Ghosts of Christmases Past

Photographs are great memory joggers. That’s one reason why I am so thankful for and cherish the trove of old family pictures I have fallen heir to as matriarch of my clan, more or less. Of course this time of year one tends to look back unless you are still waiting for Santa to arrive. I drift clear back to 1943, my first Christmas.

On December 25, 1943 I was just eight months old so I cannot claim to recall anything about it. The

country was at war and we were living in my paternal grandparent’s home. Dad may have been in basic training as he had finally been drafted but I am not sure. All I have is a couple of photos of me in my high chair beside the Christmas tree while mom hovers protectively close to be sure I did not snatch an ornament or tip my chair!

As an aside, my parents were both very protective of their miraculous first born creation. I think they would have been happy to keep me no more than a toddler for the next twenty years at least. As the first grandchild on both sides, I am sure I must have been spoiled. Am I still? I give my classic southwest shrug ~ and say, “Who knows?”

Somehow there are no pictures from my next two Christmases, 1944 and 1945. The first of those we were in Massachusetts and the next back in Kansas City, just before we headed west early in 1946. So the next documented one is 1946, our first in the little house in Jerome. I recognize a few of the toys I got that year which I mostly kept a long time but I cannot really recall the day. In this one I remember the big baby doll. I had her for a long time and she was the last gift from my paternal grandfather. I also had the little stove Dad had made for me. Somehow holiday meals and such never left much impression with me.

There were others with pictures but I skip ahead to 1951 which was  a very significant and memorable one for me. I was now a big sister! What I found under the tree that year definitely took a back seat to the six-week-old living baby doll I held in my arms that morning while Dad took pictures. I may have been the first but he was definitely proud of his new son who was to carry forward the name and become the third Charles Morgan although all had different middle names.

The 1952 year slipped by, noticed but not really significant.  Then Christmas 1953 found us in a new home. We had moved from Jerome down to Clarkdale, another Phelps Dodge built Verde Valley town in the late fall and were barely settled when Christmas came around. Still, we did not pass the date without due celebration. By now young Charlie, then called Mike from his middle name of Michael, was old enough to get pretty jazzed about the holiday.  Also by then I was doing most of the decorating, a task which I kept up until I left home some years in the future.

I’ll make one more leap ahead to end in 1957, the last of the family Christmases to be properly documented. Others in turn were celebrated but from then on the family’s condition and situation began a gradual but accelerating slide to the final disastrous crash in 1967. There were no more Christmas or birthday photos and holidays were often shadowed by disruptions that still throw some shade on our pleasure in them.

By 1957, I was becoming a young lady or at least supposed to be! I wore lipstick a bit and had developed a figure of sorts although I stayed very slim and slight for a number of years. That year I got a .22 revolver to carry when I went out riding as I had begun to do so by myself and to go increasingly farther on such jaunts. Dad had made a belt and holster for it which would keep it secure even if some of my mounts could get frisky at times. I did feel quite grown up with this recognition which was practical more than flattering or a privilege in all reality. I was fourteen and Charlie was six. He had not been out of his body cast too long following a very severe broken leg, a spiral fracture of the thigh bone caused my mare Tina in a freaky, painful accident. Alex was still two years away from making his appearance into the family.

Later Christmases passed and I kept the habit of  trying to keep them as cheery and fun as I could for Charlie and then for Alex after he joined the family in 1959. At least dad always relented or recovered enough to go get a tree, which meant a lot to all of us. He suffered declining health both physical and emotiona, and things were often far from pleasant. We never had a tumbleweed, but some of those little junipers and a few pinons were pretty ragged, Charlie Brown type trees. Still, once they had colored balls and tinsel and some home made glittery things hung over and on them, they all magically became pretty and special. The last few ended up in the inner corner of my room, which was perhaps intended to be a dining room and served as the hallway from the living room to the kitchen.

Two special later gifts stand out in my mind. We did not have much money to spare at that time for shopping and surprises but mom collected S&H Green and Gold Bond trading stamps and usually put them to good use getting things we kids wanted or quietly hinted for. In our house, one did not make big lists and expound on all the things we expected to receive. We just didn’t; we knew it would not be well received nor would it accomplish anything. But my 18^th Christmas in 1961, I got my first camera, a Kodak “Brownie” which Mom had acquired with trading stamps. I loved that camera and used it for several years, eventually passing it down to Charlie when I got a slightly fancier Ansco camera that even used flashcubes to take indoor shots!

Some special memories were captured by those two cameras. Sadly many are among those lost, at least for now, with my hard drive crash this past summer.  I had scanned the negatives or prints and tossed them—my bad for not getting them moved to safe keeping soon enough.

Then the next year or so, I got a small phonograph. I’d been collecting records for awhile, mostly LPs, struggling to pay for them with a very small intermittent allowance or payment for the work I was then doing and sometimes finding and selling pop bottles. Today’s kids would raise a brow and say I was really lame and pitiful!! Anyway, I had a very mixed collection to which I added as we could all finally enjoy them. Another trading stamp acquisition, that little machine served me well and in time was passed down to Charlie and even to Alex.  Mostly gifts were not a big issue in my Christmas memories but those stand out because they meant so much to me. I never got a dog or horse as a Christmas gift. If I had they would surely be high on the special memory list but that just did not happen.