I’m dreaming of Christmases long long ago, to mix and match the lyrics of two classic Christmas songs.
My earliest discrete Christmas memory dates to Christmas Eve in 1954. I remember snuggling under a quilted spread with my younger brother Bob, while Mom read us “The Night Before Christmas.” While she was reading, we suddenly heard reindeer hooves on the roof above our heads. Santa was near. I was days away from turning three years old, and Bob was a year and a half.
The following Christmas, in 1955, I remember very clearly the gifts Bob and I received from Grandma and Grandpa Wolinski. Presents from Grandma and Grandpa came via Railway Express from Chicago, and were delivered to our home by truck following their rail journey. I recall the large pictures of Santa, Coca Cola in hand, on those trucks. Here’s an example that I like from 1953, though I don't know if this exact picture was ever actually on a truck.
See http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/xmas-ads-1950s.
For me that Christmas Grandma and Grandpa had sent a Little Ricky doll, with curly “rooted” red hair. There was also a large wooden trunk that Grandpa had made for me, covered in yellow sailor fabric, and inside were a bunch of doll clothes for Little Ricky that Grandma had sewn.
For Bob, Grandpa had made a wonderful wooden circus wagon, painted red and covered in decals. Grandma had sewn Bob a menagerie of zoo animals. There was a sock monkey, a tiger (Bob’s favorite), and others as well. That same Christmas Santa brought me a stroller, and a large rubbery baby doll in a coordinating bonnet.
Our younger brother Dan was six months old that Christmas, but I somehow don’t recall the gifts he got.
My next clear and discrete Christmastime memory dates to 1956. That was the year we briefly owned our first puppy, a silky cocker spaniel whose name, if we gave him one, I no longer remember. Mom was very pregnant that Christmas with her fourth child, Kathy, who was born a month later, January 23, 1957 (the same day as Princess Grace’s daughter Caroline.) The challenges of coping with a new puppy were apparently too much. Two weeks after puppy arrived, we were told that Mom and Dad had found someone who lived on a farm to adopt him.
Also in 1956 I got spiffy red mittens, embroidered with beads in yellow, blue and green. They looked good.
Check out the fringe on Bob's pants. Part of a Cowboy and Indian costume?
I think Christmas 1956 was also the year that Grandpa Wolinski made me a handsome wooden wardrobe to hold the clothes for my Sonja Henie doll. This was a composite doll with wonderful soft blonde hair and tiny teeth, modelled after the Olympic figure skater. She had belonged to Mom, and had wonderful clothes, including a skating outfit with little skates and a chic white fur cape.
Sonja Henie doll above currently on Ebay.
One of my favorite memories of my busy young mother dates to shortly after this Christmas, sitting on the floor playing dolls with me and Sonja Henie and her clothes, and hanging them in the wardrobe Grandpa had made.
I still have the wardrobe. Sonja Henie however went to Kathy a few years later. I think this was after she dropped her and broke off one of the feet.
Christmas 1959 stands out for me because it was the year I began to de-code the magic. That Christmas I was a second grader, days away from turning 8, and had observed a bit of how things worked. I’d seen Mom or Dad hide brown-wrapped parcels in a hall closet. I’d heard Dad hammering in the basement, and knew he was working on re-furbishing the dollhouse he’d made for me for my third birthday in 1954.
Third birthday, December 28, 1954
Third birthday, December 28, 1954
That dollhouse was, and still is, a wonderful, solid, hard-working wooden structure, with six rooms, which Dad built, papered and painted. The roof came off, and could be upended to make an “attic” positioned over the two floors of the dollhouse. The two floors were detachable. I could set them side by side to make two houses. The house was furnished with Mom’s old wooden furniture, dating from the 30s. There were tiny dishes and foodstuffs as well. I still have both dollhouse and furniture. They live now in one of our upstairs bedrooms, along with dolls, toys, books, my 1971 Kenmore sewing machine, craft materials, and about 20 boxes of photos.
December 21, 2015
In the early hours of Christmas 1959, after I figured that everyone was asleep, I slipped out of bed and made my way in the dark to view the Christmas tree and the gifts under it. There was the re-papered, re-painted dollhouse, waiting for me to discover in the morning!
Christmas 1959 was also the year I got my silky black haired pony-tailed Barbie. She came in a strapless zebra- printed bathing suit, with sunglasses, and those tiny high-heeled shoes. She had two other outfits: a long sleek black gown, with gathered net, mermaid style, at the bottom, and a strapless gown with a red velvety bodice and satiny white skirt, belted in gold with a matching gold belt.
Christmas 1959 was also the year I got my silky black haired pony-tailed Barbie. She came in a strapless zebra- printed bathing suit, with sunglasses, and those tiny high-heeled shoes. She had two other outfits: a long sleek black gown, with gathered net, mermaid style, at the bottom, and a strapless gown with a red velvety bodice and satiny white skirt, belted in gold with a matching gold belt.
Reproduction of 1959 Barbie, wearing black mermaid dress.
