The spirit of Christmases past filled with happy memories

Today is Christmas and I would give anything to recapture the feeling I had at Christmas while sitting in our living room with no electricity and a tree that was decorated with strings of cranberries and popcorn. A candle on the table, a kerosene lamp on the mantle, and the glow of a wood fire filled the room with a quite glow of wonder and joy. But the thing I remember the most is just being with my dad, my mother, and my little brother.

I called Betty Abromeit and Barbara Blood and asked them to share their memories of the spirit of Christmas past.

Betty Abromeit

(Today’s photo shows Betty’s mother, Estella Collins, playing the organ for her parents, Ella and John Collins. The picture was made in the log house they lived in at Bottle Bay.)

“We always cut our own Christmas tree and we made paper chains to decorate it. My sister and I were so excited about Christmas that we would start hollering about four in the morning, ‘Is it time to get up yet?’ By the time we did get up my dad would be disgusted with us.

“Christmas is certainly not like it was when I was a young girl. We usually got one gift, like a pair of nice house slippers, or something of a frivolous nature. I remember one year my sister and I got a fountain pen that you dipped in a bottle and filled a sac with ink. That was a real luxury item.

 “We always had a Christmas program at a local school and there we got a bag of candy and one orange. When I was a kid I would have given anything for an orange. I had never heard of a tangerine until I was grown up.

“When I was a kid, Santa was a mythical person that you never saw but he somehow landed on your roof and put stuff under your tree. The first time I saw someone in a Santa Claus suit I was completely disillusioned. Christmas has changed over the years and has become so commercialized. It once was a quite time to be with one’s family.”

Barbara Blood

“We lived in Lincoln, Nebraska and there were not too many trees and I only remember three times when we had a Christmas tree.  We didn’t have a fireplace so we hung our stockings at the foot of our bed on Christmas Eve and we could hardly wait for morning to see what Santa brought. Christmas for us was a very special time.

“I remember my father would bring home a box of Concord grapes for Christmas. The box was made of thin wood and had a wire handle. My dad could make some nice things out of the boxes. One year he made me a cradle with little rockers on it and my mother made little blankets and a ruffle; I was so thrilled. One year he made me a doll buggy out of the grape box. He put wheels and a handle on it and my mother made blankets. The two of them worked together to make a wonderful Christmas for us and we always looked forward to the orange that would be in the toe of our stockings because that was the only one we would see until the next Christmas.

“I recall one year, when times were really hard, my dad shelled popcorn off of some cobs. He wrapped a pencil with each corn cob and put a bow on them. Each of us got that gift and a silver dollar. The dollar was to be used to buy a new pair of galoshes (overshoes). You know, we never expected a lot for Christmas. Sometime we would only get a new pair of stockings and we never thought of getting any ‘store-bought’ toys.

“When I was 9 years old we had our first turkey for Christmas. We had a neighbor who had a turkey farm and a coyote killed a lot of the turkeys. My dad helped our neighbor dress out the ones that were still good and our neighbor gave my dad a turkey for Christmas. We were so excited.

“When I think back on those days with my family, it brings back a feeling of happiness, contentment, and a feeling that we were loved and cared for.”