On December 1st Mom wrote in her diary, “Our anniversary today and I cleaned house and did the ironing, and Morris went to work tonight. Guess what! When he came home tonight he bought me box of candy! I gave him a pair of slippers.”  

I missed a few days of school the first week of December because I was sick and could only eat soup.  Mom took me to Doctor Brashear who said I had an infection of the mouth and gave me some medicine and I went back to school two days later. 

On Friday December 18th Dad came home from work and after supper we went out and got a Christmas tree.  We had great fun going up and down the rows of trees calling mom and dad over when we thought we found the perfect tree until we all decided on one.  Dad paid for the tree then tied it to the top of the car, we drove home where dad attached the stand to the bottom and put the tree in the new enclosed front porch.  After dad strung the lights and put the angel on top we all decorated it with Christmas ornaments, strings of tensile.  Over the following days before Christmas, Mom would help each of us kids separately wrap our presents so the others would see them and soon there were quite a pile of presents under the tree which we were not supposed to touch but I would check them out when no one was looking.

My birthday was coming up on December the 22nd but that was in the middle of the week so I had my birthday party the Saturday before and seven boys came, the usual neighborhood boys, Hank, Douglas and the new boy Mike Kelly who just moved into the house behind us and then a couple boys from my first grade class. The Sunday before my birthday, Grandma and Grandpa Junior took our family out to Park Lane Cafeteria to eat which I really liked, you walked down the line with all sorts of food and pointed to whatever I wanted, I loved it. Grandma  and Grandpa then gave me a real watch which I really liked.  (see The Pickle Jar) 

On Christmas Eve many of the family came to our house for dinner. There was Grandma and Grandpa Junior, Aunt Carol and her husband Bob and their kids Dana and Vandy, Aunt Dixie. Gary and Corky. It was quite a crowd for our small house with kids running around and everyone talking and with the excitement in the air of opening our presents Christmas morning.  Come dinner time we all gathered in a circle in the living room, held hands, bowed our heads, and closed our eyes, well mostly, I would always peek and look around at everyone, sometimes catching someone else also peeking. Then Grandpa Junior, being a preacher, said a rather long blessing in the old Baptist style thanking the Almighty for all that had come before, what is and what is to be, and you knew the blessing was coming to the end when he finally got around to thanking God for the food before us, and then saying Amen and everyone responded with another Amen.  The food would be in pots on the stove or in dishes on the kitchen counter and each person would go in, get a plate and fill it with food but with the kitchen being so small and narrow only a few could do so at a time. The kids usually went first with the moms helping fill the plates of the smallest and then we would go sit and eat.  The extra leaf had been put in the adult table, the larger kids sat at the kitchen table and the smallest kids sat at the kiddy table on the front porch that was now all enclosed.  After diner and the dishes cleared and table cleaned the adults played Canasta  while the kids played and watched TV until late.  Aunt Carol, Bob, Dana and Vanda stayed the night while the others went back to Grandma and Grandpa Junior’s house.

On Christmas morning I work up early, woke David up and soon everyone was up and gathered in the living room around the Christmas tree.  Sometime during the night while we all were asleep, Santa Claus came and put more presents under the tree that were not there when we went to bed.   I was quite surprised at the electric train set that was setup on the floor of the porch, it had a two rings of track, an engine, coal car, box car, crane car and several others.  There were two switches which you could press a button and change the track the train took.  I wanted to play with it right away but there were many other presents under the tree still. Mom would have one of us kids get a present from under the tree, hand it to her and she would read the name on it and hand it to the person.  As the presents under the tree diminished, the mounds of wrapping paper, bows and ribbons around the room grew.  David and I both got brand new Cub Scout uniforms which we put on and wore all Christmas day.

Mom (right) passing gift to Brenda, I'm behind givt, David Standing, Carole pointing to Dana, Bob and Vandy

Right, Larry sitting, David standing with new cub scout uniform, Mom, Brending helping Dana with gift, Bob wit baby Vandy.
New train set on floor.

Christmas evening, we all went over to Grandma and Grandpa Junior’s house where Gary, Corky, Jimmy, Sue and Danny, Carole, Bob, Danah, Vandy were all there.  David and I wore our new Cub Scout uniforms

Christmas 1959
Grandpa Junior holding Vandy, David and Larry in new Cub Scout uniforms, Danny, and Brenda with her dolls

It was a wonderful year, in spite of all the stitches, with over one hundred times family and friends visited us or we visited them with more than half of them with lunch or dinner. 

Updated: 07-04-2022

1960.