Tis the Season

By Meg Cullar

It happens every year. Christmas comes on December 25, pretty much like clockwork. And with just as much regularity every year, I’m not ready. I have plenty of excuses. Here at the Baylor Line we generally have a mid-December deadline for the winter issue you receive in January, so it makes perfect sense for me to procrastinate thinking about holiday preparations until after that deadline has passed. And once that’s happened, there are all sorts of work duties that have also been put off until after the aforementioned deadline, so they must be done.

And then there’s all that thinking about Christmas that comes before the actual doing. What to get for so-and-so? Whose name did I draw for the gift exchange? I wonder if my niece/nephew has this book/DVD/doll already. (I must remember to call my sister to find out.) And on top of that, the extended family asks me what they should get for my children. (I have a senior in high school and a senior in college, and frankly I have no idea.)

So this year, inspired by a rotten economy, I’m doing what I do here at the magazine. I’m editing. Delete something here. Delete something there. Luckily, my family agreed. We’re not drawing names and exchanging presents this year. Neither are the in-laws. Instead, we’ll just enjoy each other’s company, play some games, and eat whatever somebody had time to fix.

And I’m cutting back on decor, too. I left half the decorations in the attic. The box that says “fabric wreath/mangers”? It’s still up there and won’t be coming down. We’ll do without the fabric wreath over the kitchen sink. And one manger scene is enough. The nutcrackers? Still on the shelf in my son’s room and not planning to make an appearance. Yes, there’s a tree. Yes, we put up the lights outside. But just about everything else got edited out.

Luckily, someone else is in charge of decorating the alumni association building, and it looks lovely. The decor in my office is pictured above. And it’s enough for me this year.

I’m editing the baking, too. I’ll do cookies, of course, because I would be disowned if I didn’t make the cut-out decorated cookies. (Besides, I enjoy doing them; it’s like painting.) But no other cookies. No pies. No gingerbread men and ladies. They got edited out!

And for the things that do get done, we’re doing them together. Apparently, I was acting so pitiful that my husband didn’t even have to be asked. He helped me put ornaments on the Christmas tree this year and had fun. My younger son helped put up the outdoor decorations, and that was fun, too. (Okay, I paid him a small fee, but it was worth it to be doing it together.) We haven’t done the cookies yet, but once you break out the cookie dough, it’s not a problem to get helpers.

We all know that Christmas is not about decorations or presents or cookies, but it sure is hard to keep that in mind when the world is full of decorations and presents and cookies. It’s about the promise of Jesus’ birth. It’s about the promise for people everywhere. So, for us as individuals, it’s about the people. When it comes to everything else, whip out that editing pen! When you cut out the extra stuff, it’s easier to see what matters.

By Lisa Asher
It’s that time of year again. No, I don’t mean the season of joy and giving–I mean the office Christmas party. A time-honored tradition in office buildings large and small, the staff Christmas party is a chance for people to wrap up any old thing they have lying around the house and call it a “white elephant gift.” It’s a chance for people who see each other every day of the week to. . . see each other again in the evening.

Don’t get me wrong–I truly enjoy the people I work with at the Baylor Alumni Association (BAA). They are smart, funny, and committed to the goal of the association, which is to support Baylor University through independent programs and publications.

I have been with the BAA for twelve years, and during that time we’ve experienced a lot of changes–and I mean a lot. In a way, I can chart our progression over this last decade by thinking back to my first Christmas at the association.

In 1996, the BAA’s offices were located in Clifton Robinson Tower while we awaited the renovation of the Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center. I had only been with the association for a couple of months, so I was still getting to know everyone. Jeff Kilgore, who is now the BAA’s executive vice president and CEO, was at that time fairly new to the association himself. He worked under Dr. Ray Burchette, the BAA’s chief in 1996, to create new programs and chapters.

At the appointed hour, staff members gathered in the back room of the office suite, clutching brightly wrapped gift bags and tasty treats. The “Line Ladies”–including me; Paula Tanner, then-editor of the Baylor Line; Meg Cullar, the magazine’s news editor; and Judy Prather, the Class Notes editor–composed and performed a medley of Christmas songs.

Okay, we’d actually just changed the words of familiar carols, but the reaction was so positive (at least in our minds) that our song writing soon got a little out of hand. Even all these years later, we still write songs for birthdays, anniversaries, new hires, and just about every other occasion you can think of. We think we’re pretty great, but, then, we’re biased!

The songs sung and food eaten, we proceeded to draw numbers and start the “white elephant” gift exchange. As in many offices, I imagine, our gifts were more of the joke variety, with offerings ranging from a wreath made of black trash bags to a coffee cup that became known as the “baby butt mug.”

