FAMILY TREE
Santa Claus delights two little girls.
Memories of a 1910 holiday
We were a large family of five girls and a boy, and an older cousin, Willie Leverton, who was reared by our parents, Samuel and Ada Lampshire Griffin, after his parents died. Christmas Eve in 1910 was crisp, nipping noses and chilling fingers in mittens as we made our way to a holiday program at our church. Popcorn and cranberry garlands, candy beads and tinsel were strung on the silver spruce that reached to the ceiling. Gold balls weighed down the branches, and colored candles were adjusted just so and then lit for the celebration. It was up to parents to bring gifts to put around the tree for their children. Usually our parents gave us candy in a net bag, fruit, nuts and a small gift, while other parishioners went all out with tea sets, little tables and chairs, wind-up engines and toys of all sorts. We children would leave the program wondering why we didn’t get gifts like that. We never complained to Mama and Papa; we blamed Santa Claus.
That night, Ruby and I waited as the other children got their gifts. Two dolls were still high up in the tree. We held our breath as a man climbed a ladder and cut the string from the dolls. He carried a porcelain bisque doll in blue satin to Ruby, so I knew the doll in pink organdy was mine. We danced all the way home, kicking the fresh snow and clasping the dolls we named Margaret and Geraldine. We hung our long black stockings in the back of the old Cribben & Sexton stove, and took our dolls to bed to dream of Christmas Day.
My great-aunt Violet Richards wrote about her Christmas memories as a 10-year-old for a newspaper near Georgetown, Colorado. Her sister Ruby was my grandmother. —Janet McBride