Childhood Christmas Memories

I guess you can imagine why I have not posted for the last several days. I've been just a mite busy with family and holiday stuff-which is a good thing. as the years pass and the size of my family decreases, it focuses my mind on the family I have left. The second reason for the lack of recent postings is because my DSL was out for a couple of days and that is bad.I contacted ATT and they came right out and fixed it. It was the modem and according to the repairman, the modems are going out right and left. They must have reached their lifetime. Anyway, he stuck another one in and we are off surfing again.
For several years when I was a child, Mother worked in the cotton mill in the Chattahoochee Valley. The mill controlled many aspects of people's lives and was a big force in surrounding towns. The mill always sponsored a merry-go-round for children and (correct me if I am wrong) a beautiful Nativity scene. The scene was life size and the manikins were all in period dress, which moved in the wind adding to the realism. I was never allowed to go near the scene and we always viewed the scene from the parking area. Many years later I went down close to the figures and saw that they were not nearly so beautiful as they were from afar. During the first years that I saw the nativity scene, no one went near it and there was a general air of reverence in the parking lot. People looked on and whispered to each other. Sometimes boys would walk around to the backside but seldom would anyone enter the actual scene. As the years passed it became a common thing for people to interrupt the serenity of the manger and walk among the figures touching them, although I never saw anyone touch the baby.
The mill also sent a bag of toys and goodies for each child in a household with a mill employee. The bag I remember the most was the one that had a toy xylophone with a wooden stick with a red wooden ball on the end for striking the notes. There were printed pages of songs with numbers that I played endlessly. I enjoyed it for years afterward. Toward the end of the Christmas bag era, the mill started giving silver dollars to the older children which was much less exciting for the kids.