Does anyone remember? I do. Share your memories..

[EE_Bota]

We had a big family so we had a big garden too. One of the things we grew were strawberries. Some mornings, breakfast was biscuits or pancakes smothered with hot strawberry sauce. :licking:

We ate lots of good food like cornbread and milk, cooked cabbage, collard greens, creases, creamed potatoes or my favorite: potato soup and cornbread.

After Thanksgiving dinner (which was the noon meal) tradition was that we would all wonder the land to find and mark the Christmas tree. That was a pretty smart tradition, since Thanksgiving dinner will throw you into a near coma unless you take a walk or something. Sometimes we'd find a pine that would make a good Christmas tree, but usually it would be a cedar. We had some pretty cedar trees.

The Christmas decorations consisted only of that tree decorated, and mantle decorations which consisted of an arrangements of holly, long needle pine, and "running cedar." I wish I had a picture, but the mantle had an old clock in the middle, a red candle on each side of the clock, and the holly/pine/running cedar arrangement.

The clock had been in our family since new, and it chimed the hour every hour, so the chime had to be pretty pleasant for us to put up with that thing chiming 12 times at midnight, etc.



Two of my siblings have obtained identical clocks because they missed hearing the chime.

For those who may have never seen it, here is what running cedar looks like:


For Christmas, our folks would try to get us a present of some sort, but if they asked me what I wanted, I never knew, so I'd usually say "nothing." Truth be told, when the "Wish Book" arrived each year, I'd wear that thing out looking at it...I'd look at every item a boy would be interested in, and read the description entirely...multiple times. By the time Christmas came, I had already had most of the fun that was possible just reading the "Wish book." (I used to love it when the big book came too.) I knew even as a kid what I know now: I have way more fun looking and imagining and wondering than I ever have had possessing the actual item. Looking at the catalog as much as I did, if I truly wanted something enough to justify my folks spending their hard earned money on it, I would have been able to decide what I wanted. If the Wish Book didn't arrive in the mail free each year, the answer to their question would have been really easy: I want a Wish Book!

 

[/pine]

For those who may have never seen it, here is what running cedar looks like:

A little hard to tell from the picture but I think that is what we call "turkey track"...?

 

[hunterridgefarm]

For those who may have never seen it, here is what running cedar looks like:
View attachment 282140

I have this growing on our property only we call it "creeping cedar". When my wife and I were first married money was tight and we used this for Christmas decoration.

 

[EE_Bota]

I have this growing on our property only we call it "creeping cedar". When my wife and I were first married money was tight and we used this for Christmas decoration.

Money was always tight when I was a kid, but I was pretty happy. So, as a consequence I suppose, I am still happy with the simple things of my youth. I have too much "stuff" now, but I don't really appreciate it, yet I still appreciate the things I appreciated then. Our mantle could not have been better decorated or more beautiful even with unlimited money. If a Brinks truck full of cash rolled up, it might have cured some worry, but nothing else, since nothing else needed curing.

 

[creekbend]

Does anyone remember decorating the Christmas tree with strands of popcorn? We would make some popcorn and run a needle and thread thru it and hang the strings on the tree, because we couldn't afford the store bought garland.

 

[hunterridgefarm]

Money was always tight when I was a kid,

Yep, I did not know we were poor (money wise) until I went to the city high school and met the rich kids. They did not want anything to do with the poor kids from the country.

 

[hunterridgefarm]

Does anyone remember decorating the Christmas tree with strands of popcorn? We would make some popcorn and run a needle and thread thru it and hang the strings on the tree, because we couldn't afford the store bought garland.

I remember seeing it but we never did it. Popcorn was a treat for us and it would have never made it to the tree. I remember seeing my first popcorn ball made with molasses some kid brought to school...I thought dang your family must be rich:laughing:

 

[EE_Bota]

Does anyone remember decorating the Christmas tree with strands of popcorn? We would make some popcorn and run a needle and thread thru it and hang the strings on the tree, because we couldn't afford the store bought garland.

We did that some...it looked pretty darn good, I thought. We had plenty of stuff to put on a tree, but we did the popcorn anyway because our folks told us about it. Just preparing adds to most things, and stringing up the popcorn was just part of the fun.

 

[EE_Bota]

Yep, I did not know we were poor (money wise) until I went to the city high school and met the rich kids. They did not want anything to do with the poor kids from the country.

Country kids can teach city kids so much, so they should have been all ears and questions. Sometimes, folks aren't as scholarly as they ought to be, so they fail to understand when a learning opportunity presents itself.

Our HS was still out in the country, and it was fed by feeder schools, all of which could be considered schools of mostly country kids. My graduating class had 360 kids, and they seemed like a friendly, down to earth bunch to me, so I was pretty lucky.

Oh, I had an episode or two where someone made fun, etc, but my parents had us well armored in advance about that sort of thing. They already taught us what matters in a person, so we tried to concentrate on those things and not let unimportant things get to us. Where would a person be without good parents, or a willingness to listen and learn?

 

[tcreeley]

I was 3 or so when I saw my first pig butchered. There was a sawhorse plank table set up (this was in Banalbufar Majorca- off coast of Spain) in the street. All of the kids were out of sight, but I was walking around watching stuff on my own- (who knows where my parents were). Some guys grabbed this large pig and hoisted it up on the sawhorse table on its back. There were enough people to hold it down. The men were in a good mood. The pig was squealing while they held it down. A guy near its head pulled out a long kitchen type knife and started cutting its throat. It really squealed then and someone had a basin and was catching the blood with it as it streamed out of the pig. I kept watching and one of the women from the side came over and gave me a round milk cracker to eat while I watched. One of the men with a smile held his bloody hands in my face. It looked like the pig was having its head sawed off with the knife - one bloody cut/gash going around its neck. I'll always remember that. It was a friendly feeling watching. Just what people did. That was it for the pig. - 1953.