It’s that time of year…..

Every time I say those words, the song starts in my head; I can almost hear the music. I really do love Christmas music. I still have the old records that my parents had, and I still love to listen to them.

We played them on a portable record player. It had white alligator design contact paper on it. My mom would put 3-6 LP’s on at once, so she could do her chores while listening to Christmas music. As the last song on the album played, I would run over to the record player and watch it drop the next album, and as it spun around, trying to catch up to the one it dropped on, it would scratch the one it dropped on, then the arm would come back over and then drop the needle onto to the album and start playing music again, no wonder all the old records sound so scratchy. I thought that was quite the modern marvel. At night we would turn off all the lights except the tree lights and I would lay with my head under the Christmas tree, so I could look up through it, with the music playing, it was like I was someplace else. Randy has copied some of those albums onto CD’s for me, scratches and all.Going to get the tree was always a fun adventure. My dad would look and look and look some more, pulling out trees to stand alone to see if all the sides were pretty. When we got the tree home though, no matter how long we took to search for just the perfect one, it always had a bad side, so then we would all decide, which side should face out? How he got it into that little stand with the little red fluted ring with the little screws through the ring is still a puzzle to me. He made it look so easy, and as an adult, it is a task that just brings dread to my heart.

My mom usually put the lights on the tree; I say that because of these two pictures of putting the lights on the tree while we were on Midway Island. It seems obvious that dad is confused and mom “knows” what she’s doing. She’s standing next to the tree putting her finger to her head, as if to say, “I’m really smart, that’s how I know how to put them on”. After the lights were on, she would let my brother and I help her put the ornaments on. It would take us hours, well it seemed like hours to me. My mother had a very old ornament, in the shape of a girls face; the top of it was painted blue for a hat. I really liked that ornament, she would be the last ornament to be put on the tree. I think she got it from her mother. After she was hung on the tree, we could then put the tinsel on, one strand at a time, and that did take hours! I can remember my mother moving and rearranging ornaments and tinsel for days, that must be where I picked up that habit or custom. Rearranging the ornaments is not really necessary anymore now that the kids are grown, and aren’t here to put all their ornaments and tinsel in one spot, but I find myself still moving the ornaments and adding tinsel. The tinsel we had when I was a kid was some kind of a metal. Remembering that led me to do some research on tinsel, that was interesting, I’m sure ours was not silver but some kind of tin or lead, it was heavy and fragile, but at least it didn’t make my hair stand on end or create static electricity, like the Mylar tinsel of today does. I have always saved my tinsel, and I even had some of the metal tinsel until our fire. Mom saved hers, ergo, so do I. I looked online at the ebay website for “old metal tinsel”, only four items came up and two of them were the same. One guy had a wad and I mean a crumply wad of the old tinsel….his starting bid is $49.99! He does have a lot of it; the others are starting at $12, guess you just never know what your old junk is worth. I’m going to keep looking and see if I can get some at a more reasonable price.

This is mom and dad in Hawaii, in a quonset hut on base.


I don’t really remember the Christmas’ in Hawaii and Midway, just the pictures. And writing this I find there weren’t very many of them. I got to wondering, where did the Christmas trees on Midway Island come from? I found a “Past Residents of Midway Island” website and maybe I can find out. From our pictures of Midway, it looks like I got a piano and a doll. George got an electric train and Lincoln Logs. Mom said they used the Spiegel Catalog to order presents, while they were over seas.

After moving back to the continental states, we would go to my dad’s parent’s house, on Christmas Eve, they lived in Chatsworth. My dad’s sister June had her house attached to theirs, and you could go back and forth through a door in the foyer and another one in the hall. Aunt June had a huge picture window in her living room and she would get two trees and cut them in half length-ways, putting one on the inside and one on the outside. It was just about the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It is still one of my goals in life, to have a picture window just so I can do that. She would also wrap packages and put them under the tree outside. There were two life-sized children in their PJ’s and robes out there too. I think they were wooden cutouts, but they could have been dolls. On Christmas Day we would go to one of my mom’s sisters homes, I really only remember going to Aunt Joan’s in Lake View Terrace for Christmas. It was always so much fun getting together with the aunts, uncles and cousins. I would love to sit with my mom and her sisters and listen to their stories, Auntie Em thought I was too nosey and would always shoo me off. We only did that for a few years though, I guess my parents had gotten used to being just the four of us while we were in Hawaii and Midway. I have always felt as though I missed out on a lot of family…I am making up for it now with genealogy

On Christmas Eve we were allowed to open one gift. I don’t really remember many of the presents I got as a kid. I remember my mom’s parents, Grossie & Grandpa giving us pomegranates, I can’t believe that is all I remember getting from them, but it is. I thought they were just the neatest fruit, and it was one of the things I looked forward to getting. Nanny and Pappy gave us Life Saver books and Life Saver people, those were really neat, Nanny always baked an assortment of cookies and candies and would wrap a large coffee can in wrapping paper and put it all in there. My dad always made what he called “sea foam”, three different flavors, strawberry, vanilla and chocolate. One year George & I got the biggest, fattest peppermint sticks, they were at least a foot and a half long and couple inches in diameter. Aunt June would give us books or PJ’s. There were so many people on my mom’s side that we would draw names, but I can’t remember any of the gifts I got or that we gave. When I about 10 years old I got this really cool purse and this really awful outfit. The outfit was a jumper dress of white wool with pale yellow and green plaid print, and a pale green blouse to match. It wasn’t until I was in my 40’s before I could tell my mom how much I hated that outfit. She said she never knew that I hated it, but that when she saw it, she asked me if I liked it, and I said, “oh yeah it’s cute”. Well I never wanted to say I didn’t like something if mom said, “Isn’t that cute”, I would just agree with her. So finally in my 40’s, when mom said, “Isn’t that cute”, I would tell the truth!