The "secret" surprises for my grandkids mentioned in the last post are finally finished. I was moaning and groaning to Jill just last week that I had my doubts that I would finish on time, and was afraid that I would have to take her suggestion to give them to the kids next year. But this morning I finished. Picture Mom doing a Happy Dance around the kitchen table. Or not. Kind of a scary thought.
While working on these surprises, I had lots of time to think, and my thoughts turned to Christmas Seasons past. My Mother was big on Christmas and tradition. Every available space was decorated for the holiday. She made cookies weeks ahead and froze them. I especially loved the Candy Cane Cookies that were made with twisted ropes of red and white dough and topped with crushed peppermint candy. Back when she could still use her hands, she was good at coming up with some new crafty idea for decorating. One year she made a wreath out of white feathers, adorned with small red shiny ornaments. Another year she used embroidery hoops, ribbon and shiny rope beads to fashion a "Kissing Ball" that held a sprig of mistletoe. Those that saw this liked it so much that she wound up making several for friends and family.
We always had a real Christmas tree decorated with ornaments that my parents had collected over the years, lights that were the old fashioned big bulbs that, when one burned out the whole string went dark, and as much tinsel as the tree would hold. Mom would put what looked like quilt batting around the bottom covering the tree stand, to look like snow. And Dad would always remark that the tree was the best one we ever had, no matter how sorry it might look.
I should have said that we almost always had a real tree. One year in the late 1950's, Dad came home with a "modern" Christmas tree. This thing was similar to the artificial trees that most of us have now, except that it was made of some sort of shiny silver material. Looked like an explosion in a tin foil factory. Dad loved it, but I believe we only used it that one year. Mom made him go get a real tree the following Christmas, and the silver tree was banished to the back of a closet before finding it's way to the dump.
My parent's two little girls started to pester them about three in the afternoon to have supper so we could open presents. To our chagrin, supper was at the regular hour of 6 PM. Mom had her tradition there as well. She made a big pot of chili for us and a pot of oyster stew for Dad. He loved oyster stew, but he only had it on Christmas Eve and maybe on New Years Eve. Life was such that the rest of the year meals were made that all would eat, as the wasting of food on children who would not touch the stuff was not to be, especially in times when money was tight. This was most of the time. So Dad would sit and enjoy his stew and eat slowly, savoring each bite, while we girls inhaled our meal and impatiently waited for Dad to finish his meal.
After the dishes were washed, dried and put away, our little family gathered in the living room around the tree. Dad would always get his Bible and read the story of Christ's birth to us. In later years, when we girls could read well, he would ask one of us to read the Christmas story. I always felt honored to be asked, as this was an important part of our Christmas tradition.
While I have been taking this journey back in time in my mind, it occurred to me that I couldn't recall many of the gifts I received at Christmas. A few were remembered, like a Cinderella wrist watch one year and ice skates another. In the photo below I am holding the last doll I ever received as a child. She was a "walking" doll, as I recall, and when you held her upright on the floor and moved her forward, she would move her legs to walk. I think this was my last doll because I just wasn't all that interested in dolls or playing house. That was more Libby's thing. I was more interested in playing softball or going ice skating or spending time reading.
I think that my inability to remember Christmas gifts I received as a child is not due to my fading memory that comes with age. I believe that it is because the presents weren't the important thing about Christmas. Our parents instilled in us that Christmas was about the birth of the Christ child, about the importance of family and about loving one another.
So the things I remember most are the smells of a ham and pies baking in the oven on Christmas Day, the decorating of a tree that was "the best one ever," of time spent with much loved relatives and the joy and laughter that always was present on Christmas Day with Ronnie and Em and their family. I remember Mom's passion for decorating the house, Dad's oyster stew and his "World Famous Peanut Brittle" that he made every year. There was always a Christmas program at church and we memorized a "piece" to recite during the program. Afterward we were rewarded for our performance with a small bag of Christmas candy for each child. These memories are better than any wrapped gift that money could buy, as I can take them out whenever I want to and look at them and remember a time of happiness and contentment.
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