CHRISTMAS IN BLANDING

It snowed here in Loa a few days ago. We still have snow on the ground. Normally, it seems we only get “dusted” and it’s gone by 10:00 a.m. Most of the time I don’t mind the “dusting” as long as it SNOWS in the surrounding mountains. I have long-since lost my enthusiasm for driving on icy roads---if I ever had any enthusiasm for it. I guess it is something you do because you have to if you live in an area where icy, snowy roads occur. But this snowstorm has been great. I haven’t had much of any place I had to be so I have been able to enjoy looking at the fairyland outside. I did have to take Jack to the Dentist on Wednesday. No big deal! The main highway was clear and pretty much dry. The street in front of our house still has snow on it and it has been cold enough that not much snow has melted so it’s still beautiful. Tal came and swept my front walk (bless his heart) and within a few minutes the walk was dry. When I was younger I’d have wanted to go out and build a snowman. It was good snowman type snow. Maybe one of these days I will get some shoes with good tread on them so it will be more tempting to go out and play in the snow

Anyway, having this much snow made me think of Christmas’ past. Not that we always had a white Christmas---we didn’t. But I seem to remember it snowing more in Blanding when I was a kid than it does now. Every winter we were able to enjoy sleigh riding and other winter activities. And, we did, occasionally, have snow on Christmas.

Christmas was very different when I was a child. I don’t know whether it was a lot different because I was in Blanding or whether it was different because of the circumstances of our family. But I have many fond memories of Christmas and the wonder of it all. I love Clement Moore’s “Twas the Night Before Christmas” poem idea of Santa Claus and I love the Luke version of the Birth of Christ. There were no inconsistencies between the two in my mind when I was a child.

My Mom seemed to like Christmas and she always wanted a tree. Daddy didn’t seem so happy about Christmas. I think there were several reasons why that was so. First, we were very poor. My Dad worked extremely hard and long hours to earn enough to keep us afloat but when I was young, we were in the midst of the Depression. The United States didn’t really begin to come out of the Depression until World War II. You may remember that I was born in 1933 and the War began in December of 1941. I know my Dad always did his best, but sometimes a person’s best wasn’t enough. Oh, we always had food on the table (certainly not fancy food but GOOD food), we had a roof over our heads and the house was warm in the winter. We always had clothes to wear (not many, not fancy) but we didn’t have to go naked. But Christmas generally requires a little extra to satisfy the wishes of children. When I was young there was not enough money to pay for the extra wishes of children. I think that bothered Daddy because he loved his kids and would have liked to “spoil” us AND there was the “Christmas Tree” that is so much a part of the season.

I’m going to do a little speculating here because I don’t know for sure, but I think my mother’s family had more money than my Dad’s family. Of course, my mother’s father only had one wife at a time; my Dad’s father had three wives and three families. I think there were many times when my Dad went to bed hungry. My Mom told me a couple of times that many times all my Dad had for supper when he was growing up was half a cup of milk and one slice of bread. That hardly seems enough to fill the tummy of a growing child. My mother’s father owned a “General Store” so her family may have been better off, financially, than my Dad’s family. My mother never told me about the kind of Christmases she enjoyed while she lived in her parents home but just knowing that my Grandfather Cox owned a store tells me a great deal though I don’t know how long he had the store. And, I don’t know what he did to earn a living when he didn’t have the store. I wish my Mom had told me about her childhood or had written about her life but as far as I know, she didn’t. And Mom always wanted a Christmas tree, so, my assumption is that she liked Christmas. And because Mom wanted a tree, my Dad always went out and cut one. That had to have been a real chore for him because we had no vehicle, so he walked until he found a tree, cut it and carried it home on his shoulder. My Dad was a very strong man but to carry a tree home on his shoulder could not have been easy. There were a lot of “scrub” Juniper close to our house (within a couple of blocks) but the nicer Juniper trees were further away. To get a pine tree took some real hiking. I wish I had paid closer attention to how far he must have had to walk to find a tree but, like most kids, I was just happy to have a tree and I didn’t concern myself with what it took to get one. I wonder how many of us would have the stamina to walk to find a Christmas tree and then carry it home on our shoulder. Most of the time we had a tree that was, maybe, four feet tall and we would set it on a table. I loved the thought of tall trees that stood on the floor but I only remember a couple of times having a tree tall enough to stand on the floor. I suspect, on those occasions, my Dad had access to a team of horses and a wagon, so he brought home a bigger tree. My mother loved tall Christmas trees so Daddy tried to get one some of the time. When he got the tree home he would build a stand for it and bring it in the house. We rarely ever got the tree in the house more than two or three days before Christmas.

