Christmas Past

[flo]

I was thinking about past Christmas' over coffee this morning and looking at my tree that has so many gifts under it it almost covers half the dining room, (have lots of grands and great grands) and this suddenly came to mind.  My two sisters and I were raised by my Grandma Edwards.  I was 5 yrs. old when we came to her house.  She was elderly at the time and we did not have transportation to go anywhere on our own, but had good friends that took her to places she needed to go.  Every Christmas we always had a fresh cut cedar and it was delivered to us by Merle Moore.  (He was Tim's father).  He not only cut it but he delivered it to us.  We trimmed it with cut-outs from Christmas cards, strung popcorn, made "shiny" ornaments with tin-foil saved throughout the year and always had a big cardboard star covered with tinfoil on the top.  No lights, no fancy glass balls, just decorated with love.  After Lewis and I were married and had our three daughters, a sunday afternoon close to Christmas was a family outing to select and cut the Christmas tree.  We would always call Merle (no call was really necessary) and off we'd go to his farm to get the perfect tree.  The perfect tree was usually a little barren on one side, but no problem.  That side was put towards the wall and looked just fine.  Merle Moore and his wife Wilda were wonderful people.  True christian people.  Might add that there were never great amounts of huge gifts under our tree when I was a child.  Most were things that were needed like maybe a new blouse made from a pretty flowered flour sack and most likely socks and underwear but hey, we were excited and a lot of toys and unecessary things weren't asked for or expected. We were taught to appreciate every gift we got.......  more later . . . .

[Ole Granny]

Please do give us more later.  Lovely memories!

[Judy Harder]

Yes, please do.......I love to see how others spent Christmas.
Are we not blessed to be able to appriecate that we all
are different and have different and good stories to tell.

Hugs and God bless us all
aoyp

[frawin]

Flo, we had a very simillar Christmas when I was small.  We did not have electricity until I was 10 years old.  We would go as a family and get a Christmas tree.  We would trim it with some of the paper ornaments that Mother had when she was teaching school, we strung popcorn and cranberries and made paper "chains" from construction paper.  We would hang our stockings on Christmas Eve (back then, I wore long cotton stockings) and sing carols before going to bed.  Christmas morning, we would get Mom and Dad up early to see what Santa had brought.  It was usually, pajamas, overboots, socks, etc.  One year, I remember I got a new coat--it was a beautiful green and had fur trim around the hood and also fur "balls" that covered over the buttons!  Boy, was I excited!  We then hurried and helped with chores, preparation of food, every family contributed to the dinner, etc. as we went to Grandmother Green's in Longton for Christmas dinner.  We were joined there by Mother's sisters, brother and their families.  Grandmother always made our Christmas gifts, Aunt Nina always got us a special gift.  We always had a wonderful prune cake (Grandma's was the best).  It was frosted with white boiled frosting and she cut up gumdrops and made a poinsettia with a candle in the middle of it.  It was a birthday cake for Jesus.  She made Rice krispie treats and we all thought they were a wonderful treat!  After dinner, we would gather around the piano and Aunt Nina would play, and we sang carols!   After a wonderful day together, we would start home and sometimes Dad  would take us to a movied at the Plaza Theatre in Howard to finish out a wonderful day. 

Myrna 

[Teresa]

Oh I love these stories...

[Diane Amberg]

Me too! More, more!

[Jo McDonald]

