- Herman Blake (JHB) and Emily Moore (EM)
JHB: People said, ‘We make Christmas.’ And I didn’t understand what that was. Christmas morning, a young lady came on her Marsh Tacky.
EM: What’s that?
JHB: That’s a horse.
EM: Oh. [laughs]
JHB: She knocked on the door and said, ‘You come over to we house and y’all make Christmas.’
And I got to her house, and there’s ham and there’s chicken, and there’s greens, cornbread. And there’s beer and a little ‘wodka,’ as they called it.
And then the man in that house said, ‘Let’s we take a walk.’ And we went to somebody else’s house. And they said, ‘Welcome! Go to the table and make Christmas!’
And that day, with this man, I went from house to house. And the man of that house would welcome us. We’d eat and dine. And…
EM: Now would that man follow you?
JHB: That man would join us.
EM: So then it would be three of you.
JHB: By the time we got halfway through the day, it was about six or seven of us.
And they were at various states of inebriation.
EM: Making Christmas [laughs].
JHB: Yeah, they were lit up.
We went ‘til late that night when the moon was out and the last house we had to go to, they wanted to take a shortcut ‘cross a alligator pond.
EM: Oh.
JHB: And you had to walk across this plank…
EM: [laughs]
JHB: …because, you know, you didn’t wanna wake up the gator.
EM: Fall in, yeah.
JHB: They sent me across first.
EM: [laughs]
JHB: Well, I made it all the way across that plank— carefully— and got up on the hill. Then every one of the others that came after me fell in that pond [laughing].
EM: [Laughing] The drinking!
JHB: When they hit that water, they almost walked on, getting out, and getting up on that hill.
As we continued walking, I noticed you had to go to every home. So you couldn’t be outta sorts with somebody.
And they’d make amends— ‘Ain’t ain’t no use me to be mad with one another. You know, that was childish.’ And they would hug and make up.
And it was the most joyous time, because there was this resolution of conflict, of hostility, and planning for the next year to begin in harmony.
EM: Yeah. A new year, starting together.
JHB: Yes.
EM: Yes.
JHB: And so I came to my understanding of making Christmas.