Then came the decorating! We had no lights for our tree when I was young. We did have a couple of strings of tinsel which we lovingly draped over the tree. It wasn’t the fancy, big tinsel you find now. It was only about ½ inch in width. As I recall, it was gold. We saved it very carefully from year to year. My Mom helped my brother, George, and I pop corn and when it had cooled we used a needle and thread and made long strings of popcorn to drape on the tree. Sometimes we had some colored paper so we cut it into strips, made some flour and water paste and made interlocking paper chains for decorations. I remember we had an old, beat-up wreath to hang on the door. It was all so wonderful and fun. Of course, when we strung the popcorn on the thread we managed to pop some corn into our mouth. It was so yummy. We had a metal popcorn popper with a long handle. We poured the popcorn kernels into the popper, closed the lid, put it on the wood burning stove and pulled and pushed the popper back and forth across the hot stove until the corn stopped popping. We opened the lid of the popper, poured the popcorn into a pan and did another batch until we had enough popcorn for our tummies and the Christmas tree. We always had popcorn. My Dad grew the popcorn. After he harvested the ears of popcorn, we let them dry for a while and then we’d spend a few evenings rubbing the corn off the cob so we could pop it. Once in a while my Mom would make some syrup and we would form popcorn balls with part of the corn we popped. It was a nice treat.

Anyway, with the two strands of gold tinsel, some paper chains and the strings of popcorn, we thought we had the most beautiful Christmas trees in the world. Sometimes Mom would make some sugar cookies and George and I would cut them out. After they were baked, if we got to them before they got too cool, we could poke a hole in the cookie, put a string through the hole and hang a few cookies on the tree. We used the lid that had come off a can of baking powder as our cookie cutter. Mom had saved two lids, one from a can of “Calumet” baking powder and one from a can of “Clabber Girl” baking powder. The “Calumet” lid was, oh, maybe two inches in diameter and the “Clabber Girl” lid was larger, maybe four inches in diameter, so we had two sizes of cookies. Generally, the larger cookies were for my Dad. He really liked a big cookie. The rest of us ate the smaller cookies. There is more to the story of my Dad and big cookies but I will tell you about that in the chapters I’m writing about him. We also used the larger lid to cut baking powder biscuits.

Some people in Blanding had lights for their tree but that didn’t happen for us until after my brother, Sherman, had joined the Navy in February of 1942. He sent a Christmas present for the family and it was a string of lights for the tree. By 1942 we had electricity most of the time (except when the power plant went down), so we could turn the tree lights on every night. Remember, we rarely had our tree up more that two or three days before Christmas and I remember a couple of times that we decorated the tree on Christmas Eve. Daddy didn’t like the tree up more than a day or two after Christmas so if we had the tree up more than five days, it was a rare occurrence. It would have been too expensive to have the tree lights on more than that.

