Identity – Childhood Memories Alphabet – C

C is for Christmas

As I remember Christmas time, it consisted of at least five events:

1. Christmas program at school

2. Christmas program at church

3. Christmas Eve celebration with the Julius Falk family usually Harrisburg area

4. Christmas morning opening presents at home near Halsey

5. Christmas Day celebration with the O.J. Albertson family usually Eugene, but sometimes Florence

    I can remember one school program when I was to have the narrator part telling about the first Christmas. But that year there was a big flood and our school program was cancelled, so I missed out on my big acting opportunity.

    It seems like at both school and church programs each child present would received a paper sack with an orange, chocolate drops and hard Christmas candy.

    Christmas time was also the time when my Dad would bring home a sack of chocolate drops. They had assorted flavors and he seemed to really like the chocolate centers. So my brother and I would take a tiny bite from the bottom edge of the chocolates and if it was a chocolate center, we would put that back to save for my Dad.

                                   My brother and me

GIFT GIVING

    We exchanged gifts with the Paul Quimby family at Halsey and Roy & Grace Bond from Glide. As I remember it, very often Uncle Roy & Aunt Grace would send us a box of chocolate covered cherries. I did like to see their package come in the mail.

    For the Falk family at least in the later years, we drew names, adults with adults and children with children. As I was the oldest grandchild, there came a time where I needed to decide if I would draw with the adults or with the children. For the Albertson family, we tended to give gifts by families. However we grandchildren usually received a gift for ourselves also. My Dad took some home movies of the Christmas celebrations in the late 1940's, so it is fun to look at them.

    One year my Dad bought my Mom a stainless steel garbage can, with a removable pail inside and a step-on opener. Then he let her try to guess what it was. He would give a number of hints, but she was never able to guess before she opened it. She laughed when she saw what it was.

    Some of the gifts I received over the years that I remember were: a Toni doll, an electric alarm clock, subscriptions to magazines. (such as Movie Story Magazine, Photoplay, Gene Autry comic book, American Girl) These are good memories.