Treasures of the Season

Behind the glittery swirls made by cherub-sized hands and finger-painted paper ornaments embellishing the Mecredy family Christmas tree lies the story in the life of a family.  A story that opens with a couple who met as struggling interns, became friends and ultimately found the abiding heart and soul of a relationship that has lasted more than 25 years.

When Tim and Becky Mecredy met at Eisenhower Army Medical Center as freshly-minted medical school graduates and military officers, they were just trying to survive the first year out of school. Working together through the gauntlet of hospital rotations and sleep-deprived days, Tim eased off of his staunch position on a future with another medical professional. “He was not planning to marry another doctor,” Becky says wryly.

But within six months of first meeting her, Tim sent into the midst of a bustling medical clinic a bouquet of roses with a handwritten note asking his fellow intern to marry him. “It completely derailed my clinic,” Becky recalls with mock annoyance. “No one got anything done for at least an hour and a half.”

Staff and patients alike may have swooned at the gesture, even if the intended recipient did not. “It wasn’t terribly romantic.”

Tim disagrees. “Yes, it was,” he says, more to clarify than to argue. Becky replies to his words with a chuckle. In the light exchange, the Mecredys exude peace with their differences and confidence in their merged coupleness, hinting at one secret to their more than two decades of blissful life together.

Seven years ago, when the couple sold their large, Tuscan-theme home in Columbia County, they wanted to remain in the same neighborhood, appreciating its easy access to city and suburban locations and its well-balanced natural spaces. They chose one of the few remaining lots to build a stucco and brick English-style cottage complete with board-and-batten shutters and ample room for their family of four plus two large dogs.

Soothing from the outside in,  the earthen-toned exterior of the home gives way to a wheat-colored foyer, at once offering a grand view of the natural stone fireplace in the center of the family room and the two-story staircase with its knotted wrought iron balusters that climb the steps like small soldiers.

Nestled among generous seating in the main room, the distinctive lines of  several Mission-style tables punctuate the soft tawny palette of the room. The family room sits at the heart of the house open to and an extension of the kitchen with its buttercup-glazed cabinets and dining room bordered by a wall of windows drawing the outdoor greenery inside. If the Mecredys’ home, from the wood-planked painted ceiling to the grooved, richly-grained paneled accent wall, seems reminiscent of a mountain getaway, it stands to reason. Represented in the down-home elegance of the house are traces of family ski vacations, their North Carolina cabin and the couple’s Northern roots.

Growing up separately in Pittsburgh and Minnesota, the Christmas seasons of their childhoods were framed in boots wet with melted snow, thick scarves, below-zero temperatures and a frozen white glaze on the lawn. Understandably against the odds, when their training was complete in Augusta and later at Walter Reed in Washington, D.C., they established their medical practices in balmy Augusta.

“If someone had asked me growing up if I would settle and raise my children in the South, I would have laughed out loud,” says Becky, who would ultimately laugh with delight, not absurdity, all the way to her Augusta home.

“In the time we were back up in Washington D.C., we realized how much we liked the South and the people,” she says thoughtfully. “It is really more hospitable. It’s a slower pace and it’s a great place to raise kids. It isn’t anything I would have planned or predicted.”

Raising their children in Georgia has meant  folding some pointedly Southern traditions into their holiday customs. Sharing hot breakfast casseroles, decorating trees, baking bread, attending worship—all of these meld into the moments the Mecredys have cherished.

For them, Christmas mornings stand as both sweet reminders and resolute markers of the passing of time in the life of a family. “Santa” still gets due credit on presents, no matter that their oldest son, Michael, is 23 and his kid sister, Emily, is 19. Dressing gifts in festive colors now ends early instead of the frantic late-night wrapping sessions when the kids were young.

 This year, fresh traditions and pristine memories will be sparked to creation, as fragrant treasures of the season. The family tree has been replaced with a smaller version. The week before Christmas, the Mecredys will travel to Tennessee to visit their newlywed son, Michael,  and his wife, Elise. And their college sophomore daughter will board a flight Christmas morning with a friend to visit his family in Texas.

Becky sums up these uncharted traditions with assurance. “It doesn’t matter [if we can all be together on Christmas day]. It’s the spirit of the season that matters and we’ll celebrate the birth of Christ whether it’s on December 25, December 16 or January 24. It’s okay. It will be a little bit different but it’s okay. It’s a new season.”

Through their changing Christmas celebrations, Becky and Tim Mecredy have held fast to the inherent truth of its meaning. This Christmas Eve, as every year before, Becky will embrace the moment they return home from midnight worship, calling it the still time when it’s “officially Christmas.”  As they pass the quiet glow of lights and luminaries, she will breathe in the holy peace of the dawn of a new Christmas.