We didn’t hang stockings on Christmas Eve. We each had a small box, usually a shoe box, we set on the table. Santa always put some goodies in the box. We always received some ribbon candy and some of those round, old fashioned candies that had designs in the middle, plus some other hard candies. Also, we received some mixed nuts (in the shells). We loved the nuts and it gave us something to do to crack them and get at the wonderful nut meat inside. What kind of nuts? We always received hazel nuts, almonds, peanuts, walnuts and Brazil nuts. We were not very “politically correct” in those days because we called the Brazil nuts “nigger toes”. Regardless of what we called them, they were the hardest to crack and the most satisfying to eat. Also, we always received an orange in our box. Oh, how we loved those oranges. Sometimes the orange we received for Christmas was the only orange we ate all year. Somehow, whenever I smell an orange, I think of Christmas. In later years, as Daddy was able to get more work that paid a salary, Mom would buy a half-case of oranges and a half-case of grapefruit from a man who sold them from the back of his truck. Now, that was real living!!! The marvelous Texas red, sweet grapefruit that are available today were not available then. The grapefruit we ate were yellow, from Florida. They were quite tart so we put a little sugar on them and enjoyed them more than candy. Jack and I really love grapefruit and we would eat one every day---but we can’t. It seems that grapefruit interferes with certain medicines we take and the doctor and pharmacist have both advised us not to eat grapefruit. It’s like a “stake in the heart”. However, we are able to eat oranges and other citrus fruit. I hope we have grapefruit in the hereafter.

I always asked Santa for a doll. I had a little rubber “baby” doll that I loved dearly and I played with her and made clothes for her all the time. I rocked her to sleep, I pretended to feed her and she was much loved, but I wanted a beautiful doll that had eyes that would open and close and say, “mama.” I didn’t get one until I was nine years old. Santa didn’t give it to me. Grace had graduated from High School and left Blanding to find work (which she did). She sent me a gorgeous doll with curly blond hair (my rubber doll had painted hair), the eyes opened and closed, she said, “mama” and she had a beautiful pink dress and a pink coat and hat. She had shoes and socks and, oh my, she was incredibly wonderful. I had a friend whose name was Norma Rae Young. She was the only girl in a family of boys. I don’t remember what her father did for a living but whatever he did it paid more than my Dad ever made and Norma Rae got a new doll for every birthday and every Christmas. To walk into her bedroom was almost like walking into a toy department at a store. She had dolls of every kind and size. I don’t remember feeling any jealousy because Norma Rae was a very nice person. She was kind and considerate. She had a fantastic mother whom I adored. But I always was happy when I was invited to go to Norma Rae’s house to play. When I was five or six, Norma Rae gave me one of her dolls. It was a rubber “baby” doll, exactly like the one I had. When I remember her giving me that doll it is almost overwhelming to think that anyone would be so generous. I took the doll and loved her as I did my other rubber doll. I felt very rich to have two dolls. When Grace sent me the beautiful doll in pink clothes, I was almost beside myself with joy. I had THREE dolls and I loved them all equally. Those were the “good old days” when kids played games outside, and they played with toys that required some pretending. There was no “virtual reality” in those days.

Santa always knew what we needed. He didn’t waste time on things we merely wanted. He knew we needed new rubber boots to keep our shoes dry in the winter. He knew we needed new socks and underwear. We generally received a new pair of mittens. I think, occasionally, the boys received a new shirt and I received a new school dress. Don’t think for a minute that we never received any fun things. One year George and I received a set of blocks. I know we spent many, many hours playing with them; building towers, spelling words and, of course, knocking down the towers just so we could start over. Also, the family would receive a game each year. We had an “Uncle Wiggley” board game, Monopoly, Rook cards, “Old Maid” cards, “Authors”, “Go Fish”, etc. We also received a Chinese Checker board one year and we had a checker game. We spent many happy hours playing games and Daddy would join us kids on Sunday night to play Rook and other games. I always loved it when he found the time to play games with us. As we got older---High School age, we received a Pinochle card game and later a Canasta card game. How I loved those games. I became a pretty good strategist. Sometimes a group of friends from school would get together and have a Pinochle or Canasta party.
We’d pop some corn or pull some taffy and then play games. Those were fun times. I don’t remember ever feeling envy because some other kids received a lot of toys and playthings for Christmas. Christmas was what it was at our home and the idea of sulking or being hateful because I didn’t receive what I may have wished for, never entered my mind. I’ve told you before: Most of my life I’ve accepted things as they are and have chosen to be happy, regardless.

