Sadly I couldn’t keep my promise to you of two days ago to share more of my (circa)1958 saga of Christmases past. As you likely know, Cincinnati was at the center of a horrific winter storm. All of my energies were diverted to shoveling 12-15” of snow - multiple times - as well as making sure my mother was secure on the farm.

The days before Christmas in our 1958 scenario were filled with anticipation. Christmas Eve would include a local church service, usually at midnight, followed by eggnog and mom’s homemade fruitcake upon return to the farm.

Finally it was bedtime and the challenge of going to sleep. More than once I had my own small Christmas tree in my room, and on Christmas Eve I’d go to sleep with the tree lights still burning. To this day we still leave the barn’s Christmas lights and the lighted star on the house burn throughout Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Christmas morning had its own set of rituals which were adhered to even through my high school years. We kids could not come down the stairs without permission. Mom and dad would have to be coaxed to awaken by our urgings from the upstairs. Even then, dad would need to get the fire going in the furnace before anything else happened. Finally, Christmas tree lights were turned on, followed by dad’s investigation into whether Santa had actually visited. Once it was concluded he’d stopped by, we were given permission to descend the stairs.

Santa had conveniently left our presents in separate areas of the living room, and as if by some miraculous prearrangement, each of us knew where to look. Christmas gifts from Santa were never wrapped, but were found sans boxes and paper. However, gifts from grandparents and others were always wrapped.

I can still feel the excitement of coming down the stairs on Christmas morning and the surprise - and the occasional disappointments - in discovering the presents I’d received. I say ‘disappointments’ because our family’s economic circumstances were sometimes evident at Christmas. I don’t believe I ever really considered my family to be 'poor’, but I knew most of the my friends in the suburbs would have more substantial presents than I’d have to talk about at school following vacation.

At a point I can’t clearly remember, I came to the realization that not all of our gifts were new. Other children had played with some of my gifts prior to them being given to me. My mother has spoken a little about dad’s tendency to go overboard with frugality when it came to Christmas presents. She knew our finances were tight, but felt we should still have new, not used, gifts at Christmas. I’m not being critical of my father. He did the best he could as a product of the Depression and from knowing trying times firsthand. He also could project into the future and plan accordingly for future needs of the family, ie. the college education of his children. However, it has been important to me, very important, that my own children never receive secondhand Christmas presents.

As I share these thoughts with you on this Christmas Eve, 2004, I eagerly await the arrival tomorrow of my own son, David, from Baltimore. Due to the severe Cincinnati snow storm, his flight was canceled and could only be rebooked for Christmas Day. May he arrive safely. I await him...

The snow is flying in Cincinnati as I begin this chapter. The forecast is for 6-12”. Temperature for Christmas morning is minus 2!

What better setting exists to reminisce about a childhood Christmas. By this date in, let’s pick, 1958, our tree would would be up and decorated. A Lionel train set would also be running on a 4x8 sheet of plywood laid out the dining room floor, and its town of little people, trees, cars, houses, etc. fixed in position, awaiting the imaginations of three children.

My father’s announcement of, “Let’s cut the Christmas tree today,” was always magic to the ears of my brother, sister, and me. If the ground was snow covered, we hitch the horses up to a battered wood sled with steel runners. Dad would drive the sled with the family on board over a rough trail leading to the northern section of the farm where the grove of pines stood. These Austrian pines were 30-40 ft. tall, even in my childhood, towering upwards 50-70 ft. today.

Dad would have to climb the branches of the chosen tree to top it with a saw, lowering it to the ground with a rope. Extra greens would also be cut for making wreaths and swags to hang outside the house and on the large mailbox at the end of the lane. The tree would have priority for the sled ride back to the house. Occasionally there’d be an open spot on the tree where there wasn’t a branch. Dad would use a wood auger to drill a hole and then insert a piece of the extra greenery we’d brought back with us. No one could ever tell that the added branch hadn’t naturally grown in that spot.

Furniture was moved in the living room to clear space for the large tree, which always seemed to just graze the 9 ft. ceiling. The next task was to cajole dad into putting the lights on the tree. Often it seemed the tree would stand naked for days before he’d dig into an upstairs closet and bring down the light sets. This was before the days of miniature lights, and besides, our long needled trees (6-8”) were better served with the larger traditional bulbs. Dad worked from the top of the tree downward in placing the lights, always making sure there was a white bulb in the very top light.

