#8 - Eve: A Special Hatred

Gauguin (Breton Eve, 1889)

As some of you know, I was sexually molested when I was 17 by a Christian doctor. I'm now 55 and while some might say it's all "water under the bridge" and that I need to get on with my life (I am after all a grandmother), I am learning otherwise. It's water that took the bridge out.

For health reasons, my parents had put me in the care of family friends in Arizona my senior year of high school--and the minister of the church this family and I attended recommended that Mum place me under the medical supervision of a doctor who was also the Young Life leader at Scottsdale High. The man literally held my life in his hands; he was endorsed on two counts by the church; and he molested me. Not until I was 29 and coming out of a destructive marriage did I ever tell that it happened--though I could not speak of the details and still can't. At 29 I had single parenting and all its attendant difficulties on my plate, and when my youngest went off to college several years ago I had recuperation from the seventeen years of single parenting on my plate. What happened in Arizona, by necessity remained on a back burner.

Too, there was no real drive to pay much attention because I was (and am) fully aware that my molestation is nothing in contrast to what too many women and children have suffered (and suffer). And as miserable as my subsequent marriage was (once abused, you attract abusers), there are thousands of marriages far worse. To deal with my own "insignificant" psychoses has felt to me rather selfish; my limited energy seemed better spent on those who "really" suffered. Like my children. Like my neighbor. Like the stranger at a party who confides.

But then the flashbacks began two years ago, and I can no longer ignore the bubbling pot on the back burner of my life. So in two weeks I fly back to Phoenix for the first time in nearly four decades. My destination? The doctor's office in Scottsdale where I lost what feels to be 90% of myself. And then the church where I was married and lost everything else.

I have no idea what I'll learn and I'm apprehensive. I'm just sort of hoping, I guess, that seeing the buildings where it all happened will break something loose inside of me, and give me back myself. It feels a bit melodramatic, going back into time to save myself, but friends from that era have encouraged me, some rallying and coming alongside me in this uncharted venture: Carol, sister of my best friend at the time, and Rita, my former minister's wife, now eighty years old. This alone is immensely healing and serves to remind me of who I was then.Too, last night I climbed into bed and picked up a book my friend Rachel had lent me. Rachel is actually Rita's daughter and part of the youth group in Arizona that sheltered and loved me during that year of sexual debasement. Ironically, Rachel now lives near me in the Pacific Northwest. We discovered each other last Easter and we share a love for books, ideas, and gardening. This last book she lent me proved to be about female wounding and how to be healed from the cancerous violation of our femininity. Apropos, I thought, delving in.

The authors had an interesting starting point. They went back to creation and Adam not being enough--hence Eve. She wasn't created for Adam, but to complete creation. She was the "best saved for last." Or, as my brother-in-law might say, "the heart of the watermelon and not the rind."

I'm not a big fan of Christian dogma and the church; much of my troubles stem from Christianity as it's practiced today. But I understand and appreciate cultural stories and God's transcultural communication through them, everything from Cinderella to Uncle Remus to Genesis. I was pleased to discover the authors of Captivating discuss the Hebrew word ezer--which has so lamely been translated "helpmeet" in the English Bible--and which has been used to provide divine mandate for female subservience in all its debilitating forms.

The word is used only 21 times in the Old Testament; once when referring to Eve's relationship to Adam; the other 20 times occur when speaking of God's relationship to Israel. He will be the ezer to Israel. It's a Hebrew word which is undefinable in English. The best translation is "the saving glory," or "you will die without my help," or "saving power of beauty."

John and Stasi Eldredge went on to say that the Hebrew Satan went after Eve not because she was the "weaker vessel" or the "great seducer" (both notions so prevalent in the church it makes me crazy) but because she was the saving force, the beauty and crown of creation, the now-it-is-perfect pinnacle. And that at her creation, Satan became enraged, for this had been his job before getting cast from heaven for hubris pride. Once he'd been the guardian, the beautiful, the powerful in heaven's domain! Now here was Eve?
It became imperative he crush the one who "usurped" all that he'd lost. And ever since her downfall, the Eldredges think, Satan's maintained a specific and enduring hatred of everything women are.

