The old plantation

"At home I have never seen snow at Christmastime...instead we have a green Christmas, made so by the pine, holly, myrtle, sweet bay, and similax that over the top of many a tree weave emerald crowns. A plantation Christmas is one of wildwood fragrances as well as one of roaring, open fires and festive boards and ancient carols.

I remember what a pleasure I experienced from hearing, upon awakening, one Christmas morning, a Carolina wren caroling like made just outside the window.. Climbing a pillar under my window was a yellow jasmine vine, and in a festive mood to suit the season it had put forth a few delicious blossoms...golden bells to ring for Christmas. 

Beyond the window I could see the mighty live oaks, their streamers of moss waving gently like my white curtains, then imperial, towering pines. Christmas morning with sunshine and scented sea winds!

I went to the window and looked out. All the dim sweet plantation was steeped in fairy light. The far reaches of bowed and brown cotton fields, the golden broomsedge fringing the fields, the misty river rolling softly, the sleeping trees jeweled with dew---all these had a magical look. A silvery silence held the world in virginal beauty.

The breakfast table is gay with sprigs of holly, with graceful ropes of similax. A huge bunch of mistletoe, large enough to warrant the most ardent kissings of whole communities, stands upright in the center of the table, it's pale cold berries mysteriously agleam. The breakfaster may regale himself  on plantation fare: snowy hominy, cold wild turkey, brown crumbly corn-breads,venison sausages,beaten biscuits, steaming coffee, homemade orange marmalade.

After breakfast, we gather on the plantation porch, and I smell the yellow jasmine that hangs in delicate sprays from the tall white columns. In the flower garden two red roses are blooming. In the wild orange trees beside the house myriads of robins, cedar waxwings, and a few wood thrushes are having their Christmas breakfast. A hale, dewy wind breathes from the mighty pine forest. The whole landscape, though bathed in sunshine, is still fresh with the beauty of the morning.

So all that Christmas day we roam the greenwood, breasting through aromatic myrtle thickets, passing under huge patriarchal oaks, riding down the solemn aisles and the fabulous naves of the stupendous cathedral of the forest.

To the ancient home we turn, to the patriarchal live oaks watching before it, to the red roses, to the yellow jasmine, and within, to the ruddy fires, the rooms festooned with fragrant greenery."
from "Carolina Christmas" Archibald Rutledge's Enduring Holiday Stories. Compiled by Jim Casada
Archibald was South Carolina's first poet laureate

If you listen closely, you can hear the history.....