Janury 11th, 2018
Dear Daddy —

The Christmas Tree from People’s Drug. Why the circle of chairs, you ask? There was some concern about how the dogs would react to the tree. In days gone by, it was kept in a playpen, to protect it from the cat. The cat loved laying in the playpen under the tree. The dogs were indifferent, chairs or no chairs.
Let me tell you about Christmas. Our first Christmas without you. The first Christmas the world has had without you since 1921. And, in 1921, Christmas would have been celebrated—at least in Pensacola, North Carolina, without streaming music, without CD players or vinyl record players, even without a radio. Your Daddy owned the first radio back in those hills, and neighbors came to visit in the evening just to listen to it. But that was years later.
Christmas would have been celebrated without electric lights on the tree or the house, without telephones so that out-of-town loved ones could call. Your Grandpa and Grandma Rathbone would have had to come through the woods or around the bend in the road to visit the log cabin where you were born. (Although I think your Grandma essentially lived with you anyway. She delivered you.) Your Grandfather Jake Wilson was five years dead, and his wife had married for a third time.