Bill's Bathrobe

Bill’s bathrobe was pretty typical of boys’ sleepwear circa 1950; navy blue corduroy with red piping, sash included.  There’s a black and white photo of a Christmas morning with Bill posing on his new bicycle beside the tree sporting said robe….another year holding me on his lap grinning at the camera.  Another Christmas rolls around and Allan is wearing the robe with his new gun & holster strapped on.  I know it’s the same robe…but now kodachrome has enhanced our lives with color photos.  Sure enough, it’s navy blue…red piping.

The bathrobe survived many cold winters keeping my brothers warm.  Those were the days when my family lived on a dairy farm in a large, drafty old farmhouse.  Winters were cold and the robe surely had its work cut out. 

Then something wonderful happened to the robe…it was donated to the church costume collection.  Christ Episcopal puts on a pageant every Christmas Eve.  It’s a grand production…sometimes traditional, sometimes stretching a bit away from convention.  The blue bathrobe had a new home and a new role.  Some years it was a shepherd’s coat keeping him warm as he watched over his flocks on that cold starry night.  Other seasons the robe was worn as a mantle covering the shoulders of a traveler finding his way to Bethlehem, and several years it served as the lowly drummer boy’s wrap.   It was never quite regal enough to pull off the role of a king’s robe…besides older boys usually were cast for those parts and the blue bathrobe was a tad small….not fit for a king, one might say.

The years have rolled by…decades by now.  I didn’t see the corduroy robe last Christmas Eve.  Things get old and worn out.  Change happens.  You work with what you’ve got.  One year we had three queens (instead of three kings) due to the lack of boys in Sunday school classes.  It was great.  They wore prom dresses that year to visit the Christ child.

It all works.  The message is the same.  Blue bathrobe or not….Christmas Eve will arrive and we will go to the pageant.  It will be wonderful and I will be overwhelmed with memories of other years….all joyful.

Merry Christmas