Ghosts of Xmas Past - 1959

 

The stockings were hung by the fake cardboard fireplace with care...

I got a new doll for Xmas every year of my life. (Sometimes two!)

Looks like Ricky got one or two Tonka firetrucks. Back in those days they were made of metal, not plastic -- they were indestructible. Looks like he got a fireman's hat, too. Ask me about the time Dad and Uncle Morris played with Ricky's new Tonka truck so long that they wore the batteries out. (See below)

I don't think Dad looked like this EVERY xmas morning. Maybe he just hadn't had his coffee yet. 

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    One Christmas Santa brought Ricky a new Tonka truck. It might have been one of the ones in these pictures, I'm not sure. Uncle Morris was at our house. (That might have been the same year we didn't have a Christmas tree... remind me to tell you that story...) The truck was motorized and had some lights that lit up -- maybe even a siren. It took flashlight (D-size) batteries. Well, Dad and Uncle Morris ran that truck all over the house, with Ricky toddling along behind them, until the batteries gave out. That made my mother so mad! She told Dad to go and buy some more batteries for that truck -- and don't come home until he had some! Now you have to understand that this was the 1950s -- NO stores were open on Christmas day. There's no telling where Dad had to go to get batteries that morning. Maybe a gas station... Anyway, all I know is he did come home and he did have batteries for Ricky's truck. And he didn't play with that truck any more that day. But Ricky did.

   And then there was the time (could have been this same Christmas) that we somehow got all the way to Christmas Eve without getting a tree. We always spent Xmas Eve with Dad's family -- either at our house or Grandma and Grandpa's or Bernarde and Eileen's. I think that year we went to Bernarde and Eileen's house in Decatur. I don't have any specific memories about it, but it's pretty safe to assume that there was some rather tense discussion in the car on the ride to Decatur about us not having a Xmas tree. The part of this story that I actually do remember was when we came home late that night. When we walked in the front door, there in the living room was a Christmas tree! It was all set up, lit up, and completely decorated. And there on the couch, fast asleep, was Uncle Morris. 

That's my dad in the middle, and Uncle Morris on the right. The guy on the left is Donald Hawley.

Morris was 14 years old when my dad married my mother (Dad was 18). He and Uncle Morris were very close friends through the years. There are probably a whole lot more stories to tell, if I only knew. I wonder if they get together and reminisce, now that they're both on the other side of the veil...