Retrieved 2023
Christmas Past Archives
A Father's Reflection
Written by Jennifer Moonsong, 2012
Ivan, 16, with parents Bernice & Sammy
Ivan as a boy, Nobob, KY
In February of 1933, in the midst of one the coldest recorded Kentucky winters, my father Ivan was born in a cabin in a craggy creekside hollow in Nobob, Kentucky. The swath of land was lovingly referred to for generations as Rabbit Ranch.
My father was the second child born, and the eldest boy. And although it was in the midst of the Great Depression, my grandmother Iola Bernice conveyed that life was not much different in rural Kentucky than it had been before the “depression”, because times were hard, and lean.
A decade later in the throws of WWII times weren’t much better. On my father’s 10th Christmas the family, which had five children by then, dined on fried rabbit, and cornmeal pie, both delicacies in pinto bean and biscuit country, and were grateful for it. It sounds meager, and but my father stressed when old age sat in and he reflected on his youth that it did not feel meager. It felt blessed by the hands of God. For, whatever was lost or missing materially was replaced ten fold in the abundance of nature, and in my father’s 77th year he told me this:
“We didn’t know we were poor. We never went hungry for too long. We grew what we could. Ma would throw beet seeds in the tobacco beds and it would make Pa so mad (said with a sly chuckle). We had seed potatoes and bacon grease. I had a rifle I hid from Robert and sometimes I'd shoot a rabbit or a squirrel. The neighbors the McPherson’s would share their hog meat and we shared our garden. Everyone worked together. I loved the woods. I liked being in them alone, I reckon I thought I was Daniel Boone or Davy Crocket. I drank from Nobob creeks and the little streams. I swung on grapevines and I would hang from the trees like a squirrel. No one ever worried as long as I came home by supper and there was a lot of freedom and plenty of wonder. We were blessed in music too, there was never quiet.”
Retrieved 2023
Christmas Past Archives
Written by Tammy Stephens
Growing up in the seventies, I suppose Christmas morning looked very different than it does these days. There were no electronics under the tree unless you count the battery-operated games such as Operation that attempted to electrocute the would-be miscalculated practice surgeon. There were no sweet-sixteen-Christmas brand-new cars, yet my brother did receive a mini-bike one Christmas until it was promptly repossessed when my mama couldn’t make the payment. There were lots of fruit, candy, and nuts in stockings, a few unwrapped Santa Claus gifts, wrapped underwear, pajamas, and school clothes that we would surely grow into before the next winter season.
I am certain there was the same stress though. Presents to buy, trees to cut in the woods and decorate, breakfast, then Christmas dinner to prepare… There was never enough money at the end of the paycheck and the kids in my family, at least, were admonished, ‘You better appreciate that. Do you have any idea what it costs?’ Somehow, that declaration prompted me to want to wrap the present right back up and place it right back under the tree, but at a young age, I learned that grace was the best response.
No one on this earth taught me that lesson better than our neighbors who lived right up the road from us. They were not only our neighbors, but they were our landlords, our surrogate parents, our mentors, our summer-time employers, our biggest cheerleaders, and the greatest role models any child has ever needed to grow into productive, caring, individuals.
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Norris Johnson showed me how a husband, father, and gentleman farmer should act and conduct his life for all the world to see. He was, by far, the most generous and loving man and was nothing short of a miracle for our family. For whatever reason unknown to me or to my siblings, he believed in my daddy, and he made it his mission to help him raise his family and to be the kind of friend and companion that my father lost upon the death of his father when he was just a child himself. My grandmother and her sons had lived on the farm as my dad grew into a man and then was drafted into the army where he would later return home to help tend the farm and raise a family. Being raised as a member of a tenant family never really had the negative connotation that I suppose it should have because we were always treated like one of the family and we knew there was always a seat at the table for each of us. And trust me, we wanted a seat at the table because Norris’ wife, Marie, was the best cook in the land so sitting at her table was like dining with kings.