It would be hard to exaggerate how important this Barbie was to me. For the next several years she was my alter ego, my cherished, grown up self. Sadly, Barbie fell victim in 1961 or 1962 to Mom’s well-intentioned efforts to round up old toys before the holidays and donate them to charity, making room for the new. This was a serious blow.
By Christmas 1960 I’d totally given up any lingering belief in Santa. Weeks before that Christmas Dad had started a new job, in Bluefield, West Virginia, and moved the family there, to a large rambling two story house on East Jefferson Street at the foot of Flat Top Mountain. Mom was very close to giving birth to her sixth child, Christine, born less than two weeks later. I recall a tabletop size tree that year, perched on a cloth-covered box.
By Christmas 1960 I’d totally given up any lingering belief in Santa. Weeks before that Christmas Dad had started a new job, in Bluefield, West Virginia, and moved the family there, to a large rambling two story house on East Jefferson Street at the foot of Flat Top Mountain. Mom was very close to giving birth to her sixth child, Christine, born less than two weeks later. I recall a tabletop size tree that year, perched on a cloth-covered box.
Waiting to open presents. Christmas, 1960.
The tree was put away the day after Christmas that year, although some of the other holiday trimmings stayed up a bit longer. That Christmas Dad and I went to Midnight Mass. Mom stayed home with Bob, who was sick with bronchitis, as he was in my recollection just about every Christmas until he got his tonsils out in the third grade. I recall walking through the snow from our street side parking space to Sacred Heart Church, and the beauty of the lighted bulbs on the houses as they threw bright colors on the snow. That year I recall receiving a large “walking doll” from Grandma and Grandpa, with blond braids.
Interior, Sacred Heart Church, Bluefield West Virginia. From church's Facebook page.
Christmas 1961 was our first Christmas in Charlottesville, and my memories of the specifics are indistinct. It was probably in Christmas 1961 though when I received a red-haired Barbie in a “bubble” hairdo.
Bubble-haired Barbie, currently on Ebay
I think I also got my Ken doll, with “flocked” hair, that Christmas.
Ken doll, currently on Ebay
The following year, Christmas 1962, was probably my most disappointing Christmas. I was in the fifth grade that year, just about to turn 11, and not excited with the puppet theater that was meant to be my big gift. At all. That might have been the year that little Scandinavian trolls with candy cotton hair became popular in our part of the world. I recall Mom making felt clothes for trolls for my sisters one Christmas, and I think this may have been the one. I recall taking my little troll to school in the fifth grade, and sitting on the blacktop with classmates sewing little clothes and crafting a cardboard home for it. Several decades later the troll trend returned, and my daughter acquired several. And a few years ago I gave her my large Santa troll (circa mid-60s) for her home’s holiday décor.
Small troll doll, currently on Ebay
Santa troll, currently on Ebay
Christmas 1963 was a different kind of holiday for us. Mom and Dad and our family of by then eight children took the train to Chicago and spent time with Grandpa and Grandma Wolinski, Granny Stroh, aunts, uncles, and cousins. There was snow on the ground when we left Charlottesville, and snow on the ground the whole trip. I remember sitting all together on benches in the middle of Union Station in Washington as we waited to change trains. I recall staring out the train windows as we made our way to Chicago, the lights on the houses shining on the snow, the Christmas decorations stretched across the main streets of the towns we passed.
Chicago was cold, and windy. I stayed with my Aunt Mary Anne and her family, got to accompany my cousins to school one day, and was introduced to one cousin’s portable record player and records. I recall accompanying my aunt and family to their parish church on Christmas Day, and the gorgeous bank of red poinsettias at the high altar. I recall Grandma and Grandpa Wolinski’s Christmas tree, in the front bay of their home on Monticello Avenue, at that time still a Polish neighborhood within easy walking distance of Saint Hyacinth’s, Grandma and Grandpa's parish.
Chicago was cold, and windy. I stayed with my Aunt Mary Anne and her family, got to accompany my cousins to school one day, and was introduced to one cousin’s portable record player and records. I recall accompanying my aunt and family to their parish church on Christmas Day, and the gorgeous bank of red poinsettias at the high altar. I recall Grandma and Grandpa Wolinski’s Christmas tree, in the front bay of their home on Monticello Avenue, at that time still a Polish neighborhood within easy walking distance of Saint Hyacinth’s, Grandma and Grandpa's parish.
Grandma and Grandpa Wolinski, with their Braun, Kosiba, and Stroh grandchildren.
We also visited Dad’s mother, Granny Stroh, and Dad’s brother, my Uncle Lee, and his family. I recall with pride my Christmas outfit, red tights, a festive dress with a dark green top and white satiny skirt. I recall listening during that visit, and really throughout that Christmas, to Bing Crosby’s recently released version of Do You Hear What I Hear, with its haunting line “Pray for Peace, People Everywhere.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuE_DXrt2Js
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuE_DXrt2Js
Granny Stroh, with Mary, baby Susan, Kathy, first row.
Second row Bob, me, Dan.Toddler Jimmy must have been elsewhere when this photo was taken. Could that be him on the kitchen floor?
