Christmas Then and Now

 

 

When I was a child our tradition was to cut an Eastern red cedar for our Christmas tree. No one bought trees then: the pastures, roadsides, and railroad right-of-ways were full of cedars and my brother the hunter started looking for a good tree in October. By the time Christmas rolled around, he had a good one spotted and would bring it home. One year he was pretty hacked when someone beat him to his selected tree.
The lights we used on the tree were wired in series instead of parallel, and consequently whenever one bulb went out, the whole string blinked off. Daddy's assistance was required every time he stepped in the door. He got tired of that fairly quickly and let it be known in no uncertain terms that he didn't care if the lights burned or not.
We had some very old ornaments that I believe had come from my maternal grandmother. In fact, a few of those old glass balls are still around. There were some very dangerous icicle ornaments which were made from metal strips rolled off tin cans with a key. Daddy had unrolled the strip and stretched it out to make a shining corkscrew that glittered on the tree. I got quite a few small cuts off them, but never anything really bad. I was constantly warned not to touch them as they were sharp as razors.
The tree at my other grandmother's house was always tall and thick, but what I remember is the pile of presents under the tree for a large family of aunts, uncles, and cousins. The dinners were the big things and the whole family gathered to laugh and talk. The women gathered in the house and the men squatted in a circle outside. The cousins had a great time playing together unfettered by adult supervision. We frequently were drawn into corn cob battles. The team in the barn loft had an advantage due to the height, but the ground team had access to water to soak the cobs in. A soaked corn cob could make even a big boy cry.
All this is a far cry from the Christmas decorations at Lenox Square in Atlanta. But honestly, our homemade Christmases are still just as good in memory as they were then.