The Christmas Turnip

The old widow planted her garden that Spring within the sheets of tin that she had put up with stobs to keep the rabbits out once her tender plants and crops got to growing. She enjoyed a variety of vegetables in the small space that she had to use. She canned soup later in the season and liked the combination of: okra, potatoes, tomatoes, and peas. One row of turnip greens was planted in her enclosed field.1

She put up a scarecrow to spook the birds away. And hung metal pie plates on sticks to make sounds to scare them away when the scarecrow was busy doing other things. She planted marigolds around the outside of the metal enclosure. The scent of these flowers when in bloom seemed to cut down on rabbits visiting. She placed human hair brought to her by a lady who ran a beauty shop in town as it was said that this could keep deer away from her patch as well.2

She hoed everything as best she could and watered the plants when the rain seemed to be tardy at times. She took lettuce from the garden very early. It was one of the first things to mature. Then a green tomato or two. Fried green tomatoes were really delicious. Later a potato or two or even three. Early potatoes as they were called tasted very good early in the season. The okra when it started never seemed to end and had to be picked almost every other day or the pods would harden on the stalk and be worthless.3

One of the prettiest vegetable plant blooms is the okra and next to this is the squash. She brought in many cucumbers and radishes. Later she dug the Irish potatoes which was one of the hardest of garden jobs and almost always fell during the hottest time of the year.4

Things went very well for her that year. She finally brought in everything there was to be had out of her garden. She had many cans of produce on her shelves to show for all her labors. In the end of the season she decided to turn her plot over to a field of winter turnip greens.5

This supplied her with one of her favorite foods all Fall and then later into the Winter time as well.6

She would go to her field with a paper bag and get as much as she wanted. It takes alot of leaves because during boiling they really cook down.7

It was getting close to Thanksgiving that year and her garden was beginning to thin out somewhat. But she got sufficient for the family dinner that her sons and daughters and their children came for each year.8

Now there was a certain little turnip that got planted that year with all the rest. And he just knew that he would be big enough to make it for the Pilgrim's celebrated feast. But no. When the little old lady came to pick, he popped his chest out big and proud and waited to be pulled from the ground. She passed him by and he was so sad.9

He would like to have been there right on the table with the turkey and the stuffing and all the other goodies.10

But she had gone by him and left him standing there in the ground. Day by day he became sadder and sadder.11

One last visit in the Winter she came again. This was went all his friends were picked and gone and he had been left for good. But there she came right a rain and dew on a watermelon. And at last he felt himself being taken from the earth that had been his home for ever so long it had seemed to him.12

She cut his top off and bathed his now older body in the sink and it was good to feel all the dirt off of him even though he was now laying on the countertop fully exposed.13

She placed him in a bowl and put a lid on and placed him in a compartment that felt so cool, almost as cool as being outside for so long.14

Midmorning the next day she took him out and sliced him and placed him in the pan to boil.15

There were others in the kitchen helping her and a daughter asked the old woman if she wanted it served in this bowl and the old voice said, "No, I want this served in the beautiful white bowl with the gold trim."16

She explained to her grand-daughter who was asking her mom for milk that her grandfather always liked boiled turnips. It was one of his favorite foods. And each Christmas they had a bowl to remember him.17

The little turnip now understood. He had been kept as the prize turnip for this Christmas day meal. He heard so many things from so many people. A story told about a Christ child who was born in Israel.18

The sons read parts of the Bible to the assembled family. And the children sang songs about angels and Santa Claus and a frosty snowman. And the family sat down to dinner finally with the center bowl on the table being the little turnip who had grown up to become a man to be served on a Christmas day in honor of a Christ child born so long ago.19

It was worth the wait to get to hear about the Child. The little turnip felt so special. While being prepared in the kitchen he had seen a little cloth bag hanging from a hook in a cupboard and it had a label that said "turnip seeds". The small bag was an old tobacco bag the old widow's husband had used. He liked to roll his own smokes and he bought Country Gentleman tobacco in the little sacks. In that bag was some of the little turnip's seeds and future offspring. He hoped that some of them would live in her garden and someday be presented for Christmas and the joyful holiday of a family coming together to enjoy themselves and share a dinner together.