Our Christmas was like everyone else's in those days.  We had a cedar tree and it was strung with paper cut outs and popcorn and tin foil saved from chewing gum and any thing else that had tin foil on it.  We did not hang stockings, but we put pretty things on the library table in the living room and wrote our names on a piece of paper and put them on the table and that was where our Santa gifts were laid.  My Grandma Workman lived with us for 13 years and she always knitted each of us, Jack, Helen and I a pair of mittens for Christmas.  They were always a dark purple color, and I know now that the reason was ~ She unraveled the ones from the previous year and added yarn and made the new ones.  Mama had two sisters and one brother that didn't have any children, and we always got a box from them at Christmas and there were gifts  for each of us.  One year Helen and I each received a birthstone ring and Jack got a new pocket knife from Aunt Gladys.  I still have the mounting of mine, but the stone is missing.  Uncle Forest was a school teacher and one year he gave each of us an eversharp pencil and fountain pen.  We were teenagers by that time and I thought I was TRULY RICH .. to this day I love eversharp pencils.  I loved the Christmas programs that we had at school, and the songs that we sang and there was a sack of candy, and an orange for each child in the school.  Santa started ringing his bells and HO HO HOING OUT IN THE SCHOOL YARD, THEN CAME BURSTING THROUGH THE DOOR -- the big tree in the corner of the school had gifts on it - the teacher usually had one gift for each child - a pencil or a tablet.  What a magicial time of the year for wide eyed children.

[Bonnie M.]

My "Christmas Past: memories are much like the others already posted.  I do remember that Mother would make doll clothes for the doll we might get.  By today's standards, we received "practically nothing," but we didn't realize it, as we were so thrilled with what gifts we did receive.  Our Christmas tree decorating was much the same as Jo's, and the others posted.  Daddy had two sisters, and they always gave each of the four children in our family a gift.  With so very little money, I now know that those were truly "gifts of love."  We usually went to Elk City and spent Christmas Day with Daddy's parents and his two sisters and their husbands and sons.  (Each had one son.)  My Grandma Truitt would always have some gift for each of us, and the meals were always so good.  Of all of those mentioned above, I guess my sister, Patsy, and I, and one cousin, Russell Davidson, are the only ones of us who are still alive!  So, it is a wonderful thing to have such sweet, pleasant memories, of a family who truly did love us!  I need to mention our Christmas programs at school.  Mother always made my sisters and I new dresses for the Christmas Programs.  We would "have a part" in the Christmas program, each would say a poem, and I especially remember the song "Up on the Housetop!"  Then, sure enough!  Old Santa would come to the school house, in the same way that he came to Jo's school house.  Each child would get those knit bags with sticky ribbon candy and an apple or orange in it.  That candy was so wonderful!  (Or, so we thought!)  About everything we ever ate was "homemade," and the candy was "store bought!"  "Those were the days!"

[Wilma]

We always had a tree of some sort.  Not the store boughten ones, and not a whole cedar tree because trees were scarce and you didn't cut a whole tree just for Christmas.  But Mother would cut some branches and arrange them to look like a tree.  The first Christmas I can remember, Santa Claus mailed us our presents as he might be too busy to stop on Christmas Eve.  I was a pre-schooler and the mail came while my older brother and sister were still at school, so I went to the mail box with Mother to get the package the mailman had left.  I must have been pesky because Mother decided that Santa Claus probably wouldn't care if we just peeked at my present.  It was a set of toy tin dishes.  Daddy made  a little cupboard for them (which I still have).  At least one of the saucers and maybe a plate was lost down the cracks in the living room floor as my little brother became a toddler.  I have never forgiven him for that.  That was 75 years ago.

My first Christmas was with my maternal grandparents with a real tree and real lighted candles.  I can't remember it but my sister has told me about it.  It seems that we were on our way to the grandparents some time in the evening and our vehicle broke down.  One of Mother's brothers came to get us and we all rode back with him.  It must have been quite a sight as we came down the long lane to the grandparents big house with the lighted tree.  Wish I could remember it.

[flo]

more to the stories - one year, I was probably 8 or 9, I was given a small amount of money to do some shopping. (most likely just a quarter which was a lot then)  I bought some Hershey's Kisses, went home and divided them among all the adults that would be at our house Christmas day, wrapped them in a bit of tissue paper, tied them with twine string and hung them on the tree, quite proud of myself for having a present for all my aunts and uncles.    the day before Christmas we got word that another aunt and uncle would be there and wo-is-me cause they don't have any candy on the tree.  so . . . . . . I took them all down, untied them, redivided them, wrapped them all up again, hung them on the tree,  and again was pleased I had a gift for every adult. Think in the second division there were a couple left over for me            Don't know why I didn't give some to cousins unless it was there were too many of them.