Christmas in Minnesota was a mixed-bag. Although my childhood seemed normal at the time, now as an adult, I’m not so sure.
My parents had two different approaches to Christmas. My mother didn’t like Christmas at all, for very good reasons. Every year she told us kids the same stories of her childhood in an attempt, I suppose, to make us appreciate “how good we had it.”
Mom grew up poor, on a farm with six older brothers, including identical twins, who teased her unmercifully. On Christmas Eve, the twins would go outside with their shotguns telling my mother they were going to shoot Santa Claus out of the sky.
“Here he comes,” Len would shout, as my mother cowered in the living room.
Bang! Bang!!
“We got him!” Ray would yell. And they stomped off the porch and ran into the yard, pretending to search the bushes for Santa’s body, while my mother sobbed in my grandmother’s arms. From then on, my mother never trusted Christmas.
My father, on the other hand, grew up in a middle class, suburban family. He loved Christmas. He loved buying and wrapping presents, He loved sending and receiving Christmas cards. And, most of all, he loved Christmas music.
Dad was such fun at Christmas. I can still see him hanging giant silver snowflakes from the ceiling in the living room, to the chagrin of my mother who didn’t want people to focus their attention on the ceiling before she had a chance to wash it. Dad patiently hung tinsel on the tree, one strand at a time, while the rest of us “helped” by tossing handfuls of tinsel at the tree, hoping it would land on the branches.
We always celebrated Christmas Eve with my mother’s family ~ Grandma Hunt, Aunt Fran and my cousin Lori. Occasionally we would go to Aunt Fran’s house for dinner, but usually my mother made a big dinner for all of us before we opened gifts and went to bed.
One year Aunt Fran said she was bringing “the baby Jesus” to our house for dinner. We didn’t know what to expect, but I was hoping for a real baby. Instead, Aunt Fran showed up with a young Black man, Elija, who had just been released from prison. I had never seen a Black person before in snow-white Minnesota of the 1950’s. The man was quiet and pleasant. I wonder what he thought of us. We never saw him again.
I remember gifts I got as a child, mostly dolls and ice skates, coloring books and art supplies. The best gift of all, however, was the year my father came home from work on Christmas Eve, with a kitten in his pocket. The kitten was crying outside the drug store when my father locked up for the night. Dad didn’t have the heart to leave the kitten there, meowing in the snow, so he brought him home. Because Dad had already left the store (and, of course, no one had a cell phone back then) my mother was as surprised as we were. I’m not sure she was pleased.
The best Christmas memory, the one I will never forget, however, is the year Santa Claus actually came to our house on Christmas Eve and delivered our toys early, before we had to go to bed.
As Santa turned to go out the door, my Dad said, “Santa, do you have time for a shot and a beer before you go?”
“I sure do, Bob,” said Santa, as he sat down at our kitchen table.
Dad opened two bottles of Grain Belt and poured a shot of bourbon for both of them. So much for milk and cookies. Ho Ho Ho! It was a very Merry Christmas, Indeed.
