The excitement of Christmas in our post-war family of six was more than a little girl could stand. There were no extravagant gifts. My plasterer dad only worked when the sun shined and that didn’t happen much in December.
My mom would skimp on the grocery bill to be able to afford some presents from the dime store, saved her Blue Chip grocery stamps to buy a baby buggy, sewed us all pajamas, and hand made the clothes for a doll that she made me for my kindergarten Christmas. I still have it – an aging canvas rag doll with staining that looks like brown liver spots gained from its 55 years of life lived. To be fair, canvas is no more forgiving than flesh.
Nothing was more magical than that two and a half weeks before the 25th. Shopping for the tree was a ritual filled with vigorous fighting over which tree to select with my mother writing down every year in her memory box, which child's turn it was to make the final decision. No one really cared about the tree, it was just about who got to decide. Much like George Bush, we all wanted to be the decider. That tree would be taken home and the ornament box with every single handmade thing we had ever created brought down from the attic. We were indiscriminate about placement and draped that tree with all of them–no ornament left behind.
There were some very definite favorites in that box. There was the blue plastic Carousel that with the heat of the old giant Christmas bulb light would create the heat to turn a metal part in the middle of the ornament. There were the Angels my sister bought with her own money from Woolworth's and gave to my mom as the first present one of her children had ever given to her. There were the marshmallow snowman constructed and subsequently petrified over time, and then that most peculiar of all hand-made school presents to emerge from the box was the bent 36-inch record that was heated up in my second grade class by Mrs. Davis with plaster of paris floated in the middle of it and a 10 inch red candle stuck firmly in the middle. It was the annual centerpiece of my mother’s table next to the Ivory Soap bottle Angel my oldest sister made. In later life, I believed those ornaments in the box were kind of like the characters in Toy Story. They came alive once a year and the dreaded failure of being left behind in the box was like being discarded by a beloved friend. But alas, there simply wasn't enough room on our Payless Drug Store $13.99 Noble Fir tree to get all that crap on the branches.
My grandmother, who fitted Foundations at JCPenney's, had the most magical of all 1970s trees. It was a stellar silver mylar job adorned in hot pink and turquoise balls. My little eyes had never seen anything so incredibly beautiful. I still use those little turquoise balls on an outside wreath at my house and the hot pink patina has eroded to just silver over time. It does not have the panache of her Go-Go era tree, but I think of Cookie Grandma every year when I take those balls out of the box.
The excitement grew and grew over the coming few days, as all of the kids in the neighborhood would descend upon our house and play the definitely not fire safe game of unscrewing one bulb light on the tree to create a game of hide and seek to see which bulb was out. Let’s be fair, my family would compete about anything. We're lucky we didn't burn the house down.
The last day of school was usually a rousing concert at the public school room where a variety of songs were sung with no care about whether they were Christian, Jewish, secular or otherwise. We all sang loud enough and Mr. Byner, who normally had a little nip before and after in the alcove of his classroom, did a marvelous job with that particular assignment.
The manger scene that my mom kept in a box and had carefully glued back together when one of us had accidentally bumped it off the shelf was rotated on a daily basis for each child to set it up. My sisters and I all did the traditional scene, maybe rearranging where the kings were or strategically placing camels out in the field. My brother, joyful when it was his turn, would deliberately put the sheep between Joseph and Mary and Baby Jesus in the bushes, much to the disgust and screaming of us three sisters. No disrespect meant mind you, but he did know how to push the buttons. It is a beloved family tradition, and to this day as I walk past, I glance down to make sure that Baby Jesus is in his expected place.
And so the days would count down on our chocolate Advent calendar until it was Christmas Eve. At that time, we were not a particularly religious family, but we certainly knew how to throw a good party. Some years it was like Saint Anthony's dining room where we had so many people we were dressing salad in a garbage bag. Tables were set up in the family room, and living room, and a plywood extension was over the table for eight in the dining room to seat 14. You didn’t want to sit next to Grandpa Kennady at the table because he would arm burn you after his second boilermaker.
The turkey was stuffed and Swedish meatballs were the tradition. My mother would pay any child willing to roll the meatballs 25 cents a pound to take it off her plate. Likewise, if you were willing to polish the silver you could earn another quarter. I remember with that dear 50 cents of my slave labor, I bought her a bottle of deep red nail polish that had an incredible fingernail pasted on top of the bottle. I thought that was so cool, and I was even brave enough to buy it from the disagreeable dime store owner Mr. Shultz who scared the $#%#$ out of me. My mom always said that he used to be a very kind man but lost his hair and his patience at the same rate that the local children stole from his penny candy. Although I don't recall ever seeing her paint her nails that color, it made a lasting impression as the biggest show of thanks I can still recall and taught me the gift of how to receive kindness. Her red polish thank you that Christmas morning was right up there with her appreciation for that bizarre Plaster of Paris 4-inch pin painted green and yellow I made in Mrs Ward's first grade. I think all mothers must have a jewelry chest full of incredibly weird things. Each one is a memory in a moment because it was made with the love and effort of somebody who thought they were giving you the best gift ever.
The night of Christmas Eve would finally come. I usually had a new dress made by my grandma. The relatives would begin to arrive in droves and the party would begin. The kids would run around and play, dinner served, some singing would ensue, the table laden with desserts and Chocolate Balls, and finally the moment where Santa arrived would come.
My mother was a smart lady. She let every kid have a stocking from Santa filled with a bunch of little bitsy presents that would take the edge off of the wildness for the night until the 6:00 a.m. present wake up call dawned. Inside every stocking was a potato, and based on how bad you were for the year, your potato was proportionate. There were stupid little things in those socks like bubbles and chocolate bells and a game of cards. But it was so incredibly magical and up until about the time of 8 years old I really did believe it was Santa.
The years were so good, and time has marched on. Now my son wears the Santa suit and entertains his nieces and nephews on that same Christmas Eve. The night always ends when the littles start to lose it or like me when I was a kid, topple over in their tracks fast asleep dreaming for the morning…
Through seven decades the party didn’t change. We added some new members and lost some beloved ones but the meatballs were made, the turkey cooked, Santa arrived and those dreaded potatoes were ruthlessly compared by the recipients. This year the party goes on, but mom won’t be there. Her 91 year old body is still here, but her mind is not…I only hope on that night, of all nights, she remembers the joy she brought to four kids and their kids decade after decade. She didn’t teach us to believe in Santa…she taught us to believe in family.
(Louise Simson is Superintendent of Anderson Valley Unified School District.)
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