Red Bluff Daily News Special Publications
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8A Saturday, December 18, 2010 My Baby Buggy Christmas Story Christmas, of course is a time for family and friends and remembering and celebrating the birth of our Savior. I’m mature now and have many Christmas memories, after all I have eight children and twenty grandchildren. Of course I’m counting my husband‚s as well. We each love and claim them all. But the Christmas that was particularly memo- rable was when I was about seven years old. My mother was single, she had divorced my dad when I was three years old. WWII had been over for a few years, but she still worked for the South- ern Pacific Railroad, where she had worked as a Firelighter in the Alturas rail yard and roundhouse. After her divorce, as a young woman in her mid- dle twenties she was hired for what was typically a man’s job, because most of the younger men were either in the Pacific or in Europe fighting in the war. Most of the men mom worked with were older men. Even in a man’s job, her salary must have been inadequate because extra‚s were hard to come by. When I was five years old mama bought a flat roofed house and she energetically began fixing it up, doing all the work herself. This house was definitely a fixer-upper. She fenced an old chicken coop and planted morning glories around it. For as long as we lived in that house we always had chickens and eggs and flowers. In fact we had flowers all around our house. She also planted a garden with numerous vegetables and even strawberries. We had sev- eral rabbit hutches and raised rabbits, selling both the fur and meat to local buyers. I know one year when all the does had lit- tered we had almost one hundred rabbits. It was my job to water and feed the rabbits on a daily basis and to clean and hose out the hutches every week. My mom was very self sufficient and she taught me those principles as well. Before Christmas, for many years during my childhood, mama always made a fruitcake, which she aged in a covered crock. It was so yummy, that as an adult I‚ve never tasted one that matched hers. She also was a candy maker and made perfect divinity. I too became a candy maker and it is one of my favorite Christmas traditions. But traditions weren‚t on my mind that Christmas in 1947. I want- ed Santa Claus to bring me a baby buggy for my dolly. Mama had sadly warned that even Santa Claus was having trouble since the world hadn‚t yet recovered from the war effort. But, I hoped. One of my uncles brought us a Christmas Tree and we made popcorn strings and paper chains, you know - strips of paper with the ends glued together inside each other making a long chain. We also had some multi-colored electric lights, some old orna- ments, and tinsel. We then added our popcorn and paper chains to the branches of the tree. With all of that I thought the decorated tree was beauti- ful. My aunts and uncles and my maternal grand- parents were coming to our house on Christmas day. But, this was Christ- mas Eve and mama decid- ed to walk to a friend’s who lived down the alley and then up another street. With her she carried a plate of sliced fruit cake and her perfect divinity as a gift. I had been with her on other occasions when she visited this friend, so I was used to going there. I don’t know how long we stayed, but when we left, it was dark. As we approached our house on unlighted roads, I was watching the ground right in front of me as we walked, so when mama said, "Oh, my goodness!," I looked up. I’m tempted to start reciting the "Twas The Night Before Christ- mas" right now, but that‚s not exactly what hap- pened. When I looked up, I saw Santa Claus coming out our front door and stepping off the small porch in front of the door. By this time we had stopped and were just standing there when Santa Claus approached. He was dressed just as Santa Claus dresses. He had on a red hat trimmed with white fur and a white pom on the top. His jacket and pants were also red, trimmed with white fur. He even had a white beard. As he strode across the ground to where we were, he started laughing, you know - "Ho, Ho, Ho" and then he said, "Well, Glynn Ann, I thought I would be gone before you returned, but you caught me! You‚ve been a good girl this year, I‚m happy to see you." And then he dis- appeared down the alley still laughing. I was dumbstruck. Mama said something like, "Well, imagine that!" We just looked at each other and then continued on toward the house, with mama holding my hand. We opened the front door which went directly into the kitchen. The only light on was a glow coming from the living room. As we walked into the living room the Christmas tree seemed to have even more beautiful multi-colored lights on it, perhaps because there were no other lights on in the house. There under the Christmas tree, in the radi- ance of the tree lights was a dolly baby buggy. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. I walked toward the buggy, reverently touched the handle and moved the buggy back and forth. It was perfect. There was a little blanket inside and my dolly was already residing there. Wow! Santa Claus brought me a buggy! I love this memory and cherish it. However, what I really remember about that Christmas isn’t the doll buggy. I certainly remem- ber it, but not with any significance, I don‚t even remember what happened to it. What is significant about that memory is that I saw Santa Claus and he knew my name and who I was. I never forgot that. I believe someplace inside of me I still believe in Santa Claus. This reminds me of my faith in and love for Him whose birth we celebrate at Christmas time. I know that He too knows my name and who I am. I know He loves me. I know He lives and I know that He is pleased when I make correct choices. Because of Him whose birth we celebrate, every Christmas is spe- cial. In the simple plea- sure of being with our families during this sea- son, we know God loves us. By Glynn Ann Fry, Red Bluff Red Bluff Daily News Christmas 1915 1915 was a bad winter in New Jersey; roads closed for a good part of the time with snow drifts and water pipes frozen most of the time. About two weeks before Christmas father came down with “La Grippe” which, as usual, turned into pneumonia. A day or two later the first of us six children broke out with the measles. Mother had been able to go to town just before father was taken sick, and had purchased our Christmas presents, that is, one a piece, also some Brazil nuts and California navel oranges to fill the stockings that we hung up under the man- tel piece Christmas eve. But until Christmas day itself, no one could get a tree for her. By then all of us were down, either getting over or breaking out with the measles. The hired man who did the chores didn’t feel so good and did not want to get her a tree. Moth- er was keeping house with no outside help and with cooking and nursing us sick children her time was well taken up. However, she never gave up and if she could not have gotten a tree any other way, she would have taken hammer and nails and built one. As it was, she put on boots and heavy clothes and went out into the swirling snow. She walked to the house of a colored family and finally, by offering him a dollar, persuaded him to get us a tree. He cut a small cedar about six feet high and dragged it back to the house. While we sat or lay around, we watched our mother saw off base of the tree to make it square, and trimmed off the bottom limbs. She stood the tree up in a specially constructed box that after two weeks of holding up the Christmas tree was consigned to a loft over the wagon shed until the next Christmas. For imitation snow, she got rolls of cotton batting that was saved year after year along with the boxes of fragile Christmas ornaments. Then, taking long strings of freshly popped and strung popcorn, she wound them around and around the tree. After carefully placing the ornaments, the last touch was the miniature candy animals that were made of yellow and red candy, each one tied to the end of a bough. Next morning, when we were allowed to get up, it was still snowing and outdoors looked dark and dreary. But inside, the tree in the light of the kerosene lamps looked beautiful, and the packages of games spread out at its feet, and the mantle with the full stockings completed the picture of another happy Christmas for us chil- dren. Dave Minch 1900-1964