Christmas Memories

There were six of us in our family, of course my parents, myself, an older sister Erika (she was five years older than I) and I had two younger brothers: Walter and Albert. Walter passed away in 2003. My sister Erika is in her 90th year and is living in Regina.

We lived on a farm 10 miles south and two miles east of Secretan in the Thistledown school district. This was back in the Dirty Thirties in the drought-stricken region of Southern Sask. Everyone was poor and everyone was in the same shape. We didn’t have very much, but we did have each other. We had neighbours living every quarter or half section of land we had time -- time to visit and time to receive visitors, something we don’t seem to have in today’s fast pace. As youngsters, the Christmas season was an exciting time of the year just waiting for the big day. Time seemed to go so slow. Many times we would ask our parents “Wie viel mal noch schlafen bis Weihnachten?” Translation: how many more sleeps til Christmas?

My sister Erika would threaten us with, “Boys, you better be good or Santa won’t bring you anything.” And we were fearful that this might just be so. We knew we weren’t nice, little angels. After all, didn’t Dad tell us that when he was a boy back in Germany, and a bad boy at that, on Christmas morning all he found in his stocking was a stick of wood? So we tried to be extra good.

Erika had a big hand in helping Mother with the preparations for Christmas. She prettied-up the house with whatever we had on hand. She would bring a few stems of oats from the oat sheave stack and then painstakingly wrap each kernel of oats with a bit of silver paper. It was beautiful. A nice bouquet of silver oats. We never, ever had an evergreen Christmas tree. The only real Christmas tree that we ever saw at that time was the one at Thistledown School Christmas concert. It was dressed up beautifully with all kinds of sparkly, shiny stuff. It even had real candles on it that would be lit after the program.

Erika, with her ingenuity, would bring in a big branch from our few poplars in the pasture, she would wrap the trunk and branches with green crepe paper, set it up and that would be our Christmas tree. I still remember Mother’s molasses cookies with icing on top sprinkled with coconut. Delicious! In my mind, I can still taste them.

One day a parcel came from the T. Eaton Co. Mother said that our presents were in there (we were past the Santa Claus stage by this time). We knew the real meaning of Christmas. We knew about the Son of God being born in a manger and the Christmas story. Mother took the parcel, went into the bedroom, closed the door behind her and opened the parcel to see if everything she had ordered had arrived.

Satisfied that everything she had ordered was there, she then put it all into a cardboard box and put that box on top of the clothes closet out of reach and away from prying eyes. Then she told us, “Boys, your presents are in there. I don’t want you to look in that box. I don’t want you to see your presents til Christmas morning.” Well, she really didn’t have to tell us that. That box was way up on top of the closet. As a boy, everything seemed bigger and taller. I would look up at my parents and they seemed like giants, their heads being way up there.

I have to tell you about our bedroom and clothes closet. We just had the one bedroom ad we all slept in the same bedroom. Originally, Dad built a 12-by-18 homestead shack. He never was able to finish the inside of the shack til years later so the two-by-four studding were exposed. Yet every spring they put fresh wallpaper over the studding. Now that was a big job. A job that Dad just hated. That and fitting stove pipes together. The wallpaper that Mother chose was the kind that you had to math. You know, a half flower on this sheet had to match with the half flower on the sheet that was already pasted onto the wall. Mother would stand back about 10 feet and direct Dad who was standing on a chair holding up a freshly-glued sheet of wallpaper. “A little higher, no, too high, now a little to the left, no, it’s not matching, a little to the right. Whoa! You went too far, back the other way.” Well, you know, a glued sheet of paper, if it takes too long to position will start tearing, and that happened, oh boy. It would have been better for small children not to have been around. My dad had very little patience. Fitting stove pipes together presented pretty much the same scenario.

As the family got bigger, Dad managed to get a one-room peaked house and moved it beside our one-room shack and joined the two together, so then we had a bedroom and a big living room. Now going back to the clothes closet, it was made of boards over top of brackets that was fastened to the two-by-four by studding and there were curtains fastened to the boards and hanging down nearly to the floor. Inside, Dad had a suit and tie or two, Erika had a dress and us boys had some hand-me-downs. That was the extent of our wardrobe. Like I said previously, we were dirt poor as was everyone else in the district.

Every time I went into the bedroom, my head automatically turned to the right with my eyes glued to that box on top of the closet. Yes, there it was, way up and out of reach. How I would have liked to take a peek in that forbidden box. Secretly, I was hatching a plan of how to get up there and take a look should the opportunity ever presents itself.

Early one morning Dad hitched his team up to the sleigh and drove off to Parkbeg, and Mother had to do the chores that morning, milk the cows, feed them, feed the pigs and the chickens and so on. Erika, Walter and Albert had gone off to school and I, yes I, was left all alone in the house. I rubbed my hands together in glee. Boy, oh boy! I recognized a good opportunity when I saw one. I still can’t remember why I was kept home from school unless it was that I should do the breakfast dishes, make the beds and sweep the floor.

Quickly, I pushed a chair up beside the closet. I had to be quick about it ‘cause there was no telling when Mom might get back to the house. I discovered that the chair wasn’t high enough so I put an apple box on top of the chair and then climbed up ion the chair and then onto the apple box and lo and behold I was able to look into the cardboard box. I was disappointed in that everything was wrapped in brown paper, that is everything except a spinning top. It was a huge one, about six inches across. It had a knob on top and when you pulled the knob up and then pushed it down, the thing would start spinning and when it spun it would make a humming sound.

Oh that must be for my little brother Albert, I reasoned. That’s the type of gift a small guy like Albert would get. Yes, that must be for him. Hmmm, I wonder which one of the parcels is mine. I felt each one and shook them trying to find out which one is mine. But I was none the wiser. So I thought I better leave well enough alone and put everything back in the box. I thought, at least I know what little Albert is getting for Christmas, but I won’t tell him. It will be a nice surprise for him.

I had a superiority complex in my mind. Because I was the oldest boy in the family I felt that I had the answers to everything and I felt that my younger brothers were inferior to myself.

Quickly I dismantled my scaffold and put the apple box and chair back to their assigned place around the table. Apple boxes were part of our furniture. We were short of chairs. Dad had a chair, Mom had a chair and Erika had a chair, but as I remember, us boys had to sit on apple boxes and Albert was way past the high chair stage.

Some of you younger people may not know it, but apples used to come in 40-pound wooden boxes and these boxes were highly treasured in our district to use for many different uses as well as furniture.

Now I know you’re wondering why, if we were so dirt poor, how could we afford the luxury of eating apples. Well I have to tell you: it was the good people of Ontario and the Maritime provinces that sent tons and tons of food to the drought-stricken prairies. The RM of Wheatlands received a carload and it was the councillors responsibility to distribute the goods to the farmers in the RM. One day Jim Johnson, our councillor, drove into our yard and brought three boxes of apples, a big round cheese, some slabs of dried codfish and a box of smoked herring. This was gratefully accepted with thanks.

Now back to the punch line. Mother got back to the house and I put on an innocent look on my face and I don’t think that she suspected anything. Well a few days later, Christmas morning had finally arrived. We jumped out of bed, went into the living, dining room and there on the table were our plates just full of goodies, peanuts, candy and different kinds of nuts, some of Mother’s cookies and beside each plate was our eagerly longed for present. Oh oh! Guess who got the spinning top! I must say it was a humbling experience. We all need to be humbled once in awhile.

Every time I hear the word “humble”, I think of the scripture verse that says “If my people, which are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, the will I hear from Heaven, will forgive their sins and heal their land.”

I want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and I hope that we all make it through the winter OK.