I'm not sure why I was blind to this very cogent observation. Many men go out of their way to stifle similar fear and jealousy by beating it out of us, using and abusing us, rendering us incapable so we can be judged incapable. They've written sexual and physical abuse into the codes of every religion, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; and it permeates every culture from the cave dwellers to 2007. The misogyny of men is well documented and pervasive; and in Captivating, John and Stasi Eldredge summarize this brutality chronologically and culturally.

They underscore their awful point that Satan targets women specifically by pointing out that mere men can't be this methodical. Most men are not this mean, for one thing. Nor are men who are this mean so dedicated, or smart enough to carry out such wholesale and consistent annihilation down through time. The issue of abuse against women is bigger than mere men. Abuse of women goes to the very core of evil itself.

Something here struck a chord. How many times have I felt the power of evil unleashed--sometimes in a slow, torturous crushing; sometimes in mind-boggling blows? How many times has my own mother remarked that it's as though the Biblical Lucifer blocked every good thing from my life?

The authors point out that this kind of wounding is systematic and well-thought through. Men are often used to level the hammer, it is true, but it's the message behind the hammer that is the most damaging. All forms of abuse come attached with the same destructive messages, and women everywhere know the lingo. We're worthless, unlovable, fraudulent, pariahs upon society and deserve our abuse. We're not skinny enough, thankful enough, brave enough, strong enough, worthy enough. We're too stupid, too smart, too ugly, too pretty, too passive, too aggressive. We seduce, mislead, and generate misery. These messages linger and fester and invite further abuse; and which is why, at fifty-five I'm stuck at seventeen. The messages hold me back. This is the damage I (and everyone like me) suffer from.

Last night Rita said something on the phone while we went over the arrangements for my upcoming visit. I started to cry. This confused me. Finally I confessed, "I have never cried about this, Rita."
My tears astonished me. And the fact I hadn't known until then that I had never cried over the loss of my sexuality, the very core of my identity, astonished me further.

"You've never cried?" Rita too was astonished.

I stayed up late reading Rachel's book. I awoke this morning with two thoughts in my head. One, that I really must go back and rescue myself. Two, that my doctor and the man I consequently married were more messenger than perpetrator and this took the sting out of my fear.

No, three thoughts...the third arrived after the coffee. I can shoot the messenger.

And so I go back to 1969, to try and and find who I once was. To metaphorically shoot the messengers who wounded me. And to connect with people who once helped define and sustain me as I limped into womanhood.
------------------------
My question: Is the brutality of women really a battle between good and evil? Or is this a new Christian terminology for a problem a few Christians are apparently trying to acknowledge and explain? Is there another language we can use to find healing from the violation of our sexuality? And why is it that we need to?

More importantly, what about the victimization of children, girls and boys? Women aren't the only ones to suffer rampant cruelty.

Finally, can it ever be stopped? Is there no hope for myself? For my grandchildren?

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#7 - Forgotten Foundations

One hundred fifty-six year ago, on April 10, 1851, Seattle’s founding families pulled out of Cherry Grove, IL. Louisa Boren, then just twenty-four years old, brought with her some sweetbriar seeds. When she reached the Oregon, she was to plant them, send word to her best friend back home; Pamelia would then do the same with her own seeds and in this way the two friends would never truly be apart. For when the sweetbriar bloomed each summer, they could remind themselves that some day, when “distance and death no longer reign,” they'd once again be together. The sweetbriar was their tryst. In far -away "Oregon," Louisa planted hers at the door of her honeymoon log cabin where Denny Way now ends, and today she is remembered in Seattle's history as Seattle’s Sweetbriar Bride.

She should also, however, be remembered as one of two women who laid the city’s first foundation. In February, 1852, the families had temporarily settled at Alki, across the bay from today’s city. Louisa’s fiancé David Denny and her brother, Carson Boren, were down to Oregon to collect the cattle they’d driven across the plains. Her brother-in-law, Arthur Denny, was sick with "fever and ague." But Louisa and her brother’s wife Mary Kays got weary of waiting around on the men in their lives. So they borrowed an Indian canoe from Chief Seattle’s band and paddled the six miles across Elliott Bay, where they chopped down trees, whacked off the branches, notched the ends, and laid the first three log rounds of Mary’s house. I like to picture these two friends swinging their axes in the dark forest along the bank—no doubt with practiced blows, blow after blow, for they grew up in the Illinois frontier.Mary and Carson Boren’s house became Seattle’s first home, and is commemorated with a plaque at the intersection of downtown’s Second and Cherry. But history has forgotten who laid that very first foundation.