Second row Bob, me, Dan.Toddler Jimmy must have been elsewhere when this photo was taken. Could that be him on the kitchen floor?
There were few presents from Santa when we got back to Charlottesville that year, but the gift of the trip was memorable.
Christmas 1964, when I was in the seventh grade, was fun for us in a new way. The four oldest – me, Bob, Dan, Kathy - decided to set up a surprise Christmas tree for Mom and Dad in the closet of the downstairs bedroom the boys shared. In the fall of September 1963 we had moved into the house on Davis Ave that Mom and Dad had built, a move that occurred basically simultaneously with Susan’s birth. The area has since been fully developed, but for some years the land behind our house was steep and forested with little to middling sized trees. Bob cut a little pine, we made decorations for it, and placed our gifts underneath. After Midnight Mass that Christmas we had our big reveal. Years later Kathy wrote a piece about this tree that was printed in our local paper. The tradition of the “downstairs tree” lasted for most of the years Mom and Dad, and later just Mom, lived on Davis Ave, albeit morphing into a bigger tree, then an artificial tree, with lights and many ornaments, and moving to the family room after Mom and Dad added to the house in 1972.
Christmas 1964, when I was in the seventh grade, was fun for us in a new way. The four oldest – me, Bob, Dan, Kathy - decided to set up a surprise Christmas tree for Mom and Dad in the closet of the downstairs bedroom the boys shared. In the fall of September 1963 we had moved into the house on Davis Ave that Mom and Dad had built, a move that occurred basically simultaneously with Susan’s birth. The area has since been fully developed, but for some years the land behind our house was steep and forested with little to middling sized trees. Bob cut a little pine, we made decorations for it, and placed our gifts underneath. After Midnight Mass that Christmas we had our big reveal. Years later Kathy wrote a piece about this tree that was printed in our local paper. The tradition of the “downstairs tree” lasted for most of the years Mom and Dad, and later just Mom, lived on Davis Ave, albeit morphing into a bigger tree, then an artificial tree, with lights and many ornaments, and moving to the family room after Mom and Dad added to the house in 1972.
For Christmas 1964, or it might have been 1965, I recall receiving white ice skates from Grandma and Grandpa Wolinski. I had never skated on ice before, but at that time there was an outdoor ice rink on Afton Mountain, some 20+ miles from Charlottesville, attached to a mountaintop Holiday Inn. I recall several trips to this destination to use my skates. What a wonderful winter activity. I think it was also around Christmas 1964 when I received a knock-off copy of the Beatles’ first LP.
1965, with Santa
I was in the ninth grade at Christmas 1966. I had a Saturday job filing and answering the phone for the radio station Dad owned at that time, WELK, and listened while working to the songs being played over the air. I especially recall hearing Simon and Garfunkel’s haunting 7 O’Clock News/Silent Night, from their 1966 album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (most of the lyrics of which I can probably still recall). Vietnam, Martin Luther King, Richard Speck, Richard Nixon – the news overlaid by the carol. Those times don’t seem that far away.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgYFXCUEL4Y
What I recall about the Christmas of 1968 are some of the gifts I gave. That was the year I made an ivory colored peignoir set for Mom. For my sisters I made dolls, using Joan Walsh Anglund patterns. Kathy, Mary, Chris and Susan each got one of the Little Women. They had tiny shoes and stockings, underclothes, dresses, or pinafores or aprons. For Sharon I made an eskimo doll, with a printed parka, furry pants and little boots. Somehow all but one of these dolls came back to me when my own children were still young, and for many Christmases, on and off, I’ve displayed them in a basket under the tree.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgYFXCUEL4Y
What I recall about the Christmas of 1968 are some of the gifts I gave. That was the year I made an ivory colored peignoir set for Mom. For my sisters I made dolls, using Joan Walsh Anglund patterns. Kathy, Mary, Chris and Susan each got one of the Little Women. They had tiny shoes and stockings, underclothes, dresses, or pinafores or aprons. For Sharon I made an eskimo doll, with a printed parka, furry pants and little boots. Somehow all but one of these dolls came back to me when my own children were still young, and for many Christmases, on and off, I’ve displayed them in a basket under the tree.
In terms of gifts received in Christmases in the latter half of the 60s, for me it was mainly about the clothes. I especially remember a couple of wool skirts and matching sweaters in green and melon; a bright yellow jumper with a cream colored blouse; a jumper in a lime green, with matching cabled stockings.
My last Christmas living at home, Christmas 1970, was memorable. The previous New Year’s Eve Gary and I, then high school seniors, had gotten back together after a year and a half breakup.
Mom was recovering from surgery that Christmas, and Grandma Wolinski, having lost Grandpa in 1969, had come to visit. That Christmas I gave Gary fur-lined leather gloves, purchased in a store in downtown D.C. Gary gave me a Joan Baez album and a ring. Which, along with the wedding band he gave me the following June when we were married, and the band of tiny diamonds he got me for our 25th anniversary in 1996, I am wearing as I type this. Grandma was there for our wedding, but sadly did not make it to Christmas 1971.