Decorating cookies, getting ready for our elementary school and Sunday School program, getting a tree and decorating it, sledding, tobogganing, ice skating, anticipating gifts…the memories of Christmas in the forties keep emerging.
Growing up during the Great Depression and World War II years, over eighty years ago, was very different from today. Santa Claus never played a role in our family. Apparently, he’d never been a part of our parent’s upbringing, so the tradition didn’t pass on for their kids. But we always looked forward to seeing Santa at our school Christmas programs.
Ogema State Graded held Christmas programs in the Town Hall, a half block down the hill from the schoolhouse. Seventh and eighth graders, probably eight or nine of us, were allowed to go the hall, unsupervised, to decorate and set up chairs. The guys found evergreen boughs while we gals hung red and green construction paper chains. Mr. Larson, who taught grades fifth through eighth, trusted us to “do it right,” and we didn’t disappoint him.
At school we’d practiced singing, recitations, and skits, and oh, how exciting to perform for our parents in the evening program. Pulling the vintage canvas curtain up and down between “acts” added excitement. To access the stage, we’d walk up the four or five steps at each side of the hall, wait in the tiny anterooms and step onto the stage as we were cued.
When the program ended, everyone singing, “We wish you a Merry Christmas.” Santa, carrying a gunny sack of treats entered. bellowing “Ho, Ho, Ho.” Afterwards we’d walk home with our paper sacks filled with peanuts and hard candy, ready to celebrate the long-awaited holiday break.
The Swedish Lutheran Sunday school program, scheduled for Sunday evening before Christmas, was the event my mother anticipated. Edna Dahl, our neighbor, put her heart and soul into preparations, and she didn’t settle for anything less than perfection. Mom would mentor our rehearsals at home. We’d have to stand tall against the wall in the dining room and rehearse our part to her satisfaction. She never forgot to remind us that our grandfather had been the minister in the church—a little threat to make us perform better.
When the evening arrived, I believe everyone became mesmerized by the soft lights decorating the tall spruce tree in the chancel, plus Mrs. Heden’s prelude of traditional carols on the pipe organ. The setting transformed a bunch of squirrelly kids into angels as we recited our parts, sang our carols, and reenacted the story of Jesus’ birth. Afterwards we received a second paper sack of Christmas goodies, not from Santa, but I suppose, from members of the church council.
Mom loved to relate a story about brother Carl and his performance in the program when he was five-years-old. Times were tough during the thirties and most often our Christmas gifts were items of necessity. We didn’t know otherwise and I remember being thrilled to receive new Dr. Denton footed flannel pajamas, new mittens, or even new long underwear. That year Carl received new buckle boots…he was ecstatic.
Carl stood front and center, proudly wearing his new buckle boots. Apparently, he wanted the congregation to share his joy, and to make certain, he first raised one foot, and then the other high for all to see while reciting “Jesus loves the little children, he is the children’s friend.”
Preparations at home? A balsam pine, purchased from Ferd Peterson’s tree lot, became our lone decoration. Once purchased, the challenge became setting it up in our living room. It seemed to take forever—Carl and John spent hours fitting the trunk into the two by four stand Dad had constructed years before. The hole in the center seldom matched the circumference of the tree trunk. Enter either an ax or saw for trimming, chunks of wood for shimming. They were determined to get it straight enough to satisfy Dad’s discerning eye.
Next, my brothers became electricians—laying the lights out across the floor, determining which bulb in the series might be the dead one, leaving the entire string unlit. Finally, they’d find the culprit, and strung the lights on the tree. Not until the lights were in place could brother Paul and I unwrap the fragile bulbs carefully stored in last year’s gift wrap. The globes, embellished with beads, were purchased in Chicago, where my parents lived until the depression hit. The only new decoration since then was perhaps a new package of “silver icicle tinsel.” Mom, so particular about how we hung the tinsel—“slowly, carefully, one strand at a time,” supervised. When we “undecorated” after Christmas, she would again instruct us to be careful of the fragile icicles, reminding us of “next year.”
Christmas goodies? Mom made two kinds of cookies, white sugar and Swedish molasses cut-outs. We all helped decorate sprinkles on the sugar cookies, but she put a cooked seven-minute frosting on the Swedish confections. I think she and Dad were the only ones who liked the molasses variety. She also made a Swedish cinnamon coffee ring and Christmas bread with citron and raisins. Years later I made her bread for my family, but after spying the citron and yellow raisins embedded, they renamed it “booger bread.” Needless to say, I stopped trying to convince them.
Dad made two pair of skis for us to share. We watched him bend the tips by steaming the wood over the wood-fired range in the kitchen. We always had a sled or two, some hand-me-down ice skates, but never a toboggan, something we longed for. We so looked forward to having a week’s vacation for skating, sledding, skiing and tobogganing.
We always had snow, lots of snow. Northern Wisconsin can be very cold, but we never had harsh winds. We’d plan our activities with regard to clothing. If we went sledding in the morning or afternoon, we’d need to dry our woolen snow pants, mittens, socks, boots in order they’d be ready for more fun in the evening. Our warm kitchen and the iron floor register over the wood furnace in the basement became a coveted space for quick drying.
Before the township truck spread gravel on the snow-covered roads, we could sled down the hill from our school right on the street, but our favorite sledding hill was a few blocks away, in front of Olaf Hoff’s home. The biggest hill, behind our church, we named Humpty Dumpty. It offered great skiing and tobogganing. The boys always made me go to Verner Nelson’s door to ask permission to borrow their toboggan. The Nelson’s always let us, reminding us to return the big sled to its proper spot in their garage.
And, we could ice skate on the millpond. John always took it upon himself to shovel a rink and build a bonfire. The boys would drag a fallen log to use as a bench. If one didn’t have skates a sled would do. A skater would push you around the rink—often we’d share skates. Didn’t matter much if they fit, we just had fun being together.
How can it be over eighty years ago when I remember it so well?
