Wartime Christmas

I will begin this, my second blog on Christmas, on December 7th, because I believe that date shaped our Christmas for that is the day Japanese airships bombed and killed many American Navy men and women. At our house my sister and I were in bed with the flu so we missed going to church with my Grandpa and aunt on the day they were driving back to their home in Tacoma, Washington. They left right after church after visiting over a week with our family. It was also my little sister’s birthday.

When Mama and Daddy came home they first came upstairs to see if we were okay and then grabbed a cup of coffee and turned on the radio. They were planning to relax before leaving for another service at one of the country churches he pastored. I heard commotion coming from downstairs so I jumped out of bed to find out what was the matter. Daddy was saying, “We shouldn’t have let them go. Tacoma is right near Fort Lewis and they could be bombed at any time!” He was talking about his father and sister.

Mama was trying to comfort him saying, “They won’t get there today you know. They would have heard the news and knew how to take care of themselves.” But soon they quieted down and headed out the door to go to the next church.

I was upset though. I sat beside the radio listening to every commentator. Everyone seemed upset. Later on, we heard encouraging words as President Roosevelt talked to us. We were now at war! We would do what we could to help others. My mind remembers making bandages and cookies for the men who were now soldiers. Oh we celebrated the birthday of our Lord but it was somber. Our time was made by helping the mothers whose husbands had gone to war. We had prayer every day at school and I think that was the year I learned to really love the Christmas carols. We sang them at home, church and school.

I believe  that is why we were called “The Greatest Generation.” We were called that because we prayed and the soldiers knew it, we helped our neighbor, especially those mothers who’s husbands were now fighting for America and we bought War Bonds. I wish we were more like that today.

Oh yes, I remember the bells calling us to prayer, and air raid tests, sitting in the dark until the test was over. I wonder. would we help others today? We seem to be a gimme, gimme group of Americans now, don’t we?

Old Time Christmas

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Mine was fine. I wish we had taken more time to Thank God. Otherwise, I was so proud of my daughter.  She handled everything so nice. Even when two people and their baby came invited by my grandson who had forgotten to tell my daughter, she brought in another  table and placed it by our big table just as if she had planned it that way.

I will be writing my blog about Christmases from the earliest one I remember to the latest on the weeks before Christmas..We didn’t have electricity yet in my little northern Minnesota town. The church had a big tree every year and I waited eagerly for the candles to be lit. We had a pageant complete with Mary,Joseph, baby, shepherds, wisemen and angels. I was an angel. I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful as that lighted tree. I stared at it until the men used a tall basket to put the candles out.

We lived next door to the church. They called our house a parsonage because my dad was the pastor. We had a Christmas tree but not one like the church. We had no candles in the tree, but Mama  had two tall candle holders that she placed on each side of the tree. The next year Mama and Daddy told us to stay in the kitchen with the door closed. My brother, sister and I stayed as close to the door as we could. It seemed like a long time before we heard Daddy’s voice calling us to come in. Each of us tried to be first so we just tumbled over each other, but we finally made it and we stood, not talking at all, just looking at our tree covered with red, green, blue and yellow lights. We couldn’t believe it! Even though we had seen electricians drilling holes in our walls! I thought we must be very rich to have lights on our tree. We didn’t have electric lights in our house yet, just our oil lamps but Daddy talked to the electrician and he put one extension cord in our house just so his kids could be surprised by having lights on our tree!

I write most of all today about lights on the Christmas Tree, but our Christmas was more than that. A few days before Christmas Day a group of people came into our house dressed like scary folks. They came every year after that first year I remember and they called themselves Yul’e Boks. (I’m not sure I spelled that right). All I remember was how scared I was! I ran and somehow got under Mama’s dress. They brought a food basket which was full of good things to eat. I enjoyed them in other years but that was a tradition in our town. Of course we had Christmas programs in school and church but it was much more simple way back then. Everyone celebrated the birth of Jesus. I don’t  remember any talk about Santa Claus at all. Boy! how things have changed! One thing we did have was plenty of snow and we kids had fun making tunnels and snow people. Our moms made lots of things before Christmas, such as lefse, cookies, cakes and lots of bread things. I don’t know where the money came from. It must have been saved penny by penny until they had enough. But I remember Christmas as being fun and inspirational way back then.