I had drawn the second-to-last number, so I knew my gift would be pretty bad. But as the selection dwindled, one beautifully wrapped package remained under the tree, so I grabbed it. As I unwrapped the small box, staff members crowded around, giggling and whispering. I began to realize that there was a joke I wasn’t in on, but by then it was too late. So imagine my relief when I pulled back the tissue paper to reveal a generous gift certificate to Victoria’s Secret.

Immediately, everyone started hooting and pummeling Jeff, who put his arm around me and thanked me for trusting him. “Um, you’re welcome?” I replied. It was only later that I found out what all the fuss was about.

The year before, Jeff had brought in a similarly wrapped package, which contained not a gift certificate, but a bloody deer hoof, a relic of a past hunting trip. Of course, no one was willing to trust him again, something he counted on when he decided to defy expectations and buy a nice gift–one that wasn’t dripping.

That was twelve years ago, and it truly was a more innocent time. In 1998, we moved to our refurbished building, but minus Jeff Kilgore, who moved across University Parks Drive to become the university host. By the time he returned to us in 2004, we had lost most of our staff members and our funding. We’d lost that carefree spirit too, but we’d gained a renewed sense of commitment to serving Baylor and its alumni.

Jeff is still a practical joker, but his purpose is much more serious and our schedules don’t allow for quite as much fun as they used to. So our annual White Elephant Christmas party gives us a chance to catch our breath, appreciate each other, and remember why it is we work where we do.

I truly trust Jeff now–but do I trust him enough to choose his white elephant gift this year? It depends on whether the package is leaking!

By Todd Copeland

Editor, The Baylor Line

Back in the middle of November, I traveled down to Round Rock to talk to the Rotary Club chapter there about the Immortal Ten. Around Baylor, most folks know about the Immortal Ten tradition, which honors the ten Baylor students (most of them athletes) who died on January 22, 1927, when the Baylor athletic bus was hit by a train in Round Rock en route to a basketball game in Austin against Texas. The story of that tragedy and of the Baylor spirit represented by the students is told every fall during the Freshman Mass Meeting.

However, in Round Rock the memory of that accident is a dim memory. At the time of the accident, Round Rock citizens rushed to help the surviving victims of the crash, contributing their bedsheets as bandages. But afterward, the incident probably seemed like a nightmare that most people wanted to avoid thinking about. Today, a small plaque near the crash site is the only indicator that such a horrific event ever took place in Round Rock.

The cheery fellow from the Rotary Club (at least his e-mail sounded cheery) said the chapter’s members were interested in learning more about this chapter of Round Rock’s history. People had heard about it, he said, but the details were fuzzy. I told him I would be happy to sketch out the particulars and tell them the story of what happened.

What happened . . .

It’s hard to tell the story of what happened that cold, drizzly day in January more than eighty years ago.

Hard, because it’s grizzly and unavoidably heart-rending. A story that involves watching your best friend trying to escape from an open bus window and seeing him get hit by a train traveling sixty miles an hour (which is what Weir Washam saw, with Abe Kelley as the victim) is one tough story to tell without the back of your throat tightening up.

Hard, because something always gets lost in the translation when you try to explain to non-Baylorites why the tragedy still has meaning to Baylor today.

And hard just because there is so much to tell that can’t fit within thirty minutes, which was the amount of time I had with the Rotary Club.

In any event, after a nice lunch during which I met several Baylor grads in the crowd (most of them friends or relatives of the Rotarians in attendance), I talked about some of the more dramatic parts of the Immortal Ten story and showed pictures of the crash scene and of some of the friends who died together on the bus. In essence, I boiled down the narrative parts of the book I wrote last year for the Baylor University Press (which can still be purchased on Amazon, with half the proceeds going to the Baylor Alumni Association).

I also shared with those in attendance why I thought the tragedy had turned into a tradition that continues to be observed on Baylor’s campus, with a remarkable Immortal Ten memorial (shown above) having been installed last year beside Pat Neff Hall.

Beyond just keeping the memory of the ten students alive, the tradition is an opportunity for all Baylor folks to be reminded of the incredible gift of life that we have been given and of our obligation to do the most with our “one wild and precious life” that we can (to use the poet Mary Oliver’s words) before our time also comes to pass from this earth. The tradition also reminds us of the great opportunity it is for anyone to be a Baylor Bear — to have the chance to gain a wonderful education and embody the Baylor spirit.

During this time of year when traditions and ceremonies become more prominent in our lives as we progress through the holidays, I was glad to be able to visit Round Rock, where the people were indeed cheery, and to be reminded myself of what the Immortal Ten means as part of our communal lives.