Contemporary History #7 – The Christmas Spot

Christmas

For the Drums, as far back as I know, “the Holidays” meant Christmas. Christmas, of course, carries with it many memories. I am sure that, for most of us who celebrate Christmas, there are numerous things that bring memories of past Christmases back to mind, puts us “in the mood” so to speak, but usually there is that one thing that stands out from all the rest that brings back ALL the memories.

Perhaps it is a lighted candle in a frosted window or a log burning in a fireplace. It might be a snowflake landing on your nose or a Cardinal alighting on a birdfeeder. Perhaps it is a sound; jingling bells or carolers outside your home singing “we wish you a merry Christmas” or a choir echoing “Hark the herald angels sing” through a church nave; the sharp thwack of an ax against the trunk of a tree or “Ho-ho-ho” or children’s laughter. It might be a smell; pine needles or gingerbread cookies or peppermint or hot cocoa. It might even be the sticky feeling of pine-pitch between your fingers or peppermint candy cane upon your lips! The list, I am sure, could grow very long.

For me it is this: 

No, not the tree. Above the tree.

Not the angle, higher. On the ceiling.

Here: 

Do you see it? There, in the middle. That’s right, that spot! Nothing makes me think “Christmas” more.

That spot makes me feel warm and happy and a bit "teary-eyed-nostalgic" each time I look at it. It just makes me smile. I can still hear Mom, the day it got there, exclaiming, “Oh no! Now that spot is going to be there forever! I TOLD you to be careful!!” She was both disappointed and angry at the same time. Little could she have ever known the great value that spot has gained for me.

This was Christmas 1955. Nathan was 22 months old. Mom
said that year he asked everyone for a truck for Christmas.
Note all the trucks parked around the edge.
A Nativity was placed on one side of the tree.
On the other is a small, rural scene for the “town”.
Don’t worry, the “town” is soon going to expand.
The Nativity will be placed in another location all its own.

Dad loved electric trains. Even as a boy he would build a toy town at