Deep in the heart of coal-mining Appalachia, in the early 1950s, my first memories of Christmas occurred in the holler of Buckingham, Kentucky. Life was simpler. This year, with the pandemic and other perils, is different, and yet we share more similarities than differences.

Gone are the customary events, celebrations and large crowds. Festivities will be smaller and likely more meaningful than in our recent past. Pausing to reflect on current issues and lifestyles help us focus more clearly and succinctly on the things that matter most. If we compare at all, let it be with the humility of that first Christmas.

The scent of fresh pine is one of my first memories of this season. Uncle Perry, eight years my senior, with me in tow, climbed the mountainside in search of the perfect tree. The selections, like the branches, were sparse and resulting in uncontrollable and inconsolable tears on my part. The conical symmetry displayed in children’s books was absent from our sphere. The choices available made Charlie Brown’s pitiful pine appear majestic.

Sobbing, sniveling and brokenhearted, I traipsed behind him back home. The hideous twig before me awarded no consolation. In fact, Perry was a bit miffed with me. Imagine that!

Once home, he set it up to clothe with decorations as pathetic as the tree itself. We strung popcorn and made paper ring chains from brown paper sacks colored with crayons and held together with homemade flour paste. Daddy strung the bubble lights to my wonderment and awe, and scavenged foil was shaped into crude stars. The tree top is vague in my memory, but somehow comfort and redemption appeared in those mesmerizing bubble lights as they entrapped me in a hypnotic spell.

Aromas of baking cakes filled the humble, crumbling home. Spicy gingerbread titillated appetites. The familiar odor of wood smoke from multiple fireplaces used to heat the home and coal used for the big, black cook stove went unnoticed with noses poised to the delectable treats we soon would be invited to eagerly sample.

Hours were spent creating those modest ornaments. More hours were spent baking all sorts of cakes — coconut, chocolate, hickory, pungent gingerbread-stack cakes filled with dried apples and spicy apple butter, and gingerbread men. Mommy always made a big one especially for me, with raisin features and buttons, while my grandfather tirelessly worked on jigsaw puzzles at the big kitchen table. Being poor wasn’t recognized, because everyone was.

There may have been pies, and our feast typically included a big ham and shucky beans.

Excitement escalated as the day for Santa’s visit neared. Daddy brought home candy canes to hang on the tree — real ones this time, unlike the chenille ones he bought for my first Christmas.

Children possess a contagious, enchanting bustle. We searched bureau drawers for the biggest socks we could find, stretching and pulling to test them, hanging them at the corners of the rustic mantle before retiring to excitedly wait for the Jolly Old Elf.

At midnight on Christmas Eve, all the males in the family went outside with their rifles and shotguns. Lacking fireworks, they enjoyed the mountain tradition of firing off shots into the sky at that hour accompanied by joyous hoots and hollers in celebration of that humble birth millennia ago.

Before daylight, we peeked at the tree and stockings to see if Santa had come. Bulges in my white anklets revealed my hopes. Despite knowing the contents, the anticipation was infinite. A big orange filled the toe, topped with a beautiful red apple, nuts in the shell, hard candies and a big peppermint stick poking out of the top. Woo-hoo! We had hit the jackpot.

Daddy always bought a box of mixed chocolates. Somehow, I managed to pick the jelly ones without fail — yuck! — while Mommy loved the chocolate drops.

Gifts were never wrapped but rather staged beneath the lowest branches of our pitiful but motley tree. There was never a doubt as to who got what. As other siblings came along, there were duplicates for the boys and girls — no arguing that way, said Mommy.

Christmas Day was spent playing with our new toys, usually few and modest. After a hearty breakfast, we visited other family members up and down the holler, and they reciprocated. Everyone ate cake. Grownups slurped strong coffee from their saucers to wash it down. By dusk, no child fussed about bedtime.

Simple times, yes. Such basics are the best.

Simplify Christmas. It’s the best way to destress. Focus on the very first one. This year, may the peace from the Prince of Peace fill your hearts and homes. Merry CHRISTmas from my humble memories in the holler to you and yours, but don’t forget to shout with joy!

— A coal miner’s daughter born in Appalachia and schooled in Michigan, she currently lives in rural Athens. Hill describes herself as a cook and cookbook author, jack of all trades and master of none, a Christian wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She shares her home with her husband, Bob, and their spoiled-beyond-belief dog, Molly.