In Celebration of Modest Christmases Past

Posted on by Live & Learn

christmas-holiday-lights

A long time ago in a country far, far away, America had less of everything and holidays were easier and more modest.

Only 50 and 60 years ago, well within human memory, Christmas was a plainer, simpler affair. Everyone—even the rich, but certainly the poor and in-between—had less. Because America had less. You’d get a sweater and socks instead of five toys, or five toys instead of 10. Technology was something that existed at places like NASA. No one’s wish list had a hoverboard, an iPad, or a brightly wrapped drone. There were more big families, whose children understood that even Santa couldn’t cover them all.

You could make gifts. Or you could buy one after saving up, and the recipient could guess the sacrifice involved. And because there were fewer gifts, the one you got made a big impression.

And so a nod to the more modest Christmases of years past. These memories came with a declared or implied, “We didn’t have much, but . . .” And this was said not with resentment or self pity but a kind of pride and wistfulness. […]

Here is a friend of mine, from a large Irish Catholic family in New Jersey—seven kids, no money. She is in her 60s now, but still shy about revisiting those days. She doesn’t recall any specific gifts she received—“It wasn’t like we were going to get a smartphone, it wasn’t like that”—but she remembers the time the baby of the family, Cathy, age 5, let everyone know Santa was going to give her something very special.

But Cathy wouldn’t tell anyone what it was. On Christmas Eve, her resourceful mother finally told her to write Santa a thank-you note and put it under the tree. She did, and later her mother peeked at the note: Cathy thanked Santa for the “bride doll” that he had hidden for her in the bookcase. But it was Christmas Eve—the stores were closed. After Cathy went to bed, one of my friend’s other sisters remembered a pile of old dolls down in the basement. “We found a doll, cleaned it, found a dress, washed and ironed,” my friend recalls. “We combed the hair, we gave it earrings and jewelry.” At dawn, Cathy ran down the stairs and found in the back of the bookcase the beautiful doll she knew would be there. […]

Kathy Enright and I were in high school together. Her father was in the Navy and often away. “When I was 8 years old in Hacketstown, N.J.,” Kathy recalls, “there was a Pink Lady bike by Schwinn in the window of a store. I wanted it so badly and my mother said, ‘We can’t afford it, we can’t afford it.’ Mostly I got shoes and socks and underwear, things that we needed that were practical.” And yet that Christmas Eve, “I walked into the living room and my Pink Lady bike was in front of the Christmas tree. I rode it until I graduated high school.”

[…]

To be given a moment like that and take it through your life—that was some kind of gift.

~ Peggy Noonan, In Celebration of Modest Christmases Past

Photo: Weheartit

30 thoughts on “In Celebration of Modest Christmases Past”

  3. Memories flooding in of Christmases spent with my grandparents. They had very little, but each Christmas we got a special gift and always so much love. That’s what I remember about my childhood Christmases–rooms filled with people I loved fiercely, and who made it clear that they loved me, whatever was (or wasn’t) under the tree. It’s a gift I treasure to this day….

  4. It’s hell for parents or grandparents without much money. One of those gift from the past would not be considered “cool” by a lot of children now — in fact, they’d be treated as an insult. That being said, in the UK they’ve had to open schools over the Christmas holidays to feed children because their parents are too poor to buy enough food. And there are over one million children who are virtually homeless, or living in dire poverty all the year round. Next they’ll be re-opening the old Poor Houses. All that, while the politicians have recently had a pay rise. I love this post, but it also makes me very sad.

    1. Me too Sarah. Your thoughts remind me of:

      Overeating makes people logy in a different way from the apathy induced by too little nourishment, but I feel sure that it takes the edge off perception. Many of us are literally weighed down. Who can imagine hunger who has never experienced it, even for one day?

      ~ May Sarton, The House by the Sea: A Journal

  11. That over-commercialism that has taken over every festival I think has spoiled it beyond belief. We don’t have that is Islam, well not yet anyways. We give a child one or two small gifts at New Year (maybe $20 each, tops) and usually cash (again similar amounts) for them to save or clothes on each of the two main Eid festivals. Beyond that, we try to give gifts that don’t cost, like our time, or pile our cash into holidays together. When I read of the $000s spent on presents it saddens me somewhat – it’s become an ‘expectation’, which to me is no longer a ‘gift’ – just old fashioned I guess 🙂

  12. Moving, Dave…Thank you… I like to love others by giving a gift…I like to see the Joy on their face…sometimes I don’t have the delight of seeing their Joy as the gift I give is delivered by another…sometimes I remain, anonymous…I don’t generally accept Christmas gifts…I do celebrate the birth of baby Jesus the child of light (imho), just differently from others…My needs are simple…Peace to all…

  14. This was a terrific article that brought back wonderful memories of Christmas celebrations in my family.

  15. I like many columnists and was thinking Peggy Noonan may also be a columnist? She told a great story of how gifts that are “out of reach” may sometimes come to those precious, hopeful children. Nicely edited and introduced, David. Smiles, Robin

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