concept but not my mama.  Christmas was Mama’s
favorite time of the year.  My mother lived to give.  She
gave all year long to anyone in need.  Yet, she
generously and unselfishly gave during the Christmas
season.  Seeing her family unwrapping and opening
gifts on Christmas morning was her ultimate joy. 
There was nothing artificial about my mama.  Her
emotions were always real and so were our
Christmas trees.  It was a family tradition.  “Hurry up,
Cecil, let’s get that Christmas tree standing and in the
house!” 

Once inside, our excitement reached another level. 
As careful as Gary, Ken, and I tried to be, one of us
would always drop and shatter a large aluminum
ornament.  Mama would always remind Ken and me to
hang our ornaments high and leave the lower
branches for little Gary.  Christmas lights were no
different then than now.  Every year for reasons not
known even to Thomas Edison, several bulbs always
failed to light when we plugged the strands into the
wall socket.  Never fear, Mama had a colored variety
of replacement bulbs that she had probably
purchased in July for this anticipated power failure. 
Gary, Ken, and I would stop decorating long enough to
find our Christmas wish in the Sears & Roebuck
Catalog.  Just name a toy and we could tell you its
catalog page number.  Finally, with no more
decorations to hang, we brothers stepped back and
admired our artistry.  It was just a short matter of time
before the smell of cedar and the feeling of Christmas
spirit saturated the McDonald home.  A live Norman
Rockwell decorated Christmas tree was a family
tradition.  “O Christmas tree!  O Christmas tree!  How
evergreen your branches!”

December in McDonald Community and Rockingham
was “the most wonderful time of the year!”  Everyone
was so light-hearted and cheerful.  Even the teachers
at Roberdel Grammar School were in a festive mood. 
All of the kids at school always worked hard but had
fun practicing for the annual Christmas P.T.A.
program.  One year, the McDonald brothers had
prominent roles.  Gary was one of Santa’s elves, Ken
was Rudolph, and I had to memorize and recite ‘Twas
the Night Before Christmas!  I had the additional
pressure of reciting lines for the children’s Christmas
play at McDonald Baptist.  Every year, our Sunday
school teachers always called on Becky McDonald
(RHS ‘64), Sandra McDonald (RHS ‘64), Donna Long
(RHS ‘65), and me to play the characters with the most
lines.  Not ever did we have the lines down pat on final
rehearsal, only hours before the curtain call.  Yet,
some way, some how, we memorized lines just well
enough to adlib our way through the gaps in our
memory banks.  I am not sure we always carried the
drama in the direction intended but everyone seemed
pleased with our performances.  Becky, Donna,
Sandra, and I always did well enough to receive our
brown paper bags of nuts, fruits, and candy as we
exited the church.

The McDonald family always loaded up in our 1953
Plymouth and drove to Rockingham to see everyone’s
Christmas lights and decorations.  People in the
country decorated for Christmas but most lived so far
off the main road that you could not see their houses
not to mention their decorations.  The highlight of our
Christmas trip to Rockingham was driving downtown
to see Santa and eight tiny reindeer on top of Hallum’s
Furniture Store and Rudolph with his nose so bright in
the lead slot.  With the reassurance that Santa had
arrived in Rockingham and had a short layover for
milk and cookies and hay for his reindeer before
taxiing down the take-off runaway on Hallum’s roof,
Gary, Ken, and I were ready to go home and get all
snuggled in our beds.  It was a family tradition. 
Finally, Daddy and Mama could answer our one
repeating question for December.  “Tonight!  Santa is
coming tonight!”

Ken always managed to be the first family member to
wake up every Christmas morning.  He always had to
“take aspirin for a headache,” “use the bathroom,” or
“get some water to drink.”  Each mission included a
peek under the Christmas tree.  If Santa had already
delivered our presents, Ken would wake Gary and me
to give us a spy report.  Daddy’s rule was no one was
allowed to look under the tree until Mama had gotten
us out of bed.  The “no look” rule was tough to follow
but not nearly as tough as the “look but no touch” rule
enforced by Daddy.  This “look but no touch” demand
made time practically stop.

The McDonald brothers had one final annual family
tradition to endure and work through before Daddy
and Mama would turn us loose under the Christmas
tree.  We all gathered in the living room as Daddy
fetched his Bible from his nightstand.  Gary, Ken, and I
knew what was coming.  We had to sit still and act
attentive as Daddy read Luke 2:1-20 from the King
James Version of the Bible.  In short, the scripture told
the Christmas story describing characters and
circumstances according to Dr. Luke.  It was a family
tradition.  As kids, this exercise seemed like a total
waste of toy time.  We heard the same story using the
same words year after year after year.  In fact, this
same story was repeated in December in Sunday
school classes at McDonald Baptist.  In the ‘50s and
‘60s, everyone everywhere told the story of Christ. 
Politically correct was a phrase not yet coined.  The
birth of Christ was proclaimed in song and drama on
every school stage in the county.  When the teachers
at Roberdel Grammar asked for volunteers for
different Nativity roles, some wise guys would always
crack, “Nelson (RHS ‘65), Johnny (RHS ‘66), and
Tonya (RHS ‘ 70) are good shepherds (the last name
of these two brothers and sister was Sheppard)!  No
guy wanted to be Joseph since most boys would
never have a girlfriend and certainly not a wife even if
it were only acting in a play for one night.  Everybody
wanted to be a wise man.  It was just cool to wear a
purple robe and walk with a crown on your head.

