This is a blog my mother wrote a few years ago about her childhood Christmases. Mom was born in 1934. My grandmother's family, the Butlers, were a big part of those Christmases. There were a dozen Butler children born between 1888 and 1913, so lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Elva:
The other day, Dee fixed me a cut orange with cloves in it, to keep in my room for a few days. The smell of the orange and the spices brought back lots of good memories of being a kid. To me, oranges always smell like Christmas -- and bring back a flood of wonderful memories!
With the exception of the World War II years, we were always in Georgia for Christmas.The Butler family (my mother's family) always spent the holiday together. We always spent the night of the 24th with my Aunt Hazel or they with us. Often, the Dan Butler family was in the mix too. Kids often slept on blanket or quilt pallets, on hardwood floors … and I do mean HARD wood! Sofas were a luxury.
It always seemed to me that there were huge amounts of food.The sisters (my mother had 6 of them!) would talk and plan ahead, mostly deciding about the meat. Think they brought the sides they wanted to bring…. Veggies and salads and my mother always made cakes.There would be sweet tea and coffee, but never alcohol.At Aunt Hazel’s, kids ate at the big kitchen table and some of the men ate at the big table on the back, screened porch when the weather was nice.
There was always a big tree with half a room of wrapped presents around and under it. They would be given out after the big, noon meal. They drew names by family but every family had a present for Granny Butler, usually in addition to some money.
During those years, Uncle Dan and Aunt Estelle plus Danny, Jack, and Jeannine spent holidays and other times with us.Carol was born after or near the end of the war. I loved that family and loved the time they spent with us. They lived in Largo, Fla. where Dan worked with Stelle’s family -- they owned orange groves. They always arrived with big bushels of wonderful, tree ripened fruit.
In later years, the war years, we lived in South Carolina, and partly because of severe gas rationing and difficulty finding good tires, we did not travel much at all. Guess that’s when I learned about Santa. Don and I were sometimes left with Bobby to babysit. As soon as the folks left the house, Bobby and Don would start looking for their hidden presents -- and would find them. That year, Santa brought the boys real nice farm,tractor sets which they took out and played with.By the 25th , the toys obviously showed wear and tear. They showed me my doll once but wouldn’t let me play with her.
One Thanksgiving when we lived in Georgia, the folks decided we would spend the day driving through the mountains, then stop at one of the hotels and have dinner. Well, we did this but the dining room was closing. Thankfully, one of the men recognized Dad and served us the delicious left overs! Then they got autographs and visited with the folks.. Later, as we were driving home, they spotted a pretty pine tree, stopped, and cut it down. They tied it to the roof of the car, for our happy Christmas tree. Can you imagine doing that in a national park these days ?!
One of my earliest and sweetest memories was one Christmas Eve, lots of “big kids” stopped by our house to get the boys to go sing carols with them. I wanted to go too. I loved to sing even back then. Of course, the folks refused as I was only 5 or 6. Well, I was put to bed and cried myself to sleep. Sometime later, Don got in bed with me and said, "We’ll just sing our carols together." So we sang together, and I went back to sleep after we sang. One song I didn‘t know was The First Noel – Don sang to me and I remember thinking it was just so pretty.
After WWII, after we moved back to Atlanta, Don and I and often other friends would go to one of the Episcopal churches [St. Luke’s] for their Christmas service, because they had a beautiful Christmas Eve service. I had sung at St. Luke’s from time to time as a soloist.
Hope everyone has a happy, safe, and wonderful Christmas!
