Another Christmas story

When our oldest daughter was in the sixth grade at school she had a great teacher. I think our second daughter Sally had her the next year. The depression was on and the teacher was teaching them how to make something inexpensive for Christmas. She had them bring wire hangers. They made them into a sort of bird cage and them put something in the center. They wired them so they stayed open. She put a ribbon on pine needles in the center and a ribbon on the bottom. I hung in the front room on the chandler. The chandler is not there now so we hang it on the heater/air conditioner when we can find it. Find the decoration not the air conditioner. We are looking.

Another Christmas Eve

When our oldest son, Steve was in the Cradle Row in our church in Topeka they gave him a plan for Christmas Eve at home. It required a few candles, a Bible and some reading. We used it all the while our children grew up. We set up a card table and found all the candles in the house. Then my husband, Ray, read what it said. We did not start to go to church on Christmas Eve until our granddaughter, Hayden, was baby Jesus in their program. We always had eggnog after the reading. It made for a pleasant Christmas Eve setting.After the children went to bed I climbed the ladder to the attic where their gifts were stored. I wrapped them in whatever color tissue paper they had chosen and put together anything that had to be assembled like doll houses and the such. My husband had four holidays a year off from the job at the KC Star and he always took Christmas Eve as one of them.

Fairy Princess

When my children were in school they passed a rule that Santa could not visit school so we turned to one of the pretty mothers and asked her to visit in a pretty dress all the rooms her children were not in, It was very successful but the school board frowned on it so that ended that. Another time with the official Fairy Princess we were in line when my granddaughter Morgan broke out with chicken box while we were in line. We figured the princess had had it already so we stayed in line.

Christmas Eve

The year (1981) that Hayden was born and George Torhmolen became Colonials' Minister was the first time we attended the Christmas Eve service at Colonial. Up until then we had a candlelighting Service at home. There we gathered all the candles in the house that we could find a holder for and followed a service Steven had gotten from his Sunday School teacher while we still lived in Topeka. After doing the service we drank eggnog and the kids went to bed. The year that Hayden was born in September they asked Sally and Howard if she could be Baby Jesus in the church pageant so we all went to church that year.

The pageant had already been held at least one year with adults. Joni Holcomb and Gail Heath had been in charge. Gail Heath said Dave Kenicott was Joseph and his red headed daughter was Mary. The kings were Frank Roberston, Russ Waesche and Bob Starcke. Jan Parkinson was a shepherd. One of the angels was Chris Ericson. Jan said that they all had to get their own costumes and he was a shepherd and found a bathrobe that had fur down the front that he used. Joni didn't like the costumes very well so she worked on it during the year and has kept an eye on it ever since. They used high school students in it for shepherds and angels and wisemen. The first year they had a king - Russ Waseche and he sang. We don't have a king anymore. We call them wisemen. They baby she was not sure of but thinks it was Sharon and Denny Horns son. Gail didn't have pictures of the baby as she said it cried and the mother took it back. Gail helped with it until 1985 when she moved. She had fond memories of it. They year Hayden was the baby they decided to just use high school students. George Torhmolen's comment that he had not realized Jesus was a girl. We enjoyed it so much we have always attended since. In that time Stacy, Hayden, Frances, and Morgan have been Mary, Frances was baby Jesus the year she was born. Jason, a stepson, was Joseph and a wiseman for a couple of years. They have all been narrators and angels and shepherds. Alex, another stepson, was involved but didn't want to do it so he did lighting, which is very important.

The year Morgan was Mary the angel standing beside her fainted and it scared the baby. If the baby cried it was given back to their parents and Mary held a doll. Last year there was a mix up on getting the baby to Mary and Hayden could not stand that so she went and got the baby and put it in Mary's lap. This baby was older tan some and was wearing tennis shoes. They baby should be born in October so who will be this year?

Mary and Joseph are always high school seniors. The middle school students are the shepherds and sometimes an angel. The wisemen are generally boys and high school but they have used tall girls. The narrators are sometimes college students home for Christmas. Holly has been an angel and a shepherd.

