For our first Christmases we hung up our stockings—pinned to the side of the daybed in the living room. They were our own long stockings that we wore in the winter-time, not special stockings made of red and green felt. When we got up on Christmas morning, our stockings would be lumpy because there would be an apple and an orange, which we didn’t see very often in Iowa. And some hard candy—red and green and white with little tiny flowers on it. And my mother made fudge and divinity, but I don’t remember if she put it in our stockings or just served it off of a plate. There must have been some small toys but I don’t remember any.
One year my daddy brought home a Christmas tree. He was out on Christmas Eve for some reason and a tree man who couldn’t sell all of his trees just gave one to my Daddy. We didn’t have any decorations for it, but it smelled nice.
Another time my mother made us stuffed toys. I don’t where she got the old coats, but out of the yellow coat she made a duck. She put cardboard in the bottom of the feet so it would stand up. Out of the black coat with fake curly hair she made a Scotty dog.
One year she gave my brother her Toonerville Trolley car. It was a special toy she had bought for herself a long time ago. She had never let us play with it. Just once in a while she would wind it up and let us watch it go. I remember it going bumpety-bump, like maybe it had one bigger wheel and three smaller ones.
While she was wrapping it up for him I saw tears in her eyes. Was that because she knew that if she gave it to a three-year-old it would soon break and she wouldn’t have it any more? I never asked her.
