December 19, 2009

Emily is excited about Steve and his family being here next week for a Christmas visit.

She has been remembering some of her earliest Christmas memories: 

When we moved to the big farm house at Elliot County, I was 4 or 5 years old. It was a big pre-civil war 2 story house, with great fireplaces upstairs and down.  On Christmas night I woke up to have to go to the bathroom, and Daddy was helping me.  I could see into the room where the Christmas tree was, and I was very curious about what was going on because I could see things under the tree and wanted to see what was going on, but Daddy told me to go on back to bed - that there was nothing going on in there.  That memory is pretty fascinating, I don't remember the next day actually opening the presents or what we got but I have a very clear memory of waking in the night and seeing something going on and wanting to know what it was. 



Grandmother VanSant (Mama) and Aunt Ruby always made sure that all of the children had special presents for Christmas.  Aunt Ruby was working as a teacher in Oklahoma and probably financed the gifts and Mama was probably behind picking out the items.  The package would come sometime before Christmas and kept hidden.  On Christmas night after all the children were in bed, Daddy and Mother would put the presents out under the tree.  


The children all hung one of their very own stockings up for Santa to fill.  We usually got an orange, an apple, a few nuts, and a stick of candy.  Sometimes there might be a small toy.  Once when the package from Mama and Aunt Ruby didn't arrive by Christmas, the gifts were pretty slim.  Mama and Aunt Ruby would usually send dolls for the girls and a game like checkers or a ball for the boys.  I still have the last doll I would get, a Shirley Temple doll.



Christmas was a family celebration and there usually wasn't company.  We had something like a Sunday dinner meal, and later in the day we might make popcorn or chocolate fudge.  

The tree was always a cedar tree.  It would be decorated with tinsel, icicles, and roping.  Before there was electricity, Daddy would rig up a battery to run the string of lights on the tree.  


In the early elementary grades, we would draw names at school and have some kind of play or program at the school. A girl might get a handkerchief from a boy who drew her name.