Three years ago I was asked to go back and speak at the Cherry Grove Historical Society’s big April 10th celebration, where the small community that still exists celebrates Seattle’s conception. I stayed with Marie Olinger, who owns John Denny’s farm, from which the four wagons pulled out--an avid historian and walking encyclopedia on Seattle's pioneers. We had breakfast together in Marie’s gazebo reenacting between ourselves Louisa and Pamelia’s last breakfast together so long ago. She invited the community women to a second breakfast, and they all arrived bearing gifts: geneology charts, artifacts, pictures. Pamelia’s great grandniece (who lives where Pamelia grew up) gave me pictures of the old Dunlap homestead--where Louisa and Pamelia in tears kissed each other good-bye. I walked the short road where the wagons rambled slowly through town, picking up speed as the Borens and Dennys waved hankies to friends and neighbors gathered along the picket fences to wish them all a last and teary “God speed.”


The best of the trip, however, was yet to come. For years I’d been in search of sweetbriar. To no avail. My last morning, three women brought by a small twig pulled from the roadway by Louisa's old farm, roots and all. Louisa’s sweetbriar...and now mine!

Louisa's farm, inherited from her mother when Sarah Boren married John Denny
Back home, I waited for it bloom. One summer. Two summers. Three summers. What’s this? A bud? Oh my gosh, hundreds of buds!

Louisa’s sweetbriar is now growing up around the porch of my new house. Every day I look out the window and remember two friends of another time. I like to think of them having breakfast in God’s garden, "never more called to part."

But I also like to remember who it was that laid Seattle’s first foundation. The sweetbriar is more than a promise of eternity, it's symbolic of a determination that seeds great potential.

Louisa's gift to time is not so much the sweetbriar as it is the foundation upon which much has come and is yet to be.

#6 - The Case of the Missing Pink Dress

Six years ago I began to worry that by the time my children got around to having children my arthritis would be too bad to knit them any baby clothes. Oh, but I could get started, couldn’t I? And just set aside whatever I made?
I was half way through a pretty pink dress when my daughter Heather announced that she was pregnant. Oh yeah, oh joy. Oops, a boy. Put the dress away. But then my son Phil and his wife Katie announced they were pregnant. Yeah, get out the dress. What? Another boy? Put the pink dress away.
Fast forward. Heather’s pregnant again. Where’s the pink dress? What? Another boy? Okay, but wait, now Katie’s pregnant again! Huh? A fourth boy? Four boys in two years? Dang! Put the pink dress away!
At some point I moved. My youngest son Blake packed up all my stuff, and his stuff, and it went out everywhere. Into storage, under Phil’s stairs, my dad’s garage, Heather’s backyard. I unpacked. I couldn’t find Auntie Han’s 100-year-old teapot. Nor could I find the pink dress. . .oh no, oh dear, guess what? Katie pregnant. And it’s a girl!
We go through everything. Even my mother’s closets. It’s simply not to be had; the pink dress has run off with the teapot.
So Evelyn Rose is born and the pink dress with all the rosettes along the bottom of the skirt has vanished. Wouldn’t it be nice if Evelyn Rose could wear it for Easter? There’s a renewed search, but she did not wear the pink dress. Suddenly Blake started making noises about getting his books out from under his brother’s stairs.
Mmmmm….
“You don’t suppose the pink dress got in with Blake’s books, do you?” I asked Phil.
“Want me to look?”
“Heck, yes.”
“It’s not going to be there,” poo-hooed Katie. “All the boxes under the stairs are heavy.”
Yeah, well, okay. She and I went down to the yarn shop at the beach and bought more yarn and I started in again. I was two inches into it, 360 stitches a friggin’ row!, when she e-mailed last night, “PUT DOWN THOSE KNITTING NEEDLES!”
Now ain’t that just the cutest dress you ever saw?



And the cutest little baby to wear it?

It goes to show two things:That babies do not arrive via sexual intercourse, as some still believe; babies, in fact, arrive when middle-aged women begin knitting baby clothes and dotty old women begin losing them…
And that God does indeed answer prayer; I did not want to knit that dress again! Okay, so he’s a little pokey about it, but there’s the dress. It fits. And we got our girl! What more do I want?
Oh? In case anyone cares? Auntie Han’s teapot was in with the dress.
So all’s well with my world. Yours?