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They taught me everything I ever learned about gracious living. Norris came home with a family or a person heavy on his heart and the next thing you knew, Marie was making a full-out meal to take to the family, buying a turkey or ham or groceries to drop off, or simply driving by REA to pay off their electric bill so their lights wouldn’t be turned off. I watched it and helped her make it happen straight from a front-row seat in her kitchen and in her Buick. She always called on me or my sister for help. Norris dreamed it up, but Marie made it happen.
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It was never more true than at Christmas time. I think that Norris got up or came home from work daily and added one more person to the Christmas list. Every single Saturday and sometimes through the week if I didn’t have too much homework, I helped Marie plan and prepare for Christmas. We started in mid-November or sometimes right after Halloween to make all the baked goods and candies that she made to give away. We made buckeye candy, bourbon balls, cookies, and other candies by the thousands. As an eleven-year-old, I had poured more shots of bourbon than most forty-year-olds in our county, but my bartending met a higher calling. I was helping to prepare the Christmas cheer that would be spread to the loved ones of the Johnsons so each could feel the love that I felt every day of the week. Besides, my hands were small so rolling the perfect sphere was quick work for me. The fun part was dipping each perfect ball into a mixture of chocolate and paraffin and carefully laying each morsel on wax paper to dry. They glistened by the hundreds on every flat surface in the kitchen and dining room. After they dried, we would load each tray in the deep freezer to flash freeze so we could then wrap them air-tight until December when they entered their final resting place in tins, beautiful bowls, and colorful boxes destined to be gifts to their many, many recipients come Christmas week.
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It would be hard to estimate just how many of these tiny morsels that I helped Marie to make, but I can say for sure that by the ripe old age of fifteen, I knew every recipe by heart and I could tell by the aroma whether we were still serving up the company bourbon or if we had to resort to the traveling bourbon that rode behind the seat of the farm truck.
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On the days we were not making her famous sweet treats, we were decorating or wrapping presents. The Johnsons always had two trees. There was the family tree in the den with homemade ornaments, tinsel, and colored lights, then there was the company tree in the living room that nobody was allowed in with their shoes on until company came. Marie always lit the gas fireplace that I loved and turned on the color wheel for the aluminum Christmas tree. Then she placed a stack of records on the Hi-Fi and brought us both an RC cola over ice even though mine didn’t have any bourbon in it. We spent the rest of the afternoon wrapping presents and singing to the music. Sometimes, she showed me her dance moves that always matched the happiness that she felt wrapping every present no matter how large or how small. I knew every single person that she bought for because we had grown up with each one under the shade tree in summer, working in the garden, tending the tobacco, or campaigning for their favorite political candidate come election time. The best nights came when they ended much too late and Marie called Mama to say I was spending the night where I ended it with a warm bath, in one of her gowns four sizes too big snuggled in the guest room next to hers, and Norris’ bedroom.
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Without a doubt, these are the best, most vivid memories of Christmas for me before having a family of my own. What my childhood family lacked in material gifts, elaborate Christmas dinners, and friends gathering around the tree and sharing after-dinner drinks, I learned that the number of gifts one received under the tree was not the measure of Christmas joy. The measure of Christmas joy was in the love and remembrance of each individual in one’s everyday life. It was in the giving of the heart whether it was a wrapped store-bought gift or a tin of homemade chocolates. Any gift, card, or hug shows that a person means something to the giver. I think in many ways we have lost that sentiment. In a world where every day is an opportunity for a person to indulge in a purchase, a dessert, or a dinner out to eat, the gift and the sentiment have been misplaced. These days I never fail to think of Marie when I work to prepare a meal for a large number of friends or family. She stirred every morsel with her brand of love and care. She loved Christmas more than a kid, but the joy was never about the gift she was about to open, though she would show off any gifts like they were worth a million dollars. Her joy came in sharing her gifts of food, and treats and hosting friends. I am beyond grateful that she gave me her gift of grace along with her recipes for bourbon balls and buckeyes and to have the good sense to always pour the company bourbon.
Retrieved 2023
Adapted from and inspired by the memoirs of Marie Young Jones by a grandson.
