A Very Merry Christmas

I grew up in Galesburg, Illinois. It was a big change from Chicago where I had been born, but I got used to it. I didn’t realize it then, but it was quieter and safer for us and a far better place to grow up in.

We weren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination but we never wanted for anything and my parents always saw to it that we were happy and loved. They raised us so that we didn’t see being black as being anything different or less than anyone else. We were taught to believe that we were just as good as everyone else. We lived in integrated neighborhoods and we always had black, white, Asian and Hispanic friends.

Back in the early 60’s, our Christmases were very much like the one in the movie, “A Christmas Story.” I think one of the reasons I love that movie so much is that it reminds me of my own childhood.

One of the first Christmases I remember fondly was right after we had moved to Galesburg. I had taken longer to learn to ride a bike than some kids had and when I did learn, I was all excited about asking Santa to bring me one. Yes, my parents told us that Santa Claus was real and we believed it for years. Just like most other kids did.

On Main Street, in front of W.T. Grant’s, each year, a little house was erected and for us kids, it meant that Christmas was indeed on the way. It was Santa’s House! The house would go up and the streets were decorated with big candy canes, reindeer and elves and all the stores in downtown Galesburg with all the fancy window displays looked like a wonderland to us kids. And then there was always the big Christmas parade where Santa would arrive and all our hopes would begin.

Our parents would take us to talk to Santa and it was the highlight of the season for us. The Sears and Roebuck store on Main Street had a side entrance there and during Christmas, it was full of toys and my brothers and I used to love going there to look at all the great toys while our parents made payments on their account and probably bought some of our presents and managed to smuggle them to the car without us seeing them.  

There was a really neat blue bicycle there that I had my eye on and I had asked Santa if it was possible I could have that bike for Christmas. I’d been a good girl, so there was no real reason why I couldn’t.

We put up our tree and we always decorated the house and we were happily looking forward to Christmas. But just before Christmas, they told us that we were going to go to Chicago to spend the holiday with our aunt and cousins instead of staying at home.

I’d had this disappointment before. A few years before this, we had been preparing to have Christmas in Florida with our grandparents. I really did love going there and especially at Christmas. I had lots of cousins there and we could play outside with them and the best thing was that the fruit was ripe at that time of year. Grapefruit trees lined our grandparents’ home and there were pineapples on the other side. There were orange and tangerine trees, as well as lemon, lime, guava and avocado trees too.

My uncles and Papa would go fishing and we’d have a great feast for Christmas dinner so being in Florida was fun! Even after we were older, we still loved it. There is something magical about spending Christmas day at the beach with family even if it was a bit too cool to get in the water. It was still much warmer than it was in Galesburg!

But we had packed our bags and sent our boxes with presents on to Florida on the bus ahead of us and the night before we were going to leave; my aunt in Detroit went into labor and had a little girl. We were not going to go to Florida. This time, when we got on the Greyhound, we went to Detroit, not Florida.

I was so upset! All my gifts were in Florida! I didn’t like going to Detroit. I didn’t have anyone my age to spend time with so I was often alone. It was no vacation for me.

My uncle felt sorry for me and had asked a family up the street that had little girls if I could spend the night with them and they agreed. They all rustled up some last minute gifts for me but though it was kind of fun, I still missed the Christmas I would have had had we gone to Florida.

So here I was faced with this change of plans again. This time I saw my parents pack the car with presents but I didn’t see anything big enough to be a bike so I swallowed my disappointment and got in the car and we set off for Chicago.

Halfway there, my Dad started asking me what I had asked Santa to bring me. I told him I had asked for a bike. He kidded with me for a moment, but then he reached in his pocket and handed me a picture.

It was a Polaroid picture of our Christmas tree with that bicycle under it! My bike! And I was on my way to Chicago, leaving my precious bike at home. But it sure made Christmas fun and I was happy despite everything – and I knew my bike was waiting. I couldn’t wait to get home!

But a later Christmas became the standard for our family. The traditions we set that year were the ones we celebrated every year after that.

