Christmas Memories

My best Christmas memories are of my childhood in the Fifties. Our family lived in a second floor apartment building on Washington Avenue in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. Our rent was $22.50 a month, a fact my Mother often repeated.

I had (have) two younger brothers. Our apartment had a "front" room (living room) where my Mother and father would place our always scrawny Christmas tree.  Unfortunately I do not have any pictures of that tree.  My Mother never thought to take pictures of her boys with the Christmas tree. It wasn't until I got a camera for Christmas when I was eleven years old that I started to take pictures. By then we had moved to a different second floor apartment on Boot Road in Downingtown.

The "front" room was literally in the front of our apartment. Moving towards the back of our apartment was a bathroom, then a kitchen, then two adjoining bedrooms in the back of the apartment.  Most if not all of the family activity was conducted around the kitchen table.  This was the Fifties. Think Ralph Kramden and Alice in "The Honeymooners."

One indelible and warm memory I will always remember are the colorful bubble lights on our Christmas tree. Also the silver tinsel, which gave a shimmering effect on the tree.  We finished the decorations with unadorned color bulbs, one of which was always guaranteed to fall and shatter in many pieces. And of course there was the delightful evergreen smell. Oh the magic of Christmas!

I don't remember too much about gifts other than being disappointed when we received clothes, which I didn't consider a real Christmas present. But what I do remember was the year I asked for a train set. Santa brought me a train set but my Mother told me that the train set was for "all you boys."  What?  Share?  How can you share a train set?

Well, we tried.  I took over the engine (of course since I was the oldest).  My next younger brother Isaac took the three middle cars. My youngest brother John took the caboose. I don't need to tell you this arrangement didn't work.  We tried, we really tried but what Mom created with this "share" direction was three very disappointed young boys.  

I don't know what happened to that train set. It was a Lionel train set. Smoke blew out the smoke stack of the engine. It worked but my brothers and I didn't work well together.  Mom had good intentions but her solution to having little money for Christmas gifts for three young boys didn't work out.  

The next year we moved to Boot Road, into another second floor apartment. This time I asked for a camera.  I got one! The rest is history. Yesterday I backed up my 94,385 photos to an external hard drive, finally!   

My brothers John and Isaac with their new bikes - 1953 - I got my Kodak camera - no charing this Christmas!