March 28, 2024

Christmas Stories from our Readers

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We asked our readers to submit Christmas and Hanukkah memories to publish in this issue. We hope you enjoy reading these stories. Thank you to everyone who contributed!

Christmas on Rehoboth Farms
By Frank DeMattos

Christmas as we know it today is of fairly recent origin. The first Christmas tree "Tenenbaum" was introduced in England in the 1840s by Queen Victoria. Both she and her husband Albert were German and they wanted to share their Christmas customs with their children. German immigrants brought the custom to America where it spread quickly.

By the 1880’s Christmas trees were in fashion in America. They were probably small trees placed on a table. By 1900 the custom was fairly well established in the United States.

On a Rehoboth farm, after milking the cows and doing morning chores like picking up the eggs, the father of the household usually accompanied by very excited children would hitch the horse to a sleigh or if there were no snow a small wagon and go into the woods to cut the Christmas tree usually a cedar or a pine. It was a big event which children awaited from year to year. The tree was placed in the parlor on Christmas Eve or a few days before. In those days the Christmas season didn't start in October. Today merchants keep starting the selling season earlier and earlier. No doubt in time it will start after the fourth of July. The only jingle bells they want to hear are those coming from their cash registers.

The real thrill for the children was decorating the tree with handmade paper rings and strings of popcorn and cranberries. In some households candles would be placed on the branches. On Christmas Eve the candles would be lit for a very short time and were never left unattended for fear of fire. Ornaments as we know them were not used much until the 1880s. Frank Woolworth, an enterprising business man from Utica, New York, had started a series of small stores which sold articles for 5 and 10 cents. On a trip to Germany he purchased some glass balls painted in vivid colors to see if he could sell them in his New York store. They were quickly sold out in one day. These colored globes became the most popular Christmas ornament in America from then on and Woolworth went on to become a millionaire. Sadly his grandaughter Barbara Hutton went through the vast fortune of 27 million dollars in one lifetime. After paying alimony to seven husbands and living high there was not much left. When she died she was down to 3,000 dollars.

By 1900 the Christmas tree was well established in most Rehoboth homes, even in ethnic families which placed more emphasis on the creche, but after much cajoling by the children, had finally acquiesced to putting up a tree also. To the French and Portuguese and other minority groups Christmas Eve was a very solemn occasion. It was a religious holiday. The day before Christmas was a fast day which meant no meat could be eaten. The church actually frowned on using greens as decorations. They felt this pagan custom took away from the meaning of the season--the birth of Christ.

In French homes it was the custom to eat meat pies after midnight mass for then it was already Christmas Day. Italian families ate a white clam sauce over pasta. In Portuguese homes figs and dates and tangerines were put out for holiday carolers. When they entered the home, the first thing they asked in Portuguese was has the baby Jesus urinated yet? This was the signal for the host to serve them a drink of very strong liqueur. Though they were in a festive mood they never meant any irreverence to the Christ child. Even though it was cold outside after stopping at so many homes and getting a drink at each they were probably about 90 proof when they got home to New Bedford or Fall River and didn't notice the temperature.

Since there was no electricity the early trees were not illuminated. By the 1940s, however, most trees glimmered in the soft glow from electric lights. The bulbs were fairly large not the mini lights that are so common today. Outdoor illumination was virtually nonexistent. I remember just one example, at the Kinne farmhouse on Summer Street, it was a manger scene with perhaps a dozen lights. The big event was to go and see the Taunton Green all ablaze with colored lights. To me it was like going to Disneyland: it was so popular that traffic was sometimes backed up into Dighton.

Christmas day usually meant going to church in the morning then coming home to a large festive noon meal. The children by this time had opened their gifts and inspected their stockings to see what Santa had brought them. What they got were mostly handmade articles like aprons for the girls and a doll from the 5 and 10 cent store. The boys got knitted hats and gloves and a toy, probably a little truck. Books and ice skates, the kind that fit over your shoes, were also common gifts. If you were really good or if it had been a good year financially for the family one might get a sled. I think these few presents were appreciated more than the barrage of things today's children get.

Oh, the smells on Christmas morning from all the delicious food being prepared. Most Portuguese families made sweet bread for the holidays and the smell of it cooking was maddening. We could hardly wait for Christmas day to eat it. We weren't allowed to eat it any sooner. I think some religious customs forbade eating it before the big day. In Yankee families, plum pudding was the big delicacy. The meal was probably turkey, a few might have roast beef with Yorkshire pudding.

After the sumptuous feast one quite often would nap for a spell but not for long for the cows had to be milked--they did not take Christmas Day off.

In the evening the mother of the house would make sandwiches from the turkey or ham that had been left over from the noon meal. The children exhausted from playing with their new toys would go to bed snuggled in happily with what Santa had brought them but thinking sadly that next Christmas was an eternity away.

The Christmas Dollar
By Nancy Messenger, Seekonk, MA

“Well, I see that inflation hasn’t hit our Christmas envelopes,” said my brother-in-law after opening the envelope my nephew had taken off the tree and handed him. Every Christmas, for as long as I could remember, all family members, including the family pets, received a Christmas envelope with a dollar enclosed.

Frankly, I suspect I would have been disappointed if I opened my envelope and found a $100 bill inside. That might sound strange coming from a person who was living on a modest income, with never anything left over for luxuries. But the Christmas dollar was a tradition, and traditions are not easily abandoned.

When we were little, my father placed the envelopes on the tree after my sister and I had gone to bed; we believed that Santa had left them. The tradition continued through our college years, although images of Santa had long vanished. After my father died, my mother continued the custom.

Later we celebrated Christmas at my sister’s home with the next generation of children, and my mother put the envelopes on the tree. Before my niece and nephew could read, one of the adults distributed them; later the youngest reader gave them out.

We have all used our Christmas dollars in different ways. Sometimes I’ve saved up mine and those of my dog for a few years, taking the crisp bills out now and then to look at them. Eventually I bought something special. My sister used to accumulate a largesse in just one year, having a husband, two children, a dog and a cat. She tucked the envelopes in a drawer to use when she was out of cash and needed a few dollars in a hurry. This was especially useful before the advent of ATMs.

Unfortunately, my sister is not one for carrying on traditions, so, after fifty-seven years, this one died when my mother passed away in 2002. But if someone handed me a bank envelope next Christmas—the kind with a holiday scene like the banks gave out years ago—I know I would be disappointed if it contained more than one dollar.

Wrestling With The Holiday Armageddon
By Marc Valasquez – East Providence

On December 18, 2005, a week before the Christmas Smackdown, pay per view presented WWE Armageddon, as the last pay per view of 2005. The ticket to the event was an early Christmas present which went on sale on my birthday November 11th. It was a good birthday present too. What an Armageddon! The main event of course was best with the legendary Undertaker taking on Killer Randy Orton inside the "devil's playground," hell in a cell. The hell in a cell match can only be won by pinfall or submission. The cell is made of two tons of solid steel and it can rip your skin apart. Both men fought brutally and bled like Freddy vs Jason except this was no movie. The undertaker defeated Randy Orton with the tombstone piledriver move. Sadly I couldn't meet any wrestlers but at least I got to see that great event. I was a 12 year old wrestling fan at the time and I said "I'm as light as a feather, I'm as happy as an angel, I'm as merry as a school boy, I'm as giddy as a drunken man"(Ebenezer Scrooge played by George C Scott in The Christmas Carol). I'm 22-years-old now and turned 23 on November 11 and I say, “What a great holiday Armageddon.”

MERRY CHRISTMAS from the Reporter staff

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