In spite of the fact that we only received what we needed (plus a game or book to build our minds) for Christmas, I remember it being a wonderful time. We played outside in the snow when there was snow. Daddy fixed up a little red wagon that the older kids had used. He somehow got some new wheels for it and was able to paint it so it looked new. That was mostly for George. He needed it. However, he very generously allowed me to play with the wagon on occasion, so I could take my baby dolls for a ride. One year, George received a brand new, beautiful sled. I believe Grace sent it to him. He let me take turns riding it when we had snow and I appreciated his generosity. I will be telling you more about George at a later time.

I remember George and I having as much trouble sleeping as most kids do on Christmas Eve, even though we had little hope of getting an over-abundance of gifts like many kids today. Whatever we received was exciting. It was made all the more exciting by Mom. She never allowed us to open gifts until the family members who were home at the time could all be together. Remember, we had animals and chores. The cow/cows had to be milked and the milk had to be taken care of. The pigs and chickens didn’t want to wait to be fed just because it was Christmas and we kids had to do our chores, as well. So, we all had to wait until chores were done. Undoubtedly, the waiting made everything all the sweeter and more exciting. Also, Mom wanted us to have breakfast before opening gifts because she knew we would be getting candy and nuts and she didn’t want us to eat candy and nuts before getting good food into our tummies. With chores, breakfast, brushing teeth, making beds, etc., Christmas morning usually lasted until 10:30 or 11:00 a.m. Hey, how many of you have hot cereal, ham, eggs and baking powder biscuits in your stomachs before you open gifts? Mom very often made eggless cake and put icing on it for Christmas. We often had “Farmer’s Rice” for supper instead of the usual bread and milk. Christmas was pretty special. I will explain what “Farmer’s Rice” is at a later time.

Jack and I got married November 5, 1951. We immediately moved to California because the Marine Corps thought that’s where we should be. We had a small apartment near the beach in Newport Beach. Jack’s sister, Elaine, sent him a string of Christmas tree lights for his birthday on December 11th so we promptly went out and bought a Christmas tree. As I recall, his mother sent us some balls and other decorations for a tree and we began a tradition of decorating our Christmas tree on his birthday. Oh my, that was a shock to me. I couldn’t imagine people actually decorating their tree so far ahead of Christmas and I was concerned about “what the neighbors would think.” We had some friends, Dave and Loral Erickson, who lived in the same building we did. He was something of a “Scrooge” and told Loral she couldn’t have a Christmas tree. She was only 16 and she was devastated. About a week and a half after we had our first tree decorated, Jack received his orders to go to Korea and the Marine Corps (being the magnanimous entity it is) gave us a 10-day leave. So, we packed all our belongings, including the decorations on the tree and headed first to Blanding to see my parents for a day or two and then on to Salt Lake City where we spent Christmas with Jack’s parents and sisters. Before we left California we gave our tree to Loral. I don’t know whether she was allowed to buy any decorations for the tree but at least she had a tree. She was ecstatic.

Christmas in 1951 was the most amazing Christmas of my life. I did not know that people got so many things for Christmas. Because Jack was going to Korea and because I was going to be living with his parents while he was gone (they wouldn’t let me pay any rent or buy food so my expenses were pretty low) and because the Marine Corps would be taking care of Jack’s food and shelter (such as it was) Jack went out and splurged. He bought me a much needed pair of shoes, plus a beautiful two-piece knit “little black dress” and a gorgeous rhinestone necklace. Sometime when I find the picture, I’ll have Juli show me how to put it in my blog so you can see how cute that dress was. I had scrimped and saved to buy him a couple of “civilian” shirts before we left California. But the thing that was so eye-opening to me was the number of gifts from my mother and father-in-law and my sisters-in-law. I remember being almost overwhelmed and I shed tears because I was so overwhelmed with their generosity. I had never seen such a Christmas. My mother-in-law was a very good cook, as well. She had made all sorts of cookies, cakes, and other goodies. What a feast we had. As I recall, Christmas afternoon we went to Jack’s Grandmother Erickson’s home for Christmas dinner. Of course, his mother had taken food to contribute to the feast. That was when I first tasted SNOW PUDDING. I thought it tasted “different”. You all know, it is a favorite of Jack’s family and I wanted to be a good wife, so I made it a couple of times. I didn’t have the equipment to make it properly so it never turned out as well as it should have. But, I ate some each time I had the opportunity and by the third time I ate Snow Pudding I was hooked. I now have the proper equipment to cook Snow Pudding and Tal has asked that I Will the Snow Pudding pans to him so he can carry on the tradition---though we generally eat Snow Pudding for Thanksgiving rather than Christmas. Oh, sure, we’d eat it for Christmas, too, if I ever got around to making it. Oh well!!

