Christmas is right around the corner and like most people I think about how Christmas was in my past, knowing that the future can never live up to those days. I'm a baby boomer, born in 1949 after the war. Little did I know that Christmas as we know it was commercialized during and after the war in the 40's.
The Santa Claus that we saw, the jolly fat man in the red suit and beard, was an image contrived by marketeers to sell toys and products during the holiday. Saint Nick was standardized by Norman Rockwell paintings and brought to life by the department store giant Macy's. I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas was a song from a movie, and became famous as it tugged on the heartstrings of Americans and service men overseas for their first Christmas at war away from their families. And Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer was song by the singing Cowboy Gene Audrey. His most popular recording ever was the "B" side of another record.
So the Christmas I knew had only been around for a decade. None of this mattered then. We were all excited about Christmas. We were out of school. We were going to get toys and presents, watch TV and play with our friends and relatives. It was a week long party with family and friends until New Years.
I grew up in a family were my father passed away when I and my two brothers were all under the age of 10. My widowed mother took care of us as best she could. She worked everyday and we had some social security payments from my father. We didn't think we were poor since the conditions and other people who lived around us were all working people. We thought of ourselves as middle class since we didn't have to live in the projects. Today, I guess we would be classified as the working poor.
It didn't take us long to figure out that Santa Claus wasn't real a coming from and that the toys were coming from momma. After all we didn't even have a fireplace. We didn't care, all we knew was that when we went to sleep and woke up the next morning the toys were there. The one things that sticks with me about Christmas was that I always want a bike, and it never came. I couldn't complain too much because my brothers never got one either. I found out later that my mother was afraid that if we got a bike someone in the
neighborhood would take it from us, or we would get hit by a car, so she never bought them. The kids in the neighborhood usually came to our house, and they would brings toys and games we could all play together. We would visit family and friends later in the day for dinner and I would get a chance to sit with the men and watch football.
As we got older toys began to give way to school clothes. But even that was alright, because we had something new. When it got to the time when I could work and save a little money, I was so glad to be able to buy some little things for my mother. It didn't take much for her and she had worked so hard for us. We lived away from my grandparents, and my aunts and uncles had families of their own, but my momma never complained about not getting presents for herself.
For me it was very little stress, back then. Not like it is now. Worrying about getting the presents and then paying the bills afterwards. My wife is stressed out about the Christmas dinner, who, what and where will it be. Not only as a parents with grown children, we also want to take care of the grandchildren, who still see the fun in Christmas and remind me of what it was like in Christmas' past.
No comments:
Post a Comment