It’s not so much that I can remember specific Christmas’ of my early childhood, but I remember certain things that seemed to happen every Christmas-time.
The anticipation of the Christmas season was excruciatingly long, beginning the day after Thanksgiving and seemed to be a combination of many activities.
The Christmas season started with our getting the Christmas tree shortly after Thanksgiving. At least it seemed to me that it was right after Thanksgiving. It may have been later. We used to go back to “Shot Gun Bridge” on Cedar Lane looking for the perfect cedar tree to become our Christmas tree. I would tag along, not so much as to find the tree, but to be with them when it was found and then cut it down with a hatchet. For many years, I remember having cedar trees for our Christmas trees. As a matter of fact, after we first moved to Houston and the first Christmas we didn’t come home, we went to a Christmas tree lot and I was looking for a cedar tree. I asked the guy working there if they had any and he gave me the most horrified look and said, “Ma’am, we don’t use cedar trees in Texas!” I was so disappointed!
After getting our tree and decorating it (Dad always put the strings of lights on it first thing, then we got to decorate it with the ornaments- the angel on the top was the last thing to go onto the tree), the Christmas parade thru the center of town on North Jackson Street was the next step towards Christmas. Back then, it started at Tullahoma High School and concluded at South Jackson. It now runs the opposite direction (or did the last time I went).
I remember the excitement as the police cars went up and down Jackson Street with the sirens blaring to clear the streets of pedestrians. Then came the marching bands, the floats from the various businesses and churches, the horses, and the vendors selling the inflatable Santa’s, Frosty the Snowmen, cotton candy and candied apples. I always seemed to end up watching the parade on the grassy area between the street and the parking lot in front of Daves Culbertson’s Funeral home.
I don’t recall the weather for parade as ever being warm. It seems to me that all the parades were held in freezing weather! Gloves, hats, scarves, heavy coats and stamping my feet to stay warm were the norm. I think the last time I attended the Christmas parade I took Adrianne and Shawn when they were very little. I remember borrowing Mom’s Russian hat that Kevin got for her in Russia.
After the Christmas parade, we used to always sign up for Trinity Lutheran’s Living Nativity scene. For many years, the nativity scene was set up out front of the church under the Gingko tree and the traffic would drive by slowly to see it. Others would park and walk thru the parking lot to see the nativity scene. After many years, they switched it so that the crowds had to walk around to the back of the church and experience the nativity that way. I think they only did that one or two years. I was an angel on the roof of the church for two years and it was so much COLDER up on the roof where we caught the winds! Dr. Nesbitt would somehow come up with the animals that were used in the living nativity every year and the animals were kept in the garage/barn on the back part of the church property where they kept the lawn mowers.
After standing outside (again, freezing) for about an hour, we were relieved by other volunteers and would hurry inside to take off the several layers of clothing underneath the angel costumes and have snacks that the ladies of the church would fix for the participants. I remember Mrs. Mannon, Mrs. Norman, Mrs. Cable, Mrs. Bell, Mrs. Tate and others that would help the kids in and out of their costumes. For snacks, besides the sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies, there was always hot chocolate and wassail. I thought the wassail was the worst tasting tea ever invented until I figured out it wasn’t tea at all!
By the time we were volunteering for the nativity scene, we were out of school and also finishing up Church League Basketball for the year. I remember going to East Jr. High’s gym and having basketball practice for a couple of hours a week after supper. Dad was my basketball coach for several years. He always made us take our sneakers with us (we couldn’t wear them outside and then onto the gym floors). My legs always seemed to be frozen until half way thru the practice when I would finally warm up enough from the cold! Afterwards, I’d be too warm to put my coat back on before going outside to get in the car… it’s a wonder that I didn’t get pneumonia! When I was in High School, I was an assistant coach with Mr. Nelius for the Bantam Girls team.
After we finished with basketball, it was FINALLY time for the real Christmas to begin!
In the weeks before Christmas, we would watch all the old Christmas specials- Charlie Brown Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, The Grinch that Stole Christmas, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, A Christmas Carole, Mr. Magoo’s Christmas specials, Miracle on 34th Street and It’s A Wonderful Life. I still watch most of these when I catch them on TV.
Trinity Lutheran and the pastors, who to me will always be Smith, Frank and Zimmerman- played a big part in our lives growing up. Seems like we were always at the church for one reason or another while growing up: Girl Scouts, Sunday school and attending church, weddings, children’s choir, church camp, Vacation Bible School, Thanksgiving dinners, Church League Basketball, Women’s Circles’, Confirmation, the living nativity and Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. The candles, the processional of the choir walking up the aisle, followed by Pastor Smith and Pastor Frank all were part of our upbringing. The stain glass windows in the old chapel lit by candle light and the one spotlight on the center of the cross and Mrs. Norman playing the organ- Midnight Mass and Christmas to me!
Christmas morning: All quiet in the house until one of the boys (usually the one that had the paper route and was used to getting up before dawn) would wake up the rest of us kids. We’d wake to find our stocking on the end of our beds and we’d dig into find what Santa had left for us. (It never failed that we would always get either an orange or an apple and walnuts… and amazingly, it was what Santa always left for Michael and Justin, too!) It was our cue to stay in our bed… warm (those hardwood floors leave a LOT to be desired in the winter!). After we had finished looking at our loot, it was a mad dash up the hallway to the living room to see what Santa had brought for us. It never failed to put a damper on the festivities to realize that we couldn’t do anything until Mom and Dad were up, dressed, put in a call to Nana to find out if she were awake, dressed and ready to be picked up.
To this day, I do believe that time as we know it went into some type of time warp for those “few hours” as we waited for Dad to drive the mile and a half to Nana’s house to pick her up and return with her. I know that they secretly drove down every single street, road, lane and avenue in all of Tullahoma before coming back to the house! We would be glued to the windows facing Mr. Jackson’s house waiting for the car to turn onto Westside Hgts. Dr.!
Once Nana was installed in the lazy boy/rocker (remember that sea foam green rocker with the fuzzy/terry cloth feeling material?!) then Dad would start handing out the presents! Christmas carols on the stereo/hi-fi in the dining room while we all sat on the living room floor waiting to get our presents. (Mom and Dad had a boxed set of Christmas albums in a white box with a snowy winter scene on the front. Bing Crosby and Andy Williams are still to this day my favorites!)
These things happened every year when growing up.
Now for what I remember about various Christmas’.
1) The year I got Fragile. Mary and I got identical doll’s except mine was blonde and Mary’s was brunette. I wanted to name the doll something pretty. I looked at the box she came in and asked Mom what it said on the box. It said “Fragile”. I thought it was the most beautiful word I had ever heard up to then… so Fragile was her name… I had no clue what the word meant!
2) The year Scot got Roberta the perfume that smelled like skunk odor! Pretty bottle, pretty label, awful smell!
3) The year Chris and I got identical 10 speed bikes. The only way to tell the difference was to see which side the rear brakes were on! My back brakes were on the left side since I’m left handed!
4) The year Scot got his first unicycle and all of us trying it out and quitting after getting dumped once or twice in the hallway! Scot stuck it out and actually learned how to ride the thing!
5) The year that Mary and I got a table, chairs, and a set of dishes for our dolls.
6) The year that Nana made Mary and I dolls. She had me draw the faces for the dolls. They had yellow yarn for hair.
7) The disappointment every year that I never got the pony or horse that I kept asking Mom and Dad for… amazing, huh?!