In the tapestry that tells the tales of my childhood, woven with threads of the simplicity of farm living in rural Kentucky, the Great Depression cast its shadows upon our Christmas celebrations. Memories of those moments in the 20’s and 30’s have been veiled to me in time, yet the essence of that era remains fresh. Daddy, the self-appointed guardian of the joy of our household, shielded us from the harsh realities of the Depression. But, like most folks, including everyone we knew, our situation made itself known by scarcity.
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I recall one Christmas tree from the time before we children were capable of putting one up ourselves. I don’t know the truth of it all, but in my memory it was a massive cedar rising all the way (and maybe beyond) the ceiling of our home. Childhood memories tend to make things far more majestic it seems. The fireplace and mantle, the focal point of our home’s warmth and comfort, was the stage for our Christmas celebrations. Stockings, carefully hung with an air of anticipation, dangled from the chimney with care.
A glorious tableau of simple treasures awaited us each Christmas morning – an apple, an orange, a banana, candies, and a handful of nuts, each morsel a testament to the possibility of abundance being found in scarcity. To possess these delights was a rare privilege, reserved only for very special occasions. They were jewels. And then there was the gift, a single play thing for each of us, a solitary token of every child’s Christmas Eve dreams.
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One particular Christmas is etched in my memories. Daddy, with well-worked hands and a heart stubborn with love, fashioned a doll bed for my sister Earline and me. The craftsmanship was a testament to his dedication, a tangible expression of his desire to bring magic into our lives in whatever way he could. As the first rays of morning danced that Christmas, we discovered not just that handcrafted bed, but also a store-bought doll nestled within its wooden clutch. The astonishment mirrored in our wide-eyed gazes was a gift in itself – an unexpected treasure, a rarity in a world colored by scarcity. For Earline and I, it was more than we could have ever hoped for.
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Those unexpected treasures of Christmas are known to all of us, and they go all the way back to that “Star Silver,” shedding light over a barn in the Bethlehem slums.
Written by Jamie Marion Ross
The Christmases of the seventies were my best memories. I was a child and hung on every hope of Santa coming. He did every year. Bicycles, Barbies, Barbie Dream Pool (sorry, Mom, that I left water in it and it molded under my bed), stereos, coats, boots, and so much more. He brought my favorite toys and made my dreams come true. The mystery and the wonder of it all just mesmerized me.
I vividly remember Christmas Eves at my grandparents’ house, Dr. Eugene and Mrs. Janet Marion, who lived on Cleveland Avenue. West Virginia skillet cookies that Nana made with “oleo'' and nuts from Doc’s patients were always my favorite treat to eat at their house. I often snuck some chocolate fudge and some homemade candy when no one was looking. Snow cream was Doc’s favorite cold dessert. They had a huge, real tree in the dining room with those big bulbs. The tree was in a red bucket and sometimes I even got to help Doc put water in the tree using an apparatus he brought home from his office.
I was the only one small enough to climb up under the tree and over all of the packages. There were so many presents that they took up half of the pale blue carpeted dining room floor. Many years it snowed and was very cold around the holidays. With two uncles who worked at the ambulance department, we always had a few ambulances in the driveway at their house at meal time.
Our family was very large to me. Great grandmother, grandparents, parents, three uncles, and two aunts. I am the oldest grandchild, so I remember being an only, but very thankful that I finally got some cousins and a sister to play with as time passed.
One Christmas in particular, I remember dancing in the dining room to Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole Christmas records where that Christmas tree sat at Nana and Doc’s house with my dad, my great grandmother, MaMaw, and my uncle. We danced with each other and twirled around and sang as loudly as we could. I can still see the clothes we had on and the lights and how they shimmered through the silver icicles hanging on that beautiful tree. It wasn’t the toys or the food that made that Christmas special….it was the people and the time they spent with me and the love they showed me. My great grandmother, both of my grandparents, and my father have all passed away and I’d give anything to have those people still with us today. I am so thankful for those Christmas memories.