Jocie Brooke here reporting from Holly County. We have snow. Not much, but a little. I took this picture at Mr. Reynolds' farm down the road. Dad says he might use it in the Banner next week. Maybe that will get everybody in the Christmas spirit - finally. I just don't understand why grown-ups are always saying Christmas comes too fast. It's not fast at all. It takes forever!!
I did find some people willing to pay me a couple of dollars for my sprigs of mistletoe, so I get to go shopping for everybody at the 10 cent store. You can find a lot of things there. Maybe I can get a jigsaw puzzle for Aunt Love - one that's not too hard since with her memory fading she's not as good at working them as she used to be. Then Dad always likes to get new handkerchiefs and maybe I'll add box of peanut brittle. That's his favorite. I'm not sure what I'll get Tabitha yet. But Wes is easy. He'll want a book. Even though he has a couple hundred of them piled all around his rooms over the newspaper office, he says nobody can ever have too many books. He claims that up on Jupiter his house had bookcases around every wall. Purple bookcases. For some reason, purple is a big color on Jupiter. Probably because I used to tell Wes it was my favorite color so he worked it into his Jupiter stories.
But the snow is really neat even though it's not deep enough to keep us out of school. Another inch would have been nice. Then I could have stayed home and tried to talk Dad into going out to Miss Sally's and finding our Christmas tree. He says it's too early to put up the tree, that it'll dry out before Christmas and maybe catch the house on fire. Cedar trees do dry out fast.
Leigh has an artificial tree. It's white. Not like it was snowed on, but like it got scared and turned into a ghost tree. I wouldn't tell Leigh that, but I think Christmas trees should be green. Zella has this aluminum tree. It's shiny. Very shiny, but whoever saw a tree that was shiny like that. But I guess Dad's right. If we don't want a brown tree on Christmas morning, we'd better wait at least another week before we go tree hunting. Maybe on Sunday. We're supposed to go to Miss Sally's for dinner after church.
What kind of tree did you put up here for Christmas 1964? Did you ever go shopping at a 10 Cent store?
YesJocie. I did my first time of shopping for Christmas gifts for all of my family when I was around 8. We lived in Houston, Tx. We moved to the big city from a smaller town than Hollyhill. You see it was during WW ll and my dad went to work in the shipyards. We could walk downtown and had two dimestores. Kress and Woolsworth. I gathered newspapers from the neighbors and put them in a wagon and went to the Houston Cronicle so they could reuse the paper. I don't know how they do that, but they paid me a nickel or dime each or maybe by what they weighed. Then, I had a new baby niece, and I washed and dried the baby's diapers for a penny each. Wasn't a very fun job, but I finally had enough to shop. I got handkerchiefs for the men, Little perfume and such things for my Mother and sisters. And a little toy for my little brother. And, a toy for my new nieces. Ever since then I have loved to give at Christmas. In 1964 four children and the baby was almost three, so we had a tree on a table. That way she didn't get in trouble. It was a live tree but not sure what kind. I liked the thick ones. And, when I was a teenager, I dressed just like you are in this picture on this book. I have a fake tree now and it is easier to tend, but really the real ones just got too expensive for me. But I still love the real ones. Guess I had better go to bed. I am getting really sleepy. Bye for now. Talk to you later. Maxie Anderson
ReplyDeleteJocie here. So good of you to share your Christmases, Maxie. You had to earn those pennies to buy those presents the hard way. I'm not sure about washing those diapers - eeww! I guess I could do that for Tabitha's baby, but she wouldn't have that many pennies to pay me. She'd just want me to do it for nothing. She acts like she doesn't really mind washing the diapers. She says that's part of being a mama and she's loving being a mama. But it does make me happier to buy presents for everybody with money I've earned. Guess that's why we love giving presents, Maxie. I don't worry too much about what I wear. Here in the winter, it's long britches instead of the pedal pushers in the photo. Come back to visit soon and Merry Christmas to you!!
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