Meanwhile back at home sitting in front of the
Christmas tree, we brothers had a tough time with
King James’ language and reasoning.  Why did
Joseph have to pay taxes to a place he did not even
live in?  I had heard Daddy complain about paying
county taxes, state taxes, and federal taxes but it was
taxes for Richmond County, North Carolina, and the
United States.  At least, some logic did exist in our tax
system.  I bet Daddy would have really gotten ill if
some government official had told him to go to
Bennettsville and pay taxes to Marlboro County and
the state of South Carolina.  Furthermore, please do
not tell this World War II veteran that he had to pay
taxes to another country.  Was Mr. Augustus
confused about this tax thing in the Bible?  These
guys were confused about governments.  Who puts a
governor in charge of a country anyway?  Who would
want to live in the country of Syria if a Governor were
in charge?  President Eisenhower would not let that
happen in America!  Governors are in charge of states
and Presidents are in charge of countries. 

Even the language describing Mary and her situation
was confusing.  I wonder who and when the word
“pregnant” was invented.  Even as an eight year old
kid, I knew what pregnant meant.  According to King
James’ description, Mary was “great.”  Thank
goodness someone changed the definition of “great.” 
If it still meant “pregnant,” Tony the Tiger would have
never been able to sell Kellogg Cornflakes, at least,
not to kids.  As Daddy read the Bible, I wondered what
else did Mary have with her on the trip to Jerusalem? 
She brought “her first born son” fourth.  What were
the other three items she brought with her?  Another
word in the Scriptures about Mary confused me.  She
put swaddling clothes on Baby Jesus.  What do
swaddling clothes look like?  Do you dress a child in
swaddling clothes if you are going to let him
swaddle?  I had only heard that word when someone
read the Christmas story from Luke.  Apparently, no
one else knew what it meant either.  In every
Christmas play I had ever had a role in or had seen,
the baby doll used as Jesus was wrapped in a plain
baby blanket. 

I was not as nearly confused about the shepherds
Daddy read about in Luke.  However, I was stumped
about one task the shepherds were doing.  I never had
to do any “abiding” while completing chores on the
farm as a kid.  Of course, Daddy only worked me
during the daytime.  Maybe if I had to feed the horse or
chase Uncle Carl’s cows at night, I could have done
some “abiding in the fields … by night”.  Yet, it is
perfectly clear that the shepherds had to watch the
sheep sleeping in an open field at night.  I am thinking
that the biggest worries the shepherds had were
probably wild dogs, foxes, or bobcats attacking and
killing small lambs.  If one of the shepherds had
owned my bulldog Zeke back then, the sheep farmers
could have gone to bed at dark and slept all night. 
Daddy had always said Zeke could whip anything that
walks on four legs.  Yet as Daddy read the Christmas
story, I understood the shepherds would experience
an once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon that holy night.  In
fact, the moment would be more frightening than
fighting off a pack of wild dogs, more frightening than
being attacked by a rabid fox, or even more
frightening than pulling a lamb from the claws of a
bobcat.  Yes, this terror the shepherds experienced
that night was a visit by an angel.  In fact, the
shepherds were so scared that the King James
Version of Luke’s writings states the visit made them
“sore.”  My brothers and I have been to a bunch of
Halloween Carnivals at Roberdel Grammar School,
have been chased by dogs, and have been close
enough to reach out and touch the horns of Uncle Carl’
s charging white-faced Hertford bull but never have
we been as afraid as those shepherds were that
night.  The angels scared these guys so badly that
Luke said, “They were sore afraid.”  I have been afraid
many times in my life but never so afraid that it made
me “sore.”  Reckon you can become anymore afraid? 
I do not think so. 

As I grew older and matured, the Christmas Nativity
scene and the Christmas story took only an entirely
different meaning.  As a kid, Christmas was a family
tradition my brothers experienced every year as we
sang Christmas carols, dressed as wise men and
shepherds, and sat on our living room couch every
Christmas morning not hearing a word Daddy was
reading as we fidgeted and strained our necks trying
to determine what surprises awaited us under our real
Christmas tree.  As an older, learning grammar
student and a young Christian, King James’ language
delivered a new understanding of these “good tidings
of great joy.”  The Christmas story was a true event in
which God sent his Son to live among us through a
miraculous birth.  As stated in John 1:14, “And the
Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us …”. 
Christ experienced all the human emotions we do. 
The birth of Christ did not just happen by chance.  The
prophets of the Old Testament had forecast the birth
of Christ years before.  The shepherds were surely
surprised!  Not every night does an angel speak to
you with hundreds or perhaps thousands of other
angels singing in the background, “Glory to God in the
highest and peace, good will toward men.”  The
shepherds were so excited that they arose from the
fields and went to Bethlehem looking for the “Saviour,
which is Christ the Lord.”  In fact they were so excited
after finding “Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in
a manager” that the shepherds became the first
missionaries.  They “made known abroad” all the
eyewitness testimony seen and “which was told them
concerning” Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  The true
meaning of Christmas became as plain as the nose on
my face.  God had a plan for worldwide redemption
and it began with the birth of his Son to a carpenter
and his virgin finance’ in a cattle stall over two
thousand years ago.  This ultimate Christmas gift is
not a Schwinn bicycle, a Daisy air rifle, a Barbie doll, a
diamond necklace, the keys to a sports car, or any
materialistic item.  The language of King James so
eloquently but so simply describes the ultimate gift
and the motive of the giver in John 3:16.  “For God so
loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish,
but have everlasting life.”  God’s gift to mankind is
truly the gift that keeps on giving.