#5 - Currier & Ives

"I'm so excited!" I e-mailed old friends in Arizona. "Tonight I'm joining Rachel's handbell choir!"

Wayne, Carol, and Rachel are high school friends; friends I've recently reconnected with. Rachel, it turns out, has been living right under my nose in Whatcom County for years. Not only that, she belongs to a handbell choir. Better yet, she invited me to join and, to make it all the more perfect, she goes to an antique church, built in the old days, complete with steeple, belfry and
hopefully bats.

"There's something about bells--Christmas carols come to mind, antiquated churches, and rolling countryside that appeals to me," I told them.

"How very Currier and Ives of you," said Wayne.

Huh?

I had to look it up, google style. Ah, those guys--the guys who perfected the lithograph process. I didn't need to feel quite so stupid. I did recognize much of their work. Yes, how very Currier and Ives of me. Wayne is right. But--google, google--there's more.

Turns out hand bells are an evolution that date back to ancient mythologies. The ringing of bells kept back the demonic forces at death, preventing them from swooping in to claim our souls. They chased back the evil spirits, too, lurking about our thresholds whenever company comes calling. At sea, the chiming of bells hold back the storm.

Very quickly one begins to understand why we have bells in our steeples, at our front doors, and why--in the echo of ancient mariners calling out at the end of night watch, "Eight bells and all is well!"--we use bells to sound our hours, announce our guests, and call us to church. Bong, bong, bong. And I thought I just liked the sound of them. But it's their protection, the sense of peace, tranquility, of, yes, the divine, that has called to me as well.

countryside near Rachel's little church

Indeed, how very Currier and Ives of me.

Ringing off, I'm F, F#, and G.

And sometimes, if Rachel can't pick up fast enough, G#.

#4 - We Get Born

part of my application for the MFA program at UBC (University of British Columbia) involved sending the start of a children's story. yesterday i received notice that i am on the "reserve" list. so i'd like to share chapter 1 of TINSY WINSY--in the hopes that some of you might read and be inclined to knock on wood, say your prayers, and cross your fingers for me. this is a highly competative program that would warrant me a seat in the lime light of Canadian literature. that i should be so lucky. . .

the main character is my childhood red sock monkey, pictured here with Cheeko (part of my life since junior high) and a teddy bear i've had since i was three. the story is siimply called TINSY WINSY, the chapter is We Are Born.Tinsy Winsy opened her eyes. Where am I? she wondered, blinking two times and looking around curiously. “What an interesting room, it isn’t finished!”

She was right of course about the room. The walls were up all right, but they weren’t painted. The windows were in, but they had no glass. The floor was there, but it had no carpet. And in the middle of the floor, goodness, stood two rickety old saw horses with a long skinny tree lying down on them! Yessireebob, a tree! With all its branches sawn off, and most of its bark, too. Now what is a tree doing in a house, Tinsy Winsy wondered, more curious than ever.

Her nose started to itch. It itched some more. The whole room was filled with sawdust! Sawdust on the floor. Sawdust on the window sills. Sawdust on the hearth. Was she going to sneeze? “Ah, ah—” She covered her nose. “Achoo!”

“God bless you.”

Tinsy Winsy whirled around sideways. “Who are you?” she asked a monkey tucked into a sock hanging off the fireplace beside her.

“I’m Bingo.” Bingo had the same shiny black shoe-button eyes that Tinsy Winsy did, but she had freckles all over her nose. “Who are you?” Bingo asked back at her.

“I’m Tinsy Winsy.”

“You’re a monkey.”

Tinsy Winsy looked down at herself. Sure enough, she was a monkey. What was she doing in this sock? Things were getting curiouser and curiouser.

“We were born in the middle of the night,” said someone new and Tinsy Winsy turned all the way around the other way.

“Hello. I’m Suzanne,” said another monkey in another sock.

“Are there more of us?” wondered Tinsy Winsy out loud, looking about.

“No,” said Suzanne. Unlike Tinsy Winsy and Bingo, she wore a smocked dress. Tinsy Winsy and Bingo only had sweaters, but they were very nice sweaters, hand knit and with pockets.

Tinsy Winsy wiggled and wriggled. “Do you know why we’re in socks? Hanging off a fireplace?” she asked Suzanne.

