Ghosts of Christmas Past, Part Three

This house was a few miles north of Hartford. We lived here from the middle of my 4th grade year until the end of 7th grade. Dad called this "Drake's place" because we rented it from Curtis Drake, who lived in the house next door. This house was surrounded by apple orchards.

We moved during the holidays, and I think we must have had Christmas in this house as soon as we moved in, because that cardboard fireplace is sitting right where the dining room table is supposed to be. So I'm assuming we had not yet put the table up. This would have been December 1963. The picture of the flocked tree was actually taken in the next house we moved into. My mother liked flocked Christmas trees. I can't tell if this one was heavily flocked or if it was, in fact, a white tree. I don't remember us ever having an artificial tree.

These are the only pictures I have of Christmas in this house, although we lived there almost 4 years. The picture in the upper right was 1966, I think. That would have been our last Christmas before we moved out of this house. The other three pictures were 1964 -- I was in 5th grade. They include Papa (Lester) and Grandma (Cleffie) Burford (in the background, wearing an apron), Rick and me, and cousins Mark and Lori Burford -- so I assume Bob and Jackie were there. At this time, my brother John would have been 4 months old.