What do you want for Christmas?

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13:7

 

It’s that time of year again when the world starts thinking about Christmas. The neighbors across the street have their yard all decked out in lights and decorations. Stores are playing Christmas music and jamming the aisles full of stuff that we can’t live without. Or so the Christmas shoppers seem to think.

Children are making lists. Every other conversation out of their mouths starts with ‘I want…’ They have about a million things they just can’t live without that two days after Christmas they won’t care anything about.

Okay, that’s a bit extreme. I know there are exceptions. My daughter says she wants nothing for Christmas. My husband says the same thing. And my son is only asking for one relatively inexpensive item.

But those are exceptions. Most people…even adults…have lists of things they want. The majority of us can think of all sorts of stuff we’d like to have. Some of it we might even need.

As a historical author I’ve written several manuscripts that have Christmas scenes in them. When I see all the decorations, the lights, the lists and everything else that goes with Christmas as we know it I can’t help thinking of the way it used to be.

Today when we think of Christmas in the past we tend to see it as a simpler version of what we do today. In my Christmas scenes my characters have family meals, they exchange gifts. They just do it on a much smaller scale and often with handmade gifts. But was it really that way?

For some I’m sure it was. But it was different too. Christmas was more about the reason for the holiday and less about the holiday itself. Or so I want to believe. It was more about loved ones and less about what those loved ones were giving you.

One of my favorite episodes of my favorite TV show is all about the family sneaking around trying to make or get presents for each member of the family without anyone knowing what they’re giving. In doing so they make sacrifices to acquire the gifts they want to give. They work long hours, stretch what little money they have to buy the most they can, give up something they love to pay for something someone else will love.

It’s love.

It’s also simple and heartfelt.

And it’s a far cry from the trip I made into town yesterday where I walked the aisles in the stores, picking items I thought the recipient would like, then paid for it with barely a twinge at the cost.

Now I wasn’t doing big shopping. I don’t celebrate Christmas that way. I try to keep gifts to a minimum and the price low. I buy what I think they’ll truly like and that’s it. If I can make a gift instead of buying one that’s even better. I wasn’t always that way. I used to buy stuff just to see how many gifts I could pack under the tree before Christmas.

Now I make them count.

I keep it simple.

I’d give a lot to have a Christmas the way they did in the 1800’s. To celebrate love instead of stuff. To give because of love not because it’s expected.

My husband recently asked me what I want for Christmas. I stood there thinking, drawing a blank, knowing he expected and answer but unable to give him one. Because I don’t want anything. Except maybe…time.

Time together.

Time to care.

Time to just be.

And…a simpler time.

This moment is what we have. Every today is all we’re promised. For Christmas I want time with my family, time to appreciate the blessings the Lord has given me. Time to dream of what Christmas was like when materialism didn’t matter.

And maybe a few stories of what this time of year was like in days gone by.

It's in the...twang

Writing a manuscript is something like making a new friend. You have to learn all your characters quirks, their likes and dislikes, their speech patterns.

Did I mention…

Their.

Speech.

Patterns.

I’m from Texas. So I speak…Texan. Complete with the slang and abbreviated words. Not to mention I drop the g on all words ending in ing. It’s just…Texas. It’s how we talk.

I’ve read books set in Texas that were obviously written by authors that weren’t from Texas. The characters had this aggravating habit of saying things like ‘did you’, ‘do you want to’, ‘I am’, ‘we are’, and the like. That was the only clue I needed to know the author wasn’t from Texas. Because here in Texas we don’t say things like ‘we are. We say ‘we’re’. And for ‘do you want to’…we make it easy. It’s just ‘don’tcha want to’.

See easy.

Less words. Why say all those words when we can shorten it? Now this isn’t somethin’ we think about down here in Texas. It’s just the way we talk. I’d have thought everyone understood us but…I was wrong.

I had to experience this first hand to realize that what sounds natural to me, what flows naturally in my speech isn’t always understandable to others. The first time I talked to my husband he told me I sounded…like Texas. I understood what he meant.

Sort of.

It wasn’t until I spent weeks in another state that I fully understood the difference. I knew I had an accent. The concept isn’t foreign to me. And I’m rather…fond…of my accent. I like the way I talk. Even if my daughter is right when she tells me that if we were to write in our manuscripts the way people in Texas really talk we’d all sound like a bunch of outlaws.

Here’s an example: ‘I cain’t git this ta work. I’m fixin’ ta run to the store an’ git another one. ‘Cause This’ns broke.’

Yes, we really talk like that in Texas.

But it wasn’t until recently that I began picking up on just how different our speech patterns are. In one of my manuscripts…the only one not set in Texas…my heroine gets mad and starts talking. Her new husband is shocked. His thoughts… Now he’d managed to marry a woman that wore Texas like most women wore dresses. She’d hidden it well, right up until her temper had kicked in, then she’d opened her mouth and let it spew out.

I wrote that long before I fully understood the differences in our speech patterns. It was just…normal to me then. Now I can see the differences. I hear the differences on a regular basis. When my Louisiana husband says ‘what are you saying?’ or when he says something and I catch the difference in how he says it and how I do.

Not long ago we were talking about meat from wild game. Nothing special in that conversation. I said ‘it’s wild caught’. He asked me over and over what I was talking about. Wild caught…like caught in the wild. About the fifth…or tenth…time he caught on. He said ‘wild caught’. That was what I said. Then he informed me I was saying ‘wild cot’. Now I was saying ‘wild caught’ and I knew what I meant. But…

Apparently when I said it…

Texas came out.

When I tried to say wild caught as wild c-a-u-g-h-t I can’t say it. Literally. My mouth is incapable of pronouncing it as caught. It’s either cot or mumbo jumbo.

Here are a few other examples of differences I’ve noticed. In Texas we have acorns. In Louisiana they’re acerns. The o is pronounced er. In Texas we have Wednesday. In Lousianna…it’s Wednesdee.

These may sound like little differences and they are but multiplied by a few thousand words they add up to very huge differences.

I was told by a judge in a contest that western romances set in Texas are cliché. Maybe they are but since I’m from Texas I write what I know. That way I don’t have to worry about getting the speech patterns wrong.

Now all I have to do is worry about how much my Louisiana husband is gonna effect my Texas accent.