Chilhood Christmases

When I was growing up we were in a depression like now so you mostly got gifts that were essential. My mother stored the gifts in the attic which the entrance was a ladder on the wall in her bedroom. We never tried to find out. Around the tree we each had a chair. Mine was the chair to my desk. Things were generally wapped in brown sacks. We did not get fancy wrapping paper until my brother Allan's girl friend came into our life. The sacks generally had our name written on them. I checked to see if mine was as big as Helen's. They generally were. I had been riding my sister Ethel's bike and when I was 12 I got a new one. I think I had a note to go look somewhere. My father was very talented and he used to see thing and then duplicate them. I don't think he ever had a patent. He put motors on everything in the house and could build anything. I know when I went to school at that time you had sewing in the 5th grade and cooking in the sixth. Boys had manual training for both fifth and sixth grade. I was the only one in the class who had to learn how to pedal the sewing machine. The teacher thought I was stupid. We made aprons in the fifth grade to wear in the sixth grade for cooking. My dad continued to make things and my daughters Sally and Sue share a sled and a Santa that when they were little he made for them. They pass it back and forth. He would come to visit me and look around to see what I needed so I have many bookcases he made, a magazine rack and the original picnic table for the kids. Things were always made out of boxes he got parts and batteries in at his garage and he had a tendency to use yellow paint. He made toy boxes for Susan and Steve. Steve's was a train and Susan's a wagon. I have great spice racks. He made the original marble game that the kids wore out and the principal at Hocker Grove where the three oldest kids went to junior high made us a new one. It has never worked as well as the one my father made. I thought my childhood Christmases were great. We also always got a book. What more can you need for Christmas--new underwear, a book, new socks and candy.