“Because it’s Christmas.”

“What’s Christmas?”

“You don’t know what Christmas is?” asked Suzanne in such a way that suggested Tinsy Winsy might be quite stupid.

“No, I do not know what Christmas is.”

Suzanne laughed. “I think you must have sponge between your ears! I have polyester batting,” she said very importantly.

“I do not have sponge between my ears!”


“She has cotton fluff!” shrieked Bingo, and she giggled so much she very nearly fell out of her sock.

“If you’re so smart,” said Tinsy Winsy to her, “you tell me what Christmas is.”

Bingo stopped laughing. She didn’t know what Christmas was either.

“Christmas,” said Suzanne, “is when Christ was born. Christ-mas. Get it? And on Christmas Eve, the night before Christmas, mothers and fathers everywhere hang up their socks for Santa to fill with candy and children, and in the morning they find us. And they eat turkey and pumpkin pie and they go to church. But sometimes,” she added, “they go to church on Christmas Eve instead.”

“Oh,” said Tinsy Winsy and Bingo.

“Are we in socks because we’re waiting for our mother and father to find us?” Tinsy Winsy asked Suzanne because she seemed to know such things.

Suzanne’s eyes were not made out of shoe-buttons at all, like Bingo and Tinsy Winsy’s. Her eyes were made out of wee green buttons sewn on top of larger white ones, and she rolled her fancy green eyes at Tinsy Winsy. “We’re in socks because our mother and father prayed to the Christ-child for children. And the Christ-child told Santa to put us here.”

“Did we get born?” Bingo asked.

“Yes,” said Suzanne. “But I’m seven, and I’m the biggest.”

So that’s why she knew everything.

Bingo said, “Who says you get to be the biggest?”

“I just am.”

“How old am I?” asked Tinsy Winsy.

“You’re six.”

“Me?” asked Bingo.

“You are only four. But you’ll turn five next month.”

“I’m only four?” asked Bingo. “I want my mother!” And she started to cry.

But Suzanne yawned and stretched. She stretched her two arms up over her head and yawned again. She stretched her toes. “Hey, there’s something at the bottom of our socks!”

Bingo stopped crying.

“You better not look,” said Tinsy Winsy.

“Why not?” asked Suzanne.

“What if we get in trouble?”

“I never heard anyone say we couldn’t open our stockings!” Before Tinsy Winsy could say “Curious George,” Suzanne climbed out of her sock and turned it upside down. “Look!” She held up a peppermint.

Tinsy Winsy and Bingo climbed out in a hurry! Out came an orange from Tinsy Winsy’s sock. Then a peppermint just like Suzanne’s. And a pair of brand new roller skates! “I always wanted a pair of roller skates!” she said, and right away she started strapping them onto her feet. “What did you get?” she asked Bingo.

Bingo held up a stick, with two bumps on the end. “I don’t know.”

Suzanne was trying to pull a bicycle out of her sock, but she stopped and went over and looked at Bingo’s stick. “That’s a pogo stick. It works like this.” She stood on the bumps, but quick as a wink over she toppled—boom, into the sawdust all over the floor.

“I know, I know how to do it now!” cried Bingo, and away she went, binging and bonging all over the great big room.

Tinsy Winsy didn’t care about the pogo stick! She didn’t care about Suzanne’s shiny pink bike! She had roller skates! Around and around she whizzed, around the saw horses with the tree lying down, around another tree standing up in the corner, around and around and all through the sawdust. Wheeee! She was flying! Once she nearly bumped into Bingo bouncing. Once she nearly whammed into Suzanne wobbling on her bike. Suzanne didn’t know how to ride very well yet. Wheeee! What fun!

“Help!”

Tinsy Winsy looked up. High in the air, way overhead, hanging onto a rafter for dear life by her tail, was Bingo. What Tinsy Winsy noticed, though, was the rafter. It looked just like the tree lying on the sawhorses. So that’s where the long skinny tree with its branches and bark all sawn off is supposed to go, she thought. It belongs way up there.

“Help, help! I’m going to fall!”

“What are you doing up there?” Tinsy Winsy asked Bingo.

“I bounced. Help me, I really am going to fall!”

Tinsy Winsy hardly had time to duck. First Bingo came crashing down. Then came her tail.

“My tail! I want my mother!” wailed Bingo.

“My, my, what have we here?” someone said.

