The ghosts of Christmas past comfort me. I am strengthened by the memory of loved ones who were such an important part of my childhood. My generation is the last one that will have known in depth the love, the customs and traditions, the expectations, and the joy of interacting primarily with 19th century born family members and loved ones: grandparents, aunts, uncles, and neighbors. My generation is the last one that will have grown up in a time when schools were as active in teaching moral education as churches and synagogues were. Some may believe that this is or was a bad thing - no, it wasn’t. My life is infinitely richer for having participated in an environment where teachers were very clear about right and wrong, good and bad, and yes, the disguises of evil.
What I especially hold dear now are my memories of how very simple life was then. Children were treated as children, not small adults. We understood the boundaries. We were taught that adults were to be respected. We dressed formally, including hat and gloves, when we went downtown to shop.
We children born in the middle part of the twentieth century inherited the love and appreciation for the old traditions and family customs. Gifts were simple. They were practical. Many were homemade. Most parents saved money carefully and “laid-away” clothing and other gifts for Christmas morning. Gifts of this nature were usually reserved for Christmas. Birthday gifts tended to be practical: something to wear or maybe, shoes. Unlike the children of today, we were not given toys on demand - Little Golden Books purchased at the A&P for 25 cents apiece was the occasional luxury. Encyclopedias that were offered as a premium when customers spent $10.00 or more were the real treasures and our mothers planned carefully in order to obtain the next volume until the set was completed. Education was valued deeply and it was made manifestly clear that there was to be no misbehaving in school! Any child that got in trouble at school could expect to be in even bigger trouble at home.
Shopping was done downtown. There were no shopping centers then. Stores tended to be specialty stores, family owned. How well I recall Arlis, the butcher, teaching brides the secret of determining the freshness of a country ham - pierce it to the bone with a butcher knife and smell the blade. Drug stores usually had marble-topped counters where decadent treats could be purchased: ice cream specialties and fountain coke, where the sticky sweet Coke syrup and carbonated water were added together in the glass and then stirred briskly. A cherry coke was the ultimate treat. Sandwiches were homemade - chicken, egg or tuna salad - it was usually made from an ages old family recipe. Businessmen and homemakers often sat side-by-side there, chatting in a formal, polite manner. Christmas items were placed on the shelves the day after Thanksgiving. The air was crisp, the clothing chaste, and life was good - in a simple, no-frills kind of way.
I recall how my father would take me with him out to Aunt Eula’s house on the edge of town. As we made our way down old NC Highway 70, thick stands of pine trees lined the old two-lane road. Aunt Eula lived on the edge of Orange County. The homes scattered long the way were few and far between. That stretch of road was as peaceful and serene as could be. Smoke curled from the old fireplaces of ages old homesteads. The tobacco fields lay fallow. The air was crisp, our clothing warm.
Daddy had gone to the farm as a child with his father and brothers to cut a Christmas tree for the living room of their circa 1914 Craftsman style house located on a small plot of land just inside the city limits. It was a marvelous old house with a large, wide central hallway separating a single room on either side. Full span front and back porches served as the entry and egress points for the rooms encased between them. It was an ersatz version of the renowned Charleston Single House. The bathroom, with its claw-footed bathtub, was at least as large as the kitchen, on the opposite side of the screened back porch from the bathroom.
My grandmother, born in 1890, learned the home arts from her mother and older sisters. As a young adult she cooked on a wood stove for many years until it was replaced, eventually, by an electric one. She knew exactly how many sticks of wood it would take to create the perfect oven temperature required to bake a pound cake. Oh, the food she could turn out for her seven surviving children, their wives and children, and sometimes a guest or two in that tiny, eat-in kitchen with a white enameled Hoosier cabinet serving as a pantry. Granny and Aunt Eula shared a love of family and tradition. They especially loved Christmas.
Aunt Eula’s marvelous old house never failed to amaze me. Her large turn-of-the-century farmhouse was located in a pecan orchard at the edge of town. At least that is how she referred to her property - a pecan orchard. She pronounced it “pea-can” instead of “pea-con.”
When Daddy and I arrived, we entered the house from the screened-in back porch which served as a second refrigerator in the winter. North Carolina had four very distinct seasons back then and winters were quite cold. Yes, it snowed. North Carolina has experienced blizzards…in April! So much for the legend of the ‘Sunny South.’ When snow fell, it piled up in drifts at least a foot or more in some of those years.
Aunt Eula’s ample country kitchen was warm and redolent with the smell of freshly brewed coffee and pecan pies. Also in December, the smell of newly baked Fruitcakes filled the air - gifts for family. Is anything more wonderful on a cold day than the smell of warm spices? Cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, and allspice perfumed the room. Aunt Eula smelled of vanilla.
