It was almost Christmas, and it was snowing.
Whether it was Christmas Eve or several days before I don’t recall, but my mom, either lacking a babysitter or needing porters, had loaded me and a sister or two on the city bus for a trip to downtown Lima and some 11th-hour errands. I remember being in the Sears store on the Public Square, which was decked out in all its twinkling finery, the crowds jostling for sidewalk space and the muffled sound of cars passing by as the steadily falling snow piled up. And that’s about it. I don’t recall the year, which sister or sisters were with us or what we were going to get.
Six or so decades down the road, the downtown of my childhood has vanished like the snow. Gone, too, I’m sure, are whatever gifts we were retrieving that day. So is my mom, who bravely led that long-ago expedition into the snow. But that snippet of memory remains.
Christmas can be like that. In a reminiscence of his childhood, Welsh poet Dylan Thomas referred to Christmas as “the never-to-be-forgotten day at the end of the unremembered year.” That, I’ve always thought, pretty much covers it.
Recently, Susan Hawk, a volunteer at the Allen County Museum, collected memories of the best, worst or funniest events from the never-to-be-forgotten day of men and women at the Bluffton Senior Center.
For Deb Beer, of Bluffton, the year her brother received a gas-powered race car, which would circle a pole to which it was tethered, was memorable.
“The weather was nasty, but my dad wanted to see it work,” she said. “So, my uncle held the pole that the car ran around. When the car circled around the pole, my uncle jumped over the tether. He was only able to jump over the tether wire three times, and the wire began wrapping around him. The race car ended up crashing into and wrecking my metal dollhouse. They tried fixing my dollhouse, and it was usable, but it was never quite right,” Beer said, adding, “I also remember when I knew that Santa Claus’s handwriting looked exactly like my mom’s handwriting.”
Dawne Courtney, of Harrod, recalled her childhood on a farm where 5 a.m. milking took precedence over unwrapping Christmas presents.
“We would get our Christmas tree from Stratton’s Greenhouse,” she added. “After the lights were on the tree, my mom would divide the tree into thirds, and my brother, sister and I each decorated our third of the tree. We always made lots of cookies at Christmas.”
Edna Conkling, of Bluffton, remembered when, as a 5-year-old living with her grandfather, she secretly watched from the top of the stairs as her older siblings wrapped presents.
“I had to act excited when I opened my presents on Christmas morning,” she recalled.
For Bluffton resident Deb Klingler “the best Christmas was sleds and boots.”
She recalled, “One time we went to Findlay reservoir to sled. I went down the hill and slid into the tire of a parked car to get stopped. We would visit with families and had a gift exchange. On Christmas Eve, we were allowed to open one gift each.”
Larry Moser, of Columbus Grove, recalled a slower, safer winter ride.
“My sister and her husband had a sleigh. Before Ginny and I were married, I remember taking a sleigh ride together,” he said.
Virginia Moser was one of several women whose Christmas memories revolved around dolls.
“When I was 8 years old,” she said, “I received my last doll baby. When no one was around, I carefully opened my present, a beautiful doll baby. After seeing her, I wrapped the package back up and put it under the tree for Christmas Day. Little did I know, my mother was watching through the floor register and heard me say, ‘She’s so beautiful.’” Moser also recalled, “We always got pajamas for Christmas, PJs made from feed sacks.”
Bluffton resident Louise Hampton remembered receiving a “Saucy Walker” doll when she was 7 years old in 1953.
“I knew the doll cost lots of money,” she said.
The doll Leannah Reigle, of Columbus Grove, remembered receiving had a different capability.
“One item I remember getting for Christmas was a ‘Betsy Wetsy’ doll,” she said. “I had really wanted it for a couple of years. I was 7 or 8 years old when I received it.”
Gertrude “Trudy” Baber, of Bluffton, recalled growing up poor, with her parents occasionally unable to afford a Christmas tree.
“When they couldn’t afford a tree,” she said, “they would cut a branch off a tree, decorate it, and that would be our Christmas tree.”
When she was in the first grade, Baber remembered, she received clothes for a doll she already had, instead of the new doll she “wanted so badly” from a nearby drug store.
“I was heartbroken,” she said. “But the next day, my dad went to the drug store, and when he came home, would you believe, he had that doll. They had marked it down, and I guess he thought he could buy it when it was marked down.”
Like Baber, Anita Huber, of Bluffton, recalled years the family couldn’t afford a Christmas tree “so we would get a stick and decorate it. That was our Christmas tree.”
For Diane Huber, also of Bluffton, one of her favorite memories was getting a stereo for Christmas.
“It was one that had an eight-track player in it. I was so excited!” she said.
Bluffton resident Connie Myers grew up in Springfield in a two-story house. When she was 5 or 6-years-old, she said, “My dad made a dollhouse in the attic for my sister and me. We had a sparse Christmas under the tree that year, but our parents took us up to the attic, where Santa Claus brought furniture for our ‘attic dollhouse.’ We received furniture, a kitchen, doll beds, even curtains on the windows. We spent hours playing up there. A few years ago, my sister stopped at that house and asked the owner if the doll house was still there, and she said it was and that her grandchildren often played there.’’
Several of the men recalled being concerned with the logistics of Christmas. Dave Campbell, of Lutz Road, who grew up in Northeast Ohio, said when he was 5 or 6 years old the snow didn’t come.
“We wondered how Santa was going to get there,” he said.
Lima resident Rick Lamb, who grew up in a house without a chimney, remembered wanting to know how Santa would deliver the presents.
“My dad came up with a cardboard fireplace for Santa to use,” he said.
Lamb also recalled how his grandparents would buy each of their grandchildren a pair of shoes for Christmas.
“One year, I wanted cowboy boots instead of shoes, but my mother said I needed to get a nice pair of shoes for church,” he said. “When my grandparents took me to Columbus Grove to pick out my shoes, they said that if I wanted cowboy boots, that’s what I would get. I got my boots.”
Karen Kussmaul, of Bluffton, said her family now celebrates a hybrid holiday.
“My children live at a distance,” she said, “so for 20 years, we’ve done ‘Thanks-Christmas.’ We celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas together, and it allows me to spend Christmas with my brother in Michigan.”
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