Christmas growing up is but a vague memory. I’ve seen videos when I was about five of a Santa that came to visit on Christmas Eve when we lived in the Tipton house. My mom must have been taking the photos as dad was in the movie so I don’t think that Santa was played by him. This Santa was slight of build so it wasn’t my Uncle Swede either. He was kind of short so maybe it was my Uncle Rodney, Aunt Ruth’s brother who played Santa.
This Santa was the lowest tech ever. He had the red velvet suit, probably made by one of the handy seamstresses in the family, but his beard was not silky and full like the Santas you see today. It looked in the video like white cotton. This was about 1950 when cotton came in a big roll about eight inches wide wrapped in blue heavy cardboard like paper. Poor Santa looked like he had been in the medicine cabinet into that roll of cotton to find a white beard for him to wear.
Santa handed out wrapped gifts for all of us. There was a great racket when he arrived as he jingled these grand bells that were from the horse harness that was placed over the horse’s neck. The bells varied in size and were about 4 inches in diameter and had a great big melodious tone. This string of bells was from my Great Grandfather Frank O. Swanson’s carriage equipment when he would drive his wife to town in a sleigh about Christmas time at the turn of the century in the 1900’s. The strip of bells were handed down to his son, my Grandfather, Carl O. Swanson and then to my Dad, Harold O. Swanson. Dad guarded them with abandon. They are still guarded in one of my closets. I take them out once in a while on Christmas Eve. We have taken a walk through our neighborhood years ago on our way to Cynthia Jones’ house to Christmas Eve dinner. We spent many Christmas Eve’s together with that family as John and their son Geordie were best friends. One evening the houses were all adorned with luminaries along the sidewalks throughout the whole neighborhood on a Christmas Eve. We walked in the middle of the quiet snow-packed streets and gently shook the bells as we walked. They are the best bells I have ever heard.
My dad was a roly-poly guy who made a great Santa for our school, Pleasant Valley. The parents all contributed one present for each child. My dad would put on a Santa suit that probably belonged to the school as I never found any Santa suit remains when I helped clean out their home. I don’t remember any tacky cotton beard. He would Ho-Ho-Ho his way into the school with a big red bag slung over his shoulder packed with gifts. He would call out all the kids’ names. He knew them all as this was a close knit neighborhood. He asked them questions about being good or bad. After they battered back and forth he gave them a gift. In the 1950’s gifts were pretty simple. A few nuts and a fresh orange or apple were a treat. Checker boards, monopoly or a baby doll were a special treat. No one wanted to receive any coal, which was in easy supplier from the furnaces that were then stoked with shovels full of coal.
When we went to church on Christmas Eve at eulota (Swedish name of Christmas Eve service) at 4:00 am on Christmas morning. The ushers passed around little boxes of candy for all the children. There were all kinds of yummy treats that we only saw at Christmas time. Ribbon candy and hard candy filled with creamy or crispy favors are still fragrant in my mind. I loved the cinnamon puffs that made our tongues and lips red.
We would sing out the old familiar Christmas carols that have been around for hundreds of years. Today we attend various Christmas concerts where they play a few of those Christmas carols. I still get a lump in my throat when I hear Joy to the World. It is a lot different hearing live music played with feeling than the same tunes piped into the malls like it is played by drones.
We started going to the Tuba concerts on a Saturday around the first week or so of December outside in downtown Denver at Larimer Square. Hearing those big ole’ tubas belting out Jingle Bells is a delight. On that day twenty or thirty tubas fill the street to play Christmas carols for the Holiday crowds. There are generations of people joining in the fun. They have been gathering for over twenty-five years at various city streets across our nation. My son John took his little girl Anya, age one, to her first Tuba concert in Boston.