The Writer's Pen

Anticipation simmered like apple cider on the back burner. The weeks before Christmas were filled with activities at school, church, home and the great outdoors. Our snow fort was frozen so hard that it would be spring before its walls would melt. Our stash of snowballs had frozen together, but a swift kick could separate those lethal weapons should the neighbor boys show their heads.

The skating rink with its dirt banks had been flooded by the local fire department, but that gesture was the last adult involvement. Only a plank bench offered any respite when your fingers were stiff and the skate laces frozen. However, rousing hockey games were in full swing with pucks flying through the “Crack the Whip” skaters sharing the ice. The newbies staggered to more confident skaters hoping to survive. The ice rink hot dogs glided through the traffic of blades skating backwards hoping to impress, only to be tripped up by neighborhood dogs who would occasionally join the fun. Proper apparel included all the sweaters in your closet topped by any coat you could actually button over all those layers.

One Saturday in December there would be a free movie with Santa distributing sacks of holiday treats. These seasonal treasures included peanuts in the shell, peanut brittle, colorful ribbon candy, peppermint sticks, hard jelly-filled candies, and chocolate-covered candy with foamy-looking filling called “frog spit.”

Santa usually arrived atop a fire truck (very appropriate one year). With a crowded audience of mostly kids, a fire broke out in the theater and bedlam resulted. One of my grade school classmates crawled over the seats to carry his handicapped brother to safety. Miraculously, everyone escaped unharmed, although that theater was not rebuilt.

Saturday afternoon seemed to be reserved for Christmas program practice at church. No one was really excited over giving up precious weekend hours to practice songs we already knew or to listen to friends stammer through their assigned pieces that they should have memorized two weeks ago. Moms were busy sewing old sheets into angel robes and borrowing bathrobes for the shepherds. Dads were assigned jobs like setting up the outdoor Nativity scene and setting up the giant Christmas tree in the church.

At school art classes became gift emporiums. Every mom needed a woven hot pad, a homemade candle, a card stuffed with a hankie swiped from her dresser drawer, a plaster cast of your hand, a picture painted on glass, or a few poinsettias twisted from chenille pipe cleaners. Personally, I still treasure a snuff container lined in velvet with mini pom-poms glued to it from 40 years ago.

Decorating cookies was great fun for a while. Eventually the result of sneaking so much cookie dough, frosting slathered everywhere and colored candy sprinkles resulted in Mom finishing the mess. Yes, I still eat raw cookie dough…and no, I never got worms.

Shopping for gifts to exchange at school or for family members deserved a trip to the local “Five and Dime.” Just inside the door was a photo booth machine, so the first quarter had to be spent making crazy faces with your sibling or friend. Luckily, there were four shots to be shared, so everyone could be blackmailed by a ridiculous photo years later.

It was easy to shop for girls since they all loved fancy bottles of “toilet water,” a rather scary moniker. Dependable gifts were hankies, combs, pocket-sized mirrors, barrettes, paper dolls, color books, pale pink nail polish, or perhaps a tube of Tangee lipstick. Jewelry was cheap, and rhinestones were glamorous.

Boys and dads were another story. Dads received a cache of socks, gloves, handkerchiefs and screwdrivers. If he was lucky, he might end up with a flashlight. Brothers would settle for anything that made weird noises, baseball cards with bubble gum, a pocketknife or a box of chocolate-covered cherries.

Wrapping our treasures, we used Mom’s carefully saved and ironed paper from last year. Only large packages warranted new paper, but we had a fine selection of used and ironed curling ribbon. Eagerly we checked out how many packages we had and shook them hoping to guess their contents. Games especially made a lot of noise.

Lucky us! We never had to wait till Christmas morning to open our gifts. We were a Christmas Eve family, so everyone could sleep in…except Mom, who had hours of work ahead of her preparing the feast. What a holly, jolly time it was!

Cheryl Stanley is a retired teacher and lives in Everly.