December marked the entrance into a joyous, holiday season. Families creating or continuing on with traditions, rituals, or for a select few it was another day and month. In the earlier generations of the 20th Century, unless you were in relatively close proximity, traveling was not a frequent option. Many still relied on horse-drawn and very cold wagons or carriages going to and from for even a few short miles. Long haul traveling was primarily left to either stage coaches, passenger trains, and perhaps ships, if you were in a higher financial class.
Just a few decades later, the motor car afforded families with the ability to enjoy family get-togethers along with the advent of the airplane and passenger planes enabling families to become closer and to continue enjoying old, adapted, or new traditions as the next generation moved to endeavors.
No research was conducted, yet I imagine that due to the infancy or rather the limited choice of travel modes, cards and letters were a staple to sending wishes, updates, and cheer amongst family and friends both near and far. My maternal grandmother, and sometimes my mother, would hang a string across the living room walls and display the various Christmas cards from years past. To my adolescent mind, they were nothing more than decorations, as an adult however, I regret not reading them.
What has not changed much are a few key traditions. Decorating our homes, whether we reside in a cozy apartment or a grand mansion, stockings of simple older socks or crafted stockings hanging somewhere or along a mantel, a tree adorned and dressed, rooms or entire homes decorated, exteriors (or at least windows) illuminated brilliantly to attract all onlookers. These are a few of the familiar things :)
My mother has very much the hand crafting type. She preferred hand-crafted over store bought whenever possible. She crafted stockings for my sister and I which I remember being hung either along our stairway banister or thumbtacked to the living room.
Excerpted from a similar Rediscoverthe80s.com article I wrote, my mother would assemble via stitchwork a town setting atop of our heat register covers. She had a gingerbread house, a church, a cubed house which doubled as a tissue box with the tissues serving as the chimney exhaust, and a large candle which used a Pringles can for the subframe.
Decorating our artificial Christmas tree was a fun endeavor for my family. Hanging the delicate orbs, placing tinsel, and then adding the string of slender, colored bubbling lights. Those captivated the younger me. My mother would go all out for Christmas and it would spill into our dining room. The dark colored buffet would have the fiber optic light, a ceramic tree with multi-colored pine cone shaped pegs, and a strand of garland around the hanging light overtop of the table.
Whether the travels were short or grand, often times visiting with family and sharing a delicious meal were part of the traditions as well. Enjoying one another's company, meeting new family members, perhaps even pulling together a few people for card games or other entertaining venues was another tradition.
My memories of holiday dinners seem to be that we took turns hosted the meals. Either Thanksgiving was hosted by my us, then we'd go to my maternal grandparents (the only grandparents I had at the time) for Christmas and then it would switch the following year. Nevertheless, we'd often have a turkey, occasionally ham as well, mashed potatoes with the hand mixer and my dad, and I, peeling and cutting potatoes and eating a few salted cubes...yes raw *crunch*! Add to that stuffing; green beans plain or the green bean casserole; horderves of gorgons, Spanish olives, and cream cheese filled celery sticks; and usually a pie or two all served on emerald green, translucent dishware at my home.
We rarely had cousins visit so it was left to us being entertained by other family members or we entertained ourselves with our gifts until our teenage years.
Up until 2020, my family and I would make an occasional trek to my home county, Clearfield County, PA and visit with my dad and then my mom. Taking turns at the other's home with visiting, grandparents watching our children open gifts, having lunch or dinner and simply remembering and talking. Since my mother's passing along with the fact that I now have six children, my dad and stepmother make the journey from Glen Richey, PA to our home in Laurel, MD. My children are always excited to see their grandparents and enjoy their two little yorkie dogs yipping.
Care to share your traditions or yesteryear and currently? Any tales of generations past that you've heard tales of?
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