Aunt Eula was a petite woman. Neither she nor my grandmother ever reached four feet ten inches in height. Like Granny, she had the dearest, sweetest spirit. She responded to children as if they were important. In that time children were not especially revered in their own right so it was quite special for an adult to make a fuss over one of us. Aunt Eula was the consummate hostess: she offered me milk or hot cocoa with a bite of pie or cake. In the kitchen, Aunt Eula had considerable “skills.” She spoke of Christmases past, what life was like growing up on a farm in rural Chatham County near Chapel Hill. Both sides of the family had been in North Carolina from the 1690s on. She was very kind about allowing family members to come in December and cut fir trees on the vast property, which was sold to an author not so very many years ago. The author renovated the house extensively I am told, yet he remained true to the style of the original house. I am glad for this. It was a special place, filled with wonderful memories, especially at Christmastime.
Aunt Eula always sent us home not with just a tree, but with something to eat and sometimes a family heirloom: an old plate, a cup, some doilies that she had crocheted. My grandmother, her sister-in-law, had the same custom and tradition. We never left Granny’s house without something, usually a Pepsi and some Ritz crackers. One of my cousins continues that tradition to this day - sending visitors who have traveled extensively for the purpose of a visit, home with a treat to “take on the road.”
Once home, the tree trunk was cleaned up, Daddy cut an “X” pattern into it to help the tree take on water. Adjusting the tree in the stand took a bit of doing: sometimes tree trunks were crooked and many turnings of the bracket screws were needed to secure the tree in the old red metal pan with green metal legs. Daily, we checked to make sure that the tree’s water supply had not dried up. We used an old glass milk bottle to replenish the water supply.
Our tree was placed near the fireplace in the living room window that faced the street. It was a very small house, simple and plain, built on or about the year 1936. It consisted of four rooms, perched on top of a sloped yard, heavily shaded by ancient oak trees. The ornaments were sparse, but the large bulbed multi-colored strands of lights more than made up for that and tinsel was affordable. Oh, how marvelous the tiny house smelled once the tree had been installed! The anticipation of Santa’s arrival left us in high spirits, giddy for the day.
That time has passed and a lot of good went with it. The simplicity of the celebrations is what I remember best. Money was carefully saved and managed. The emphasis of the season was on family gatherings and the meaning of Christmas. Churches collected canned goods and provided hams to those families in need in the community at large. Later, gifts were collected for the children of those families - gifts that were practical and much needed: warm clothing and sometimes new shoes. This is not to say that toys were not provided, they were, but in those days people understood that food and adequate clothing lasted longer than toys that would be discarded over time, either outgrown or so well loved that they were no longer usable.
The closest I can come now to the sweet memory of those times gone by is to visit my beloved aunt and uncle who still live in North Carolina in my old hometown. Oh, the food my aunt can turn out! She cooks by touch - her ‘recipes’ are truly heirloom. She still preserves the tradition of Sunday lunches for her family, including grandsons and now a great-granddaughter. Her cakes are legendary. She creates miracles from vegetables. An invitation to sit at her table is not an opportunity to be squandered. She has the heart of an angel.
When the family had outgrown the old Craftsman style home of my grandmother, the family celebrations continued for more years in the den of her tri-level home. She concocted the most marvelous snacks for us to enjoy as we opened gifts on Christmas Eve. After Granny’s death, she and her sisters-in-law kept the Christmas Eve tradition of hosting family dinners for many years more. Two brothers survive now. They are the last two that carry the family name. Unk’s delightful recollections of Christmases past is the kind of oral tradition that I will pass along to my grandchildren. My sister preserved part of our early history in her first book but not the Christmas remembrances.
Memories, you see, are what keep on giving. Memories that feed the soul and nourish the spirit in times of winter darkness. We were lucky to have had these experiences to begin with. They are a kind of living blessing that heals a heart wounded over time by human interaction.
When we were small, my father would take us outside on the cold, clear Christmas Eve night and point out the stars to us. He said his father had taught him about the constellations and he wanted to pass that knowledge on to us. He liked to show us one bright, shining star, Jupiter, and remind us that the stars that guided the Wise Men likewise would guide us. Even now I like to think that when my beloved family members leave this life behind, that heaven acquires a new star. In fact, I’m sure it does.
What memories return to us in the season of light. For some, their recollections are tinged with sweet, soft-focused joy. For others, there may be a bit of sadness, and sometimes it is a bit of both feelings. Yet for those who celebrate it, it remains a season of expectation, a time of focusing on others, a time of introspection, and a time of spiritual renewal. Never has this been clearer to me than now. Peace to your hearts, and as Charles Dickens reminded us, “Keep Christmas in your heart all year.”
6:41 pm 
Filed under: Accountability, Values Parenting, Discipline, A Balanced Life, Problem Solving