A 1960's Christmas by Janie DeVos

                                             

Author behind mother in red top.  Father behind me and sister to mother's right.  Boys are cousins and woman to father's right is my aunt and to his left is my grandmother.  Uncle taking picture.  Taken on front porch of author's home.  Circa 1965.

Well, they’ve rolled around again; the holidays have arrived.  Each year, they seem to come around faster than they did the year before and, as I learned, there’s a reason for that.  I once read in a magazine (ironically, it was either Life or Time), that that part of our brain that measures time changes as we age, thus, each year will seem to pass more quickly than the one before, and the one before that, and so on.  Scary, isn’t it? 

As I do each year, I think back to those Christmases I had as a kid, and I’m filled with a mixture of warm memories and a bit of melancholy that those are days long gone, as are many of my family members who were there helping to make those times so wonderful for me. 

Christmases in the 1960’s, in Coral Gables, Florida, were a bit different than those I have in the mountains of North Carolina.  Here, for example, I go to a friend’s Christmas tree farm and cut a fresh Christmas tree.  In Coral Gables, my parents, sister and I made our annual trip to the Boys’ Club of America (which was just a few blocks from us), where we bought a dried up, usually crooked tree that had traveled too many miles without water.  We set it up in our home’s front porch and just a screened-in one at that, and because it was then vs. now, we never worried about the Grinch cutting the screen and stealing all of the presents sitting beneath our crooked, pine needle-shedding tree.  Without exception, all of the presents were still there on Christmas morning. 

Speaking of presents, those were different then, too.  Either my sister or I received an E-Z Bake Oven from Santa one year, and buddy, when I tell you that thing heated up hotter than a metal seesaw in Miami in July, I’m not exaggerating.  The contraption came equipped with a 500-watt light bulb, and other than the nasty little cakes it baked, it also baked the tiny hands of the unlucky baker who reached in to pull out those nasty little cakes.  I imagine that our E-Z Bake ended up in January’s trash pile, just as many others probably did.  

Another thing we received were roller skates that were spring-loaded to conveniently fit over whatever pair of shoes the skater preferred.  My favorite shoes to wear was a pair of old penny loafers.  Up and down our sidewalks we flew, minus helmets or knee pads, and darn if we didn’t live to tell about it.  We also received Jarts, which were heavy lawn darts with metal spiked tips designed to fly in the air, though were easily and dangerously miscalculated in the throwing of them.  Another “fun” Christmas present of the 1960’s was the Water Wiggle, which was a seven-foot-long plastic hose that would be connected to a garden hose. When the water was turned on, the water pressure caused the goofy-faced bucket head Water Wiggle to whip around wildly as water sprayed out of the bottom. It’s anyone’s guess how many kids got bashed in the face and lost a tooth or two or had the Wiggle wrap around them in boa constrictor-type fashion. 

I can’t help but laugh and shake my head at some of the incredible things that I played with as a child of the 60’s.  But even more than that, I smile (albeit teary-eyed) at the wonderful Christmases I had as a kid.  Because far more than the E-Z Bakes, or the Jarts, was the fact that my family, extended family included, was always together; laughing, cooking, making my late grandfather’s southern eggnog which had so much bourbon you could smell it across the room.  At those family gatherings, there was never an ugly word spoken, no one drank too much eggnog or other libation to get out of hand, and there was never an argument over politics or religion or anyone’s way of life, or personal preferences.  Never once.  We were just all thankful and happy to be together, and we loved and appreciated each other for who we were.  Period.  End of subject. 

My hope for this holiday season is that there’s peace in our homes and hearts.  And that for just a short period of time anyway, we can forget out differences, or, better yet, we might find a way to accept them, and even appreciate them instead. If we try to do that, if only a little bit, what a glorious holiday season this will be, and one that might just carry on into the new year. 

Blessings, peace and joy to each of you.