Christmas: The Tree, Kit and Caboodle

In the 1950’s Christmas was not “Xmas” and it did not follow Halloween. A tasteful week after Thanksgiving was the usual time that Christmas carols started playing on the radio, poinsettias were everywhere and the Christmas cards started rolling in.

I loved collecting the Christmas cards from the mailbox and delighted that during this period we got two mail deliveries a day. The “rich people” had gold or silver foil lining in their envelopes. And their names were printed onto the card in a matching metallic font.  Sometimes after the printed names would be a one sentence handwritten greeting that smelled of insincerity and laziness. My family never had our name printed on our cards and actually wrote sincere messages.

We got our fair share of mimeographed newsletters that contained only the most positive updates. There were cards that contained photos, die cut ornaments and the one special card, each year that was a hand done mini -masterpiece.  If I had saved those particular cards, there would be a coffee table book in the offing.

My generation has Ben and Jerry’s.  Our parents had Harry and David. Maybe it was because I was from California, but getting a box of pears or apples—no matter how polished--didn’t seem like much of a gift to me.

It was roughly around this time that Hickory Farms opened and Christmas gifts and goodies began to contain smoked rectangular cheese with a brown rind, salami style sausage and those miniature ceramic pots of spreadable cheeses.

Nuts were another popular item.  The nut tray and accompanying cracker appeared on the table in front of our fireplace.  My father taught us how to crack walnuts without using anything but another walnut.

I am grateful that the Chex Mix fad lasted only one Christmas season at our home.

At school we were busy making ornaments for our parents and practicing our Christmas songs for the school concert.  Unless you were in Mrs. Steiner’s class and then it was all about dreidels. We soaked string in starch and wrapped it around soon to be deflated balloons, we pressed fingers and shapes into flat clay circles and we posed for our silhouettes to be traced. 

But the best of the best was the day—always the last day of school before the holidays—when we would get our Christmas tree.  My father was not one to mince around Glendale tree lots.  We drove right down to the railroad station where the trees were unloaded from the Pacific Northwest. My dad would bargain and haggle—point out unseemly branches—and always get a good deal.  One year we went in the pouring rain and my dad traded his plastic raincoat for a tree.

Once home, my father would examine the tree and make it right. He cut branches, drilled holes and inserted them here and there to make up for nature’s errors. Then we would decorate.  Boxes of ornaments would be pulled out of storage. Some would be broken and some would cut your fingers.  I quickly learned the dangers of “spun glass.”