“I think we have our little Christmas girls.”

The three little monkeys saw two grown up monkeys talking to each other at the end of the room. One had a yellow bow on her head. The other had a black and white polka-dot bow tie.
Bingo stopped crying. “Mother?”

“Oh dear,” said Mother with the yellow bow on her head. “The little one has already lost her tail.”

“She didn’t lose it,” said Suzanne. She got off her bike and went over to pick up the tail. “See, here it is.”

“My tail came off!” whimpered Bingo.

“Don’t you worry, little girl,” said Father with the black and white polka-dot bow tie. He came over and picked up Bingo. “Mother is a good surgeon. She’ll sew it back on.”

“Will it hurt her?” Tinsy Winsy asked, not sure at all this was a good idea.

Mother smiled. “Tonight when she goes to sleep, I will do the operation. She’ll never feel a thing.”

“Oh,” said Tinsy Winsy.

“Are you ready for breakfast?” Mother asked.

They all said, “Yes!”

“Come to the table then.”

What table? Tinsy Winsy didn’t see any table.

“In here,” said Father, shifting Bingo to one arm and reaching down to take Tinsy Winsy’s hand.

This is much better, thought Tinsy Winsy when Father led her into the kitchen. Here the walls had fresh yellow paint, the windows had shiny clean glass, the floor had little tiny checkered tiles, and the table had breakfast! Yum! Pancakes with cheese and hot syrup! Yum, yum, yum!

Father put Bingo in a high yellow chair and pushed her up to the table. He put Tinsy Winsy in another high yellow chair and pushed her up to the table. He put Suzanne in a high yellow chair and pushed her up to the table.

Suzanne said, “I am not going to wear a bib!”

“Only Bingo has to wear a bib,” said Mother, and she snapped a bright red plastic bib under Bingo’s chin.

“I don’t want to wear a bib,” said Bingo.

“When you turn five next month,” Mother said, “you won’t have to wear it anymore. That’s the rule.”

“Oh,” said Bingo, and they all sang, “For health and strength and daily bread, we thank you Lord, amen!”

“Dig in and eat,” said Father.

All day was a wonder to Tinsy Winsy. Mother helped them clear their dishes. Father helped them put on snowsuits. They went to church and sang Christmas carols. They came home and ate turkey and pumpkin pie and opened presents of books and dollies and paper and crayons. Then they had more turkey and pumpkin pie and Father got them ready for bed and tucked them into sleeping bags in their brand new bedroom. It wasn’t much of a room yet, and quite a mess. There were no windows at all, and no ceiling. And part of the floor was still gravel. “I haven’t finished building our house,” said Father.

“That’s okay,” said Tinsy Winsy. “I like our house. I can see the stars through all the holes.”

Father laughed and read them a story. He helped them say their prayers. “When your bedroom is done,” he said, “I will teach how to say your prayers properly.”

“How do you say your prayers properly?” asked Tinsy Winsy.

“You kneel, silly,” said Suzanne from her sleeping bag.

“Is that right, Father?” asked Bingo.

“That’s right,” said Father. “Now you go to sleep, Bingo. Because in the morning you’ll have your tail back.”

He kissed them each goodnight. Mother kissed them each goodnight.

“It won’t hurt?” Bingo asked Mother. “Suzanne said it would hurt.”

“It won’t hurt.”

When Mother and Father blew out the candles and tiptoed from the room, Tinsy Winsy lay still and looked all around. Stars twinkled through the big holes everywhere. She could see the shadowy lumps that were Suzanne and Bingo, going to sleep on their army cots. “Suzanne?” she whispered. “How did a bike, a pogo stick, and a pair of skates all fit into our socks?”

“That’s just the way Christmas is,” whispered Suzanne with a sleepy sigh.

Tinsy Winsy wanted to ask more questions but remembered Suzanne thought she had sponge between her ears. She said instead, “I like Christmas. I’m glad we got born. Yessireebob, I’m glad we got born,” and she snuggled down into her bag and stuck her thumb in her mouth.

“Me, too,” said Bingo with a sleepy yawn.

“Me, three,” said Suzanne.

Outside their bedroom door stood Mother with her yellow bow on her head and Father with his black and white polka-dot bow tie. They liked Christmas, too. The Christ-child had answered their prayers and Santa had brought them not one, not two, but three little Christmas girls.