Eventually, we dropped the tradition of decorating our Christmas tree on Jack’s birthday and began decorating for Christmas the weekend after Thanksgiving. By then I had gotten over worrying about “what the neighbors would think.” I love Christmas and the decorations. I have been known to leave a Christmas tree up until Valentine’s Day. It is difficult for me to give up on Christmas. I think my obsession with leaving Christmas decorations up until Valentine’s Day was either a source of embarrassment to my children as they became teenagers, or it was a source of amusement to be enjoyed by their friends. Their friends didn’t seem to mind my eccentricities and they knew they were always welcome in our home. I needed a plumber today and the plumber and his helper suggested that I get “Tal’s boys down here to take down my Christmas tree.” I’m afraid Loa is in for a surprise. I like my Christmas tree and I see no need to rush to take it down.

Since Jack and I married, we have had some quite spectacular Christmases---too spectacular. I have managed to tone down the spending the last couple of Christmases. Christmas is not “getting things” though I have a hard time making Jack understand that. Christmas is love and giving and doing. Christmas is appreciating what you have and the many blessings you enjoy. Christmas is music, friends, and family. My humble Christmases in Blanding are emblazoned in my memory as wonderful and beautiful. Do I want to go back to them? I’m not really sure. I certainly like having a tree longer than four or five days. I like having other decorations longer than four or five days. I’m not sure I want to go back to popcorn strings on the tree, and yet, there is something very touching about popcorn on a Christmas tree. I remember, as a teenager, groups of us would get together and go caroling around the town. We’d get in the back of a small truck with a flat bed and stake sides and go through the whole town and sing carols. People would come to the door and listen as we sang and applaud when we finished. We deserved the applause because we rehearsed the songs before we went caroling. We had soprano, alto, tenor and bass parts. We sounded great, even if I do say so, myself. After we were through caroling we’d go to someone’s home and drink hot, spiced tomato juice or hot cocoa, eat a few crackers, sing some more and after we were warmed enough we’d put our coats and boots on and walk home.

There is one more thing I must tell you before I close this chapter. On Christmas morning, the Navajos who lived in hogans just outside of town would come into town. The women would be carrying two cloth sacks, one large and one small. They would go to a house, leave the big sack out by the gate (nearly everyone had a fence around their property) and come up to the door with the small sack. They would knock at the door and when someone answered the knock the lady would say, “Kismet gib it. Kismet gib it.” (“Christmas give it.”) My dad would get a bucket of apples and put the apples into the small sack. I don’t know what other people gave them but everyone gave them something. The lady would then go back to the gate, pour the contents of the small sack into the large sack, pick up both sacks, go to the next house and perform the same routine. It didn’t take long for both sacks to be filled to the brim. They’d take them home, empty the sacks and come to town for more. Sometimes it was aggravating to see the Navajos begging when they were wearing several gorgeous silver and turquoise rings on the fingers of both hands, bracelets on both arms, necklaces around their necks and the buttons on their shirts were silver coins (dimes, quarters, fifty-cent pieces and silver dollars). Most of the Navajo men wore spectacular, silver belt buckles. But my Dad never turned anyone away.

Now, for the January birthdays: Happy birthday to Dallin, January 22nd, Ember, January 25th and Erica, January 31st. Have a great day.

I love you all. I’ll be back later with more.