Christmas Time

At Christmas time I hear the stories of others who are sometimes sad or disappointed with how their holiday is going. I never though I would say this, but I am becoming more pleased that we always had a low-key Christmas when I was a child.

We were a lower middle class family. We were not poor. My father always had a job as an electronics technician, and my parents were buying the house we lived in, and we had a car. We had a TV, but it did not always work.

For Christmas we would get a Christmas tree from the lot in the grocery store parking lot. It always seemed to be 4.5 feet tall. I would want a taller tree, but my parents said the smaller one was fine. It was always taller than I was. We had lights and ornaments and tinsel to put on the tree. I don't remember my parents ever going out to buy newer or better decorations; they didn't replace anything unless it broke. We had bubble lights that lasted many years.

We would open our presents on Christmas morning. There was just my parents and my sisters; no need to start opening gifts on Christmas Eve. We would each get about 2 presents. I remember my older sister and I getting baby dolls one year. I'm not sure if our baby sister was born yet.

Then the next year Aunt Dottie made beautiful clothes for our baby dolls. That was a total surprise, and we were very happy. It was unusual to get a gift from someone besides our parents. Another year, Aunt Jenny got us big baby dolls. I thought that was great! Now I had a big sister for my smaller doll. I named the bigger doll Carolyn and the little doll was Susie. I had a few other dolls, but I especially remember getting those two dolls at Christmas.

We would eat something nice at Christmas, maybe a chicken dinner. We probably had a big Thanksgiving dinner with a turkey, so Christmas was not so much about the food, as it was about being together and giving gifts. I remember getting jigsaw puzzles as occasional gifts, and sitting there with my Dad and my sister at our little child-sized table working on a puzzle for hours after the presents were opened.

We did not go to see other relatives on Christmas. I think my father just had one day off from work, and our family did not think it was necessary to make him drive for 3 hours so we could visit grandma or cousins. Christmas was a pleasant day spent at home enjoying each others company.

Of course, we all knew that Christmas was the day we celebrated that Jesus came here to earth to be with us. We would talk about it and put out the "manger scene" in the living room. We were at Sunday School and church every Sunday. I don't recall ever going to church on Christmas or Christmas Eve. We were at a Baptist church in the San Fernando Valley in California, and I don't even know if they had Christmas Eve services about 1960.