Mom and Dad wanted a new stereo that year. They both enjoyed music and we always had a nice record player and they played a lot of music of all kinds. I think that is why my brothers and I all have eclectic taste in music. But anyway, Mom went to Lindstrom’s to get a stereo.

Us kids didn’t go to Lindstrom’s much. We preferred the Platter. Jim at the Platter was way more up on the current music and he carried the rock and roll and soul music that we liked. We always likened Lindstrom’s as the place you went to get Lawrence Welk and Mitch Miller. You went to the Platter to get the Beatles and James Brown.

Lindstrom’s also sold appliances and such so Mom got this big stereo in a cabinet. We were really thrilled when it was delivered. We’d never had one that big! I remember she said she didn’t want one with the television in it because if the tv went bad, you were stuck with the big cabinet, but it was all right if it had the radio and record player in it.

Because she bought it at Christmas, the sales man had thrown in a bunch of Christmas albums. They were mostly compilation albums with songs like “The Christmas Song” by Nat King Cole (which is my all time favorite Christmas song of all time), and songs by Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, Brenda Lee, Burl Ives, Andy Williams, Perry Como and many others.

We thought that was pretty cool but the thing that really amazed us was that stereo had lights in speakers that lit up in rhythm with the music. We were floored! We thought Mom was really great to score something like that.

That year when we made the traditional trip to the attic to get the Christmas decorations, we did it with the music playing. We always had a real tree that Mom and Dad bought from the lot out on Grand Avenue. We used the same tree stand and the angel on top of the tree was the same one they bought the first Christmas after I was born.

Our house had big wooden columns in an arch that separated our living room and dining room. We had a long plastic strand of plastic that was supposed to look like a Christmas ivy garland with candy canes and we hung our Christmas cards from the links in it. We put a big wreath on our front door and had silver garlands around the windows and we stenciled reindeer, elves, Santa and such on the windows.

We decorated the tree with the brightly colored bulbs, the strands of lights and “icicles” – silver strands that we loved.  Mom was breeding Siamese cats during several years of our lives, so we had curious cats who would often knock the tree down or break the bulbs. It wasn’t unusual for us to have to patch up the tree a couple of times before Christmas.

We popped popcorn and strung it to go on the tree. We baked cookies and Mom made pound cakes, sweet potato pies and she even made fruit cakes for our relatives. Mom’s pound cakes were special. She baked them from scratch and she put twice the butter in the pound cake and they were so rich and delicious that they were usually the first to go.

Her fruit cakes were legendary too. She used rum in the batter and when they were finished, she put them in cans and poured more rum over them and sealed the can. Every few days before Christmas, she poured more rum over them.

When she took those cakes to Florida, they were a big hit with our family. By then those cakes had enough liquor in them to knock people out. Uncle Peter liked the Claxton fruit cakes she brought, but those homemade ones were devoured!

Since we lived in Illinois, we looked forward to having a white Christmas. We used to have a phone number that you dialed to get the Time and Temperature and if it hadn’t snowed, we would call every hour to see if the temperature had dropped enough for it to snow. The years that it didn’t snow until Christmas Eve were special ones. Funny we aren’t so crazy about snow now.

Our Florida relatives always sent us big parcels with presents from our grandparents and aunts and uncles that we really looked forward to. But we really loved the second box. You remember those big round bushel baskets? Ours came full of oranges, tangelos, tangerines and grapefruit and bags of pecans.

Mom made sure we all had red or green sweaters or hats, scarves and mittens. Bless her heart; she never made us wear those ugly sweaters with reindeer and Santa on them. Friends came over bringing gifts and we went visiting doing the same thing. It seemed to me that people were way more generous then than they are now. Or maybe it was just that they had money and things were cheaper than now.

Christmas Eve was the time our parents started cooking. Mind you, our father was a chef and Mom was no slacker in the kitchen either. Our friends loved to come eat with us. Dinner was usually a feast with goodies such as turkey and ham or a big pork roast with dressing, collard and/or turnip greens with rutabaga or turnips in them. I love raw turnips and rutabaga, so Mom would have to watch that I didn’t eat most of it while I was slicing it for her to cook. Once it’s cooked, though, I don’t want it. Strange, huh? 

