Christmas is in the air and you can feel, hear and smell it everywhere you go. When we drive into town there are Christmas lights every where you look. You turn you radio on and you get a steady stream of Christmas music, the TV abounds with Christmas specials and in every store, office building or friends house you go to has the smell of cinnamon and fresh cut pine trees. There is just a feel at Christmas that you don't get any other time of the year. Even the jingle of the Salvation Army bell out in front of almost every store, sends a little tingle up your spine. Walking past the Santa's at the mall and seeing the little kids beaming with pure excitement puts a smile on your face and brings backs memories of when you yourself was a child that age.
I can remember sitting on Santa's knee at the old Sears store in town. We would stand in line for what seemed like forever waiting our turn. The closer I would get, the bigger the lump in my throat got. I would keep repeating my list in my head the whole time I stood in line so I wouldn't forget what I wanted. When it came my turn and Santa swept me up into his lap, my mind would go completely blank. I swear all I could remember seeing was the hair in Santa's nostrils and the smell of onions on his breath. I can remember putting my small hand on his beard and patting it ever so lightly, but for some unknown reason I had the urge to yank it just to see if it was real. Poor Santa. I'm sure that happens a lot.
Every year we would get a Sears and Penny's catalog. I would literally spend hours leafing through the pages trying to decide what I wanted Santa to bring. It was almost as exciting looking at the catalogs as it was to wake up on Christmas morning and seeing what you got. Then, like today, a lot of what you got was determined by what your parents could afford. One thing was always for sure. A stocking filled with oranges, stick candy and chocolate drops and for me a doll.
I always got a doll for Christmas. When I was growing up it was popular for girls to get a doll all the way up until they were thirteen and the last one would be a bride doll. I kept all my dolls until I was in my mid teens. One day my younger brother got mad at me about something and when I went into my bedroom there were doll heads and doll stuffing all over my room. So much for the doll collection that I had worked on for thirteen years.
The toys that we played with were much different than the toys now. I remember that when I was about five, I got an iron and little metal ironing board. The difference between now and then was that you actually plugged the iron into an electrical outlet and it actually got hot. I burnt the bejibbies out of my fingers more times than I can count. I felt like I was really ironing when Mother handed me a pile of handkerchiefs to iron and what the heck the burns always healed after a couple of days.
My brother got a BB gun when he was around seven. You know I don't remember anyone telling us "your going to shoot your eye out". I don't remember anyone telling him not to point the gun at you sister. I can remember him telling me if I didn't step over the electric fence he was going to shoot me in the foot. I didn't and he did.
He also got a bow and arrow set one Christmas. This was no mansy pansy toy set. It was the real thing with metal tips and all. We would take it out in the yard and shoot it straight up in the air. It is a thousand wonders we didn't kill each other. John said he and his brother did the same thing. Maybe that is why OSHA had to step in.
My younger brother got a BB gun when he was about six or seven. By this time I was about thirteen. Mother and Daddy had to run into town and left the three of us kids by ourselves. Wayne got out his BB gun and was shooting it out in the front yard. He was always the meanest kid in the world and would do about anything you dared him to do. I told him to put a cigarette in his mouth and I would shoot it out. He put it into his mouth and turned sideways. I promise I had no intentions of actually shooting at him, but when I lifted the gun like I was aiming at him the darn thing went off and I shot him right above his left eye. I thought Daddy was going to ground me for the rest of my life.
When I think back on Christmas when I was a kid, it seems I see it through a sort of a pinkish yellowish glow. Like from the light of a oil lantern. That's probably a little odd sounding but when we would go to my grand parent's house they only had lantern light for a long time. We would have Christmas dinner at their house. The men would eat first and sit around and talk until they were finished with their meal. After the men ate, the women would fix the kids plates and only after we were fed did the women sit down and have their meal. Later if we made it through the meal and afternoon without some of the brothers getting into a huge argument, we would all sit around the living room and the kids would fall asleep on the floor while the adults talked and my Dad and his brothers played music and sang.
Yes Christmas is in the air and it makes me reminisce about Christmases of long ago and most of the time I laugh.
No comments:
Post a Comment