There are two other services on Christmas Eve. I've only been to the eleven o'clock one as Ray agreed we would usher. It is all music. I'm not sure what the eight o'clock one has. At first the family had dinner at one of our houses but they have been stopped for quite a while, as they were too busy on Christmas Eve. If we had it at Huggin's house we used the candlelighting service we had used when they were small.

In 2008 my granddaughter Holly was an angel with a speaking part. We had to use a doll for Jesus as the baby who was waiting on the front row parents changed their minds. I liked the doll.

I think it might have been 2002 Hayden was Mary again. Our minister wanted an outside Nativity scene separate from the one inside. Someone loaned us real sheep and we had them in a pen outside the church on the lawn. The week before Christmas Eve we put on an hourly nativity scene, I volunteered as a Wiseman. The rest of the family were in on it. I had trouble being a Wiseman because I thought they came from the east and who wrote the play had us come from the west. Hayden was Mary. We put it on about three times every night in the week before Christmas.

Sheep and Christmas

One Christmas our church had some real sheep on the lawn in front of the church so some of us volunteered to be shepherds and wisemen four times an evening. I was a wiseman. My daughters were also characters. Hayden was Mary. I know Stacy was something. Somebody were shepherds. I think we were assigned eight p.m. It lasted about 15 minutes. It was cold but fun. I do not know who thought it up and where the sheep came from but it was different.

Christmas Memory

One of my fondest memory is of 1960 one of the last Christmases with a strong downtown Kansas City now they are in malls. The streets were decorated with festive lighted garlands and the stores stayed open until nine. Ray and I took our five children, Steve, Susan, Sally, Cindy and Scott dressed in their best Sunday outfits to see the sights. We had supper at the Forum cafeteria on Main Street so each could find something they liked and we could get a full meal as parents Then we started the walking tour, stopping first at the Jones Store on the corner of 12th and Main, where there was a Santa wonderland with a train carrying children and adults alike thru snowmen, frolicking elves, reindeer and other sites. Then it was on to Klines to see the fairy princess, a beautiful young woman dressed in a gorgeous princess gown and crown with a magic wand. For a small fee each the children could line up in front of her thrown, sit on her knee and tell her what they wanted for Christmas. At the end she would wave her wand
and a brightly covered gift would appear beside her throne as if by sorcery. It would contain a coloring book, a tin whistle, a spinning top or some trinket. From there we went we made our way thru the crowded streets to Emery Bird Thayer the department store on Walnut Street, Eleventh and Grand. There two giant inflated figures of Santa and Mrs. Claus shook and rolled like a bowl of jelly with recorded laughter. A smaller Santa was handing out trinkets. Then down to Harzfields to see the animated figures. A woman stepped to us and wished us a "Merry Christmas" and handed us a box of Russell Stover Candy. The kids wanted the candy right away but we wanted to check out first. Fortunately for newer generations, Hallmark brought the inflated Santa and put Santa on display. The Fairy princess went to the KC Museum for a couple of weeks in December.

Christmas gifts

When my children were small they like to buy Christmas gifts for their brothers and sisters. Ray and I would take them to the dime store on Shawnee Mission Road and giving them each a dollar would take them in the store one at a time, Since we were with them they did not duplicate their gifts. When they got home with their five gifts I gave them wrapping paper and they wrapped them. I don't think they ever told but it was hard for some of them who wanted to tell. On Christmas morning they had such fun opening them. Their gifts we bought from either Sears or Wards which had catalogs. We told their grandparents what they wanted so we would duplicate the grandparents told us what they had for them. We had trouble two Christmas with our order. The one at Sears left off our first letter of our name and made it Organ, One of the clerks figured it out, The other order was at Wards and did not come in. Ray was covering a story with the President of Wards and told him our problem. That night a truck pulled up. They rang the bell and delivered our order. The new Christmas dresses we had ordered for the girls had been packed down too long and we could never get the wrinkles out of their lovely Christmas dresses but everything else was fine and we still had one day before Christmas. Nerve wracking but successful.