The Night Before Christymas

My sister’s say that in their 55 years of marriage they can only remember our parents ever having ONE argument. They heard my father shouting “BUT YOU CAN’T BE PREGNANT!!!” That was me. I am an accident. I’m the third of three girls and the baby by 10 years. My mother was 38 and thought she was done with childbirth. Turns out that my parents had been using the “Rhythm Method” successfully without even so much as a scare for 10 years until me. My parents were both from the same small town in Southern Illinois…that still boasts a population of about 6500 residents give or take. Theirs is quite a love story…the boy from the wrong side of the tracks romances the daughter of one of the most prominent men in town with WWII getting in the way. But that's another story for another time. This is my story.

I was born at 4:08am on December 26th in 1962. The family was living in Dallas Texas at the time. This Christmas the family that was together for the holiday included my mom and dad and my sisters Suda and Mimi, 12 and 10 years old respectively. My maternal grandparents Emma and Harry Strong also happened to be visiting from Memphis TN.

When my parents were still living and we all got together for the holidays we had a family tradition that we shared in the evening on Christmas Day after all the presents had been opened and we’d cleaned up after the holiday meal…the telling of as I have come to call it “The Night Before Christymas”. And in those days when we were still all together each one of my family would take turns telling their part of the story. Big or small. Did I mention that I was an accident? You can’t REALLY understand this story without understanding what THAT meant. To me it felt like my mother saw the history of our family as BC “Before Christy” or AD “After Disappointment”. I was the third of 3 girls. I was their LAST CHANCE to have a boy. I have wondered over the years if my mother would have talked the same way if I had been the son she so desperately wanted. There were sentences of hers I heard my whole life that included “After I had Christy” or “Before I had Christy” that never seemed to have a happy ending. Things like “After I had Christy I had to start taking the pill. I felt like crap all the time.” Or “I used to play golf… on the weekends. Before I had Christy”. What would the conversations have sounded like if it was “After I had Jack Jr.” or “Before little Jackson was born”?

1962…Apparently I was a bit overdue. SO…all the days preceding Christmas if my mother sneezed during the night my father jumped out of bed ready to take her to the hospital. Well that night or early morning of the 26th I guess he was worn out. And labor started and my mother’s water broke. As my mother used to tell it she was up and down and tried to wake him and he would just roll over. He finally spoke and told her he was getting up and she preceded to shower, shave her legs and pack for the hospital. When she was done she checked on him and my father was still asleep. After nudging and nudging him she finally exclaimed “JACK! I AM HAVING THE BABY!!! Do I have to wake up my FATHER to take me to the hospital?!!!” THAT woke Dad up with a flash and he wrapped my mother in her coat and started the journey from the suburbs to Baylor University hospital. He, of course, drove the speed limit and stopped at every stop light on the empty post Christmas streets at 3am while my mother tried to push her feet through the floorboards. Until finally she said in her best “Betty Strong House” manner “Wiley Jackson House…unless YOU want to deliver this baby you had best get a move on. I will pay any tickets!” They finally arrived at the hospital. In those days fathers waited in the waiting room. They were not present for the birth generally speaking. So she went in alone. Once I got started my arrival was so rapid that I had to be delivered by an intern because my mother's doctor didn't make it in time. I was that intern's first solo delivery. He said, no doubt very proudly “Mrs. House you have a beautiful, healthy, baby girl.” And my mother responded, “Where is my boy?” They saw us to our room and Mom fell asleep.

She was planning to name me Jacqueline after Jack, my father. I mean if I had disappointingly turned out to be a girl...as I did. My father had a deep seated objection to “Juniors” of any kind. He believed it set up unreasonable expectations for the offspring. He was sort of a Junior. "Nobody should be expected to be like ANYONE else" he would say. Dad called from the hospital to give everyone the news. My grandparents were asleep. The "Tidings of Great Joy" as the story goes was given to my sisters….a baby girl had been born that night. Suda and Mimi had a little sister. They immediately said, “A GIRL???? OH NO!!!” As my mother told it, they blamed her and they didn’t speak to her for at least 2 weeks after that because I wasn’t the little brother they had wanted. Jack, my Dad, drove home as the sun rose that morning of December 26th…and wrote “Christy Carol” on all the birth announcements and MAILED them before my Mother woke up. Christy Carol like "Christmas Carol". I was NOT going to be Jacqueline. But you see my father was the only one who didn't care if I was a boy or not. "Let the line die with me" he used to say. With them in the mail she had to go with Christy Carol or call all of their closest friends and business associates to explain why my name was really Jacqueline. After he dropped them in the mail he headed back to the hospital. My mother’s NEXT "AD" (After Dissapointment) irritation had to due with a Christmas stocking. All the babies actually born on the 25th were sent home in a Christmas stocking. I had only missed it by a little over 4 hours BUT the hospital refused to give her a stocking to take me home in. My brilliant and beautiful mother who despite her disappointment with my gender always wanted me to get MORE than I perhaps deserved. And my sisters both beautiful and brilliant in their own unique ways were the ultimate set up. My mother may have said "After Christy/Before Christy" to her friends but to me she said "Well your sisters ALWAYS" or "Your sisters NEVER" as the ultimate indication that I had or was about to FAIL in ways that I could only imagine. And can you imagine what it does to a person's psyche when EVERY Christmas growing up they are regaled by the tale of their birth as the ultimate example of Santa NOT bringing them what they had wished for? Well At least not what some of them had asked for. Jack House never ONCE made me feel like I was anything other than exactly what he had hoped for…This is how MY story begins. I had my share of creatures and wise men (and women) in attendance. And while far from a manger the house in Texas was as good a place as any to collect the Christymas version of Gold, and Frankincense and Myrrh. Well it's not “The Greatest Story Ever Told” but it’s all mine. And as Jack House later liked to say about me, “From the day you were born no one could tell you anything.” A wiseman and a prophet? Indeed he was. But he was also the donkey. And my north star. Back to Christmas 1962. And let me just clear this up for the record. While it’s true that I was still living in Dallas in November of 1963 I had nothing to do with the Kennedy assignation or the resulting coverup. I have WITNESSES that will tell you that I was in my playpen at the time. I was NOT the baby on the knoll. If you want to celebrate Christymas on the 26th there's only one way. By going to all the sales and getting yourself a present!!!

Epilogue: I shared this story recently with my sister Suda. She was a little miffed. She told me from where she stood the Christmas I was born was the BEST and that she and Mimi talked over and over about how boring things were "before Christy came". I don't know if that's her telling the truth or being her usual kind and compassionate self. Either way I love her for it.