Packages wrapped in ornate paper, topped with festive bows cluster beneath the Christmas tree. As I survey them, I remember a more modest array of Christmas gifts from my childhood.
I don’t know if my personal recollection is typical of all families during the war years – perhaps some families went overboard with expensive gifts and elaborate decorations, but life was simpler at our rural abode.
The only wrapping paper I recall is white tissue paper. We seldom used a box to enclose the treasures we purchased at the ten-cent-store. (Today’s equivalent is the dollar store!) We carefully placed lick-and-stick stickers with Christmas motifs such as Santas, candles or Christmas trees in strategic positions to seal the package. Gifts wrapped in this way could be handled by the recipient, who might guess what could be inside that delicate paper, adding to the fun of exchanging gifts.
Our Christmas tree was always a cedar, grown on our land. It filled the entire house with a pungent scent that whispered “Christmas.” We had a string of colored lights, but other ornaments we made ourselves – sycamore balls covered with the foil from cigarette packages, pine cones flecked with white shoe polish to resemble snow, and paper chains made from strips of red and green construction paper, plus whatever our imaginations brought forth..
Turkey was not the main dish for dinner because we didn’t raise turkeys. A plump roasting hen stuffed with spicy sausage dressing and a baked country ham were on the menu, along with baked sweet potatoes, corn pudding from corn Mama dried during the summer and a green bean casserole from the beans she canned. Sugar rationing curtailed a lot of baking, but we usually had a coconut cake, covered with mounds of fresh coconut grated by hand. Many of Mama’s favorite cookie recipes had to be shelved until after the war.
One year a neighbor brought us a most unusual and delicious cake which she called a raisin pone. It was made without sugar, milk, eggs or butter, using instead lard, molasses, and water, along with seeded raisins, spices and black walnuts. She gave us the recipe but over time it was lost and my searches have yielded only a recipe for War Cake – similar, but not the same. And I can’t find seeded raisins either, so I suppose I’ll have to be satisfied with my memory of raisin pone.
Of course there was no television. Radio filled the role of connecting us to the rest of the world via station WSVA in Harrisonburg, Virginia.. All day long the radio kept Mama company, informing her of local and national news, births and deaths in the listening area (and sometimes, birthdays!) and entertaining her with soap operas such as “Ma Perkins.”
One program she listened to diligently during the weeks before Christmas was The Trading Post, a 1940’s version of E-Bay. Listeners sent the station descriptions of things they wanted to sell and their contact information, and the announcer read them on the air. Usually a lot of used toys were available before Christmas, and Mama was often able to make a good deal. One Christmas an almost new yellow go cart found its way to our Christmas tree and provided many happy hours of play for three lucky children.
Since we didn’t have a fireplace with a mantelpiece to hang our stockings, we hung Daddy’s boot socks (clean, of course) on the chair backs in the dining room. We looked forward to Christmas morning when we would find an orange tucked in the toe, a candy cane hanging at the top, and hard candy and nuts stuffed in the middle.
Regardless of all the differences between Christmas then and now, one thing remains the same – the spirit and love of Christmas. Church celebrations, nativity scenes and caroling then and now remind us of God’s coming as an infant to be Emmanuel – God with us. And hearing that story of the first Christmas read from the second chapter of Luke as we sit with our loved ones by candlelight brings a sense of peace, hope and love beyond imagination. Merry Christmas!
– Mary Jo Shannon
