When Donkeys were Horses, and I was the Jackass

Christmas season in east Tennessee was wonderous at our home sixty years ago, especially if it snowed and Santa was coming. Mother often related that the only present she and her siblings got was an orange, though she did tell us that once her brother got a stocking full of coal.

Recently, I sat down to write my cousin a short note to put in her Christmas card. Six pages later, that bit of correspondence was turning into a book. OK, not really. But pen to paper certainly sparked memories of growing up in the home my cousin renovated and now calls her home. My father and stepmother would love what she has done both inside and out with the place.

My note ran so long because I decided to share one Christmas in her house that stands out in my memory, which I would love to share with you.

As young siblings, known in our small, historic town as the four D’s, Debbie, Diane, Donna, and David, we were anxious to know if Santa would make it to our house. Lord knows how he would get down the chimney, but he had always managed in the past.

Our aunt and uncle had come to visit, but I don’t remember who the other guests were who sat in our living room sipping glasses filled full of holiday cheer. We, the children, had finished watching The Wizard of Oz, a tradition looked forward to each year. We were never introduced to It’s a Wonderful Life, a movie I only saw as an adult. As happens, my understanding of that missing link came when I saw it; my mother’s father was a severe alcoholic, a traveling salesman who wrote my grandmother beautiful letters filled with promises, but who often left his children without food or shelter. The movie that so many people love to this day must have reminded my mother of those painful years.

The four young Ds, filled with active imaginations, decided we needed to have a Christmas pageant, featuring the three wise men, for our parents and guests. Our bathroom, off a long hallway, was costume central, where we pulled out bath towel after bath towel trying to create Phrygian caps that the Magi would have worn to visit baby Jesus. Already wearing pajamas, we immediately decided that donning robes would add authenticity of a sort to our vision for the characters.

However, we finally gave up on those complicated conical caps, which might have been proper but seemed impossible to make with either a bath or hand towel. Besides, ranging in ages five to twelve, we weren’t going for an Emmy just yet. So we settled for head dresses of more towels secured with stretchy headbands, and capes of, you guessed it, towels.

All this hard work was quickly changing the concept of our pageant. I imagine the thought of our mother, a fastidious housekeeper, finding all these carefully folded towels loosely scattered throughout the house, gave us pause, but we knew our saving grace was our company, who created a barrier between us and her. Sorry mama, you were appreciated far too little by your gang of four. Or maybe we were, more appropriately, your gaggle of four.

Debbie, the oldest, maintained the original role of a shepherd, whose herding staff was either a broomstick or a baton; Donna, wearing a head dress and “shawl,” both towels, became Mary carrying baby Jesus, played by my Betsy Wetsy doll…yes, wrapped in another towel as his blanket; David, the youngest of us, was Joseph, complete with a towel cape, as well as a quickly drawn paper beard, lead the beast of burden…the donkey. OK, OK. Who is left? Yes, I got to be the jack ass, down on all fours. My brother and sisters put a towel on my back as a saddle and taped a hand sketched donkey tail to my rump. Up to that point, I was a quiet but pretty normal child.

Ready for prime time, Debbie called around the corner into the living room that the entertainment would begin. All was quiet as we slowly entered. The donkey, not too happy with her role, couldn’t go too fast over the slate entry hall that led into the thickly carpeted room, especially with Mary and baby Betsy Wetsy, uh, baby Jesus, on her back.

For the first few seconds the audience, breathlessly waiting for our entourage, was silent. Not the silence of waiting, but more like an astonished disbelief that of the Price children could be wearing that many towels. Then, almost in unison, they broke into deep laughter…the kind that entails falling down with tears rolling down their faces. Our magnificent, most serious “play” had captured their attention in a way not intended by its producers.

But all did not end in tragedy.  I, for one, was glad to have Mary and baby Jesus slide off my over ladened back. Our costumes, now in danger of falling off heads and shoulders, were examined in detail with enthusiastic respect for our ingenuous use of about every towel in the house; someone kindly commented on my excellent donkey tail, which was all my costume was. Mary had taken my “saddle” with her when she abandoned her faithful donkey.

In recent years, a photograph of that night with our infamous costumes surfaced. Being a jack ass, and only my rear with Mary sitting on my back in the photo, I was pleased to see how proud my three siblings looked. I smirked and declined a copy.

 Let me preface this next part by pointing out how blind I was without my glasses. My astigmatism left my vision distorted and fuzzy.

After the non-pageant, we four Ds went to bed; after all, Santa was coming. During the early morning, as snow fell outside, I rose to go to the hallway bathroom. Though sleepy, I drew back the bathroom window shade to see the snow and look for any signs of Santa. To my great surprise, there was the horse I had wanted for years! Excitedly, I returned to my shared bedroom and woke sister Donna to tell her about this dream come true. Later I did not tell mama and daddy of my discovery because I didn’t want to spoil their surprise.

As usual, we were up before any adults and anxiously waited in the hallway until our parents woke and checked the living room. Each of us had our own area on or near the hearth where Santa left our presents, which were an embarrassment of riches.

This year was no different. I received an impressive two-story doll house complete with furniture and occupants: mother, father, daughter, and son. Thrilled and grateful as I was, the gift of my horse still had not been revealed. Of course, Donna, never shy, piped up and asked where my horse was. I was dismayed when she was told there was no horse.

“But I saw it,” I exclaimed as my mama looked at me quizzically.

By that time, the bank of curtains to our backyard and a large field had been opened, and there in the pasture was my horse, or should I say donkey. A true jackass.

A farmer’s gate down the road had been left open, allowing his livestock to escape during the night. His one and only donkey, by chance, had run through our yard, stopping momentarily to graze right outside our bathroom window.

Much later, when I was around forty, the closest I got to having a horse was my herd of llamas, which I did love dearly. Clearly, I never had a donkey or played the jack-ass again.

If you enjoyed this little snapshot in time, I would enjoy sharing more or hearing of your special moments in life in the comments. Let’s nudge each other’s memories.