Everyone could help with the ornaments, except the two delicate, glass, German decorations in the shape and actual size of clusters of grapes. These were left to dad or mom to tie securely to a branch. These special ornaments still survive, with my brother caring for the gold one while I preserve its silver twin.

The finale of decorating was the hanging of icicles - a word I prefer over tinsel. Ours were the traditional metallic icicles, which are impossible to find today, having given way to cheap, plastic, difficult to hang, plastic imitations. (I still have a handful of these icicles which mom gave me many years ago. They were always saved and reused from year to year).

Two rules re. hanging icicles could not be broken: 1) icicle strands must be hung one by one (although two or three can hang together on the same branch); 2) icicles must not touch an ornament or any other branch besides the one they’re hung from. These are rules I live by to this day, and hopefully this tradition will be carried on by my children!

To be continued later today...

It’s been difficult deciding where next to set my pointer. I don’t wish to overdo the the Christmas memories, whether sweet or sour. Christmas topics are on hold for at least another week! However, you should know about heat.

Staying warm is something many of us take for granted in our lives. Others struggle to stay warm during the winter months, as doorways, alleyways, and highway overpasses offer little to sustain the body’s temperature when it’s 20 degrees outside.

To be honest, I never physically suffered from lack of heat. Was I often cold, yes indeed, especially upstairs at night. But it was nothing compared to what other, less fortunate folk, endured daily - then and now.

The farmhouse had three levels: basement; main floor; upstairs. The basement was a dark, dank, subterranean space. All of mom’s jars of produce from summer canning were stored on wooden shelves, hidden from daylight by sheets of cloth hung from wire. Here too was the coal bin, always dark, with it’s earthy black smells. And in the basement’s center was the furnace, that cantankerous, cast iron, heat source with it’s accessories of doors, chains, dampers, and more.

A rotund monster it was, perhaps 6 feet in diameter, consisting of an outer sheet metal skin, which hid its cast iron innards. There was no ductwork and no fan to force heat throughout the farmhouse. The physics of “hot air rises,” was the only the truth that gave us heat.

We fired up the furnace with anthracite coal and hardwood. (There’s a great coal story waiting to be told when the summer tales are ready for the telling. And, you’ve previously read about cutting winter wood.)

The furnace was essentially a cast iron boiler with doors for adding the fuel, controlling air flow, and cleaning out the ashes. A large pipe connected the furnace to the chimney. Built into this pipe was a damper door which regulated the amount of “draw” the chimney would exert on the fire. The damper door was connected by a chain and pulleys to a motor that was wired to a thermostat. It was a fairly simple but effective system to somewhat regulate the heat.

Above the furnace, on the main floor, was an iron grate, roughly three feet square. The top of the furnace boiler was visible through the grate. As the heated boiler gave off warmth, the heated air rose through the grate and into the rest of the house - at least on the main floor. The kitchen, dining and living rooms, bathroom, and mom & dad’s bedroom were all on this floor. We kids occupied the the three upstairs bedrooms - the cold, frigid, frosty, upstairs bedrooms.

Heat only rises to a point. The three upstairs bedrooms were rarely warm and often downright cold. It was very common to have thick frost on the INSIDE of the upstairs windows in the mornings. My will was always tested as I tried to make myself slide out of bed, hoping my feet would be as tough as the fire walkers of the South Seas - only in reverse!

Dad would usually be the one to put the final wood and coal in the furnace for the night and also be the one in the morning to revive the few remaining glowing coals. The grate over the furnace was the most popular place to be after coming down from a cold night upstairs.

The furnace produced a number of scary moments when it overheated. The boiler could be seen glowing red hot when viewed through the grate on the main floor. The fiery cast iron would give off a smell of overheated metal, another sign that the furnace was acting up. I always had confidence that dad would be able to adjust the damper quickly enough to prevent the house from bursting into flames. However, those were still frightening incidents for me.

Today the old furnace still remains in the basement. And, a few tons of coal are left in the bin, but the furnace hasn’t been used in over 25 years. The house is now warmed with electric baseboard heaters, saving my elderly mother from having to shovel coal and haul out buckets of ashes. Most importantly, her heat is safe, and easy to control.