Usually, the cookies and cakes we had baked before Christmas were gifts so we baked more for us to have with our dinner so we often went to bed with all those delicious scents floating in the air – the tree and all the baking and turkey roasting and how happy that made me.

All this time we were playing all that wonderful Christmas music – Bing singing “White Christmas,” Andy Williams “The Happiest Time of the Year,” Perry Como “No Place Like  Home for the Holidays,” and Johnny Mathis “Sleigh Ride.” I love those songs to this day.

We would put our presents under the tree before we went to bed and Mom and Dad would wait till we were in bed and put our gifts there too. They would always buy the biggest candy cane they could find and put it under the tree. The custom was, the first one of us who woke up got the candy cane. I don’t remember a Christmas I didn’t get it. 

Christmas morning, we got up and opened our presents together. Mom and Dad would make a nice breakfast and we would all drink hot chocolate together and we would call family members in Chicago, Detroit and Florida or they would call us and we’d watch Christmas shows on television till it was time for dinner.

This was Christmas every year for us until that year when we were going to Florida and Daddy didn’t want to go with us. We didn’t understand that. He always went with us. He liked to go because he liked fishing there with our uncles. But this year, we couldn’t talk him into it. He’d been rather moody and cranky lately and Mom thought he was just being contrary so we went without him.

I called him Christmas day to wish him a Merry Christmas and I was shocked that he sounded sick. My father had never been sick in my life. He had never even had a bad cold. I was so alarmed that I cut my trip short and I flew home to see about him. My Dad was dreadfully ill and we found out later that he had cancer and we lost him seven months later.

Brian’s son Daniel was born a few months before he died but we didn’t get to see him till after he was a year old. Eddie’s son Terrence was born 5 months later, right before Christmas.

We had never been apart at Christmas and there was a huge void in our lives. We tried to make the best of it, but it just wasn’t the same.

The next few years were a little better. My brother Brian had more kids and we ended up celebrating more for them than for us. And we all started moving away from home.

I went to Florida to live and Brian moved to Normal, Illinois.  Mom had said she was going to come to Florida that Christmas and I was happy that I was going to see her, but she didn’t get there and I was depressed. I had never had a Christmas without my Mom.

But three days later, a blue Ford van pulled up in my Grandma’s back yard and in it was my Mom, my brother and two of my nephews, not to mention some of Mom’s menagerie of cats and dogs. She never traveled without them. I was the happiest girl in the world that day.

Things happened over the next few years. Eddie and I both went back to college. He went to Southern Illinois University Carbondale and I went to the University of Miami. We both came home to celebrate with Mom.

Our mother died in 1994. We stopped going home. We started making our own Christmases where we were. My brothers had married so they were with their families. I was living in New Orleans.

I eventually married too, but my husband didn’t really observe Christmas since he was Jewish. We exchanged gifts a few times but even that stopped after a few years. I didn’t even want to hear Christmas music anymore.

My brother Eddie and I ended up living together again a few years ago. We moved in with one of my friends. All of us had left our spouses and we thought living together would help us all. Our Christmases were nice little affairs. We had a little tree and exchanged presents when we could.

Eddie and I found a music station on our cable television that played the Christmas music we grew up with. We thought about how lucky we were to have had the beautiful and happy Christmases we had as children. We grew up in a small town with small town ideals and it was just the right time for it to have been uncomplicated and sweet. We had wonderful loving parents and they gave us customs that we think of all the time.

And so now, Christmas approaches again. We listen to the music and we smile and share stories. We will be with some family members and we will have a little one – Eddie’s first grandson – to celebrate with. We will share stories of the Christmases we knew and perhaps some of those customs will live with the next generation of our family.

We want them to have a Christmas filled with love and laughter like we had. That perhaps is the best gift of all.