The Circle Game

When I was a boy we spent many Christmas holidays at my grandmother’s house 5 miles from home. Uncle Ralph or Uncle William would have decorated the tree in the most tasteful way. Flocked all white with pink lights or a slender green tree with red lights and red ornaments standing in the curve of the staircase and stretching from the first to the second floor. It was different from our Christmas morning at home where we tore through the wrapping paper with excitement. Here we sat in our Sunday best and took turns opening presents.

When the Uncles were responsible for dinner it would be something extravagant-and late. Like Yorkshire Pudding and Roast Beef at 9 PM. So we children were left to entertain ourselves until dinner. And one of our favorite toys was a tin chicken that laid little wooden eggs when the tiny lever was turned. There were also card games, Chinese checkers and pick-up-sticks. And then maybe a baked Alaska for dessert or cherries jubilee.

Last weekend my husband and I stopped in at my sister’s to visit them and our grand nieces, who were visiting for the weekend. Imagine my surprise to find the little ones playing with an old tin chicken that laid little wooden eggs. My sister had rescued it and saved it for the next generation 50 years later. The little girls didn’t care much about the historical implications; they just delighted at the way the eggs popped out. It made me mindful of Joni Mitchell’s thoughts on the passage of time:

And the seasons they go round and round

And the painted ponies go up and down

We’re captive on the carousel of time

We can’t return we can only look behind

From where we came

And go round and round and round

In the circle game