I grew up in the same town my dad grew up in, had some of the same grade school teachers that he'd had. Christmas Eve we got together at my grandmother's house just up the road from us, and my cousins were there. Sometimes the ones from back east came, and the pile of wrapped gifts under the tree was three feet tall.



First, we had supper, which was oyster stew, oyster crackers, celery sticks, and tomato aspic, which is a non-sweet gelatin salad made with sliced green olives, diced celery, and tomato juice. And mincemeat pie for dessert.

These Wedgewood plates issued by the DAR (Daughters of the Revolution) were used for the family dinners. Everyone had their particular favorite.



Then, the children and my Aunt Eleanor were shut in the den while the grownups set up a chair in the living room for each child and put out various unwrapped gifts from our parents to us.

When it was time, Santa Claus came - we heard jingle bells, and the doorbell rang, and we heard his voice. We children lined up youngest to oldest, and after Santa left, we were released into the living room. Uncle Louis had a video camera with the big double-headlight arrangement, and it blinded us as we rounded the corner into the living room.

My cousins who lived on a farm east of town received food gifts - kumquats, black olives, and bacon. My mother always scoffed at that, the idea that their mother would deprive them of basic groceries to the point she considered it a Christmas gift. (My mother and Aunt Jean had a long-standing rivalry.) The only gift I remember from my chair was a doll bassinet my mother made from one of those thin wooden boxes that fresh grapes were shipped in during the 1950s. She made a nice lining edged with lace, a mattress, pillow, and quilts. My sister and I are only a year apart, so we always got the same gift in pink for her, and blue for me.

Then, we tore into the wrapped gifts that were from our cousins and Grandma. I remember getting a pencil box with the slatted rolling cover from the ones in Connecticut one year, and another year a license plate for my bike with my name on it. I always liked every single one of my gifts, and it meant a lot to me that someone went to the trouble to think of what I might like.
We also had stockings hung on the mantle. They always had a tangerine and a silver dollar.
When we got home, sometimes Santa Claus had been there, too, and left a large gift for each of us. One year it was new bicycles, another year it was a dollhouse my dad had made.

By this time, I think all the gifts were gifted, so there weren't any to open on Christmas morning, but it's possible we had saved some from other people not in the family to be opened. I don't remember going back to Grandma's house for a big Christmas dinner, but we might have. It would have been roast beef because our dads owned feed lots.

At least one year we had big dust storms just before Christmas, and the power was out. There was a plowed field in front of our house, and our front lawn ended up 6 inches deep in blow dirt, with dirt cascading off the windowsills. If the blow dirt got wet, it'd set up like concrete, so it was raked up as soon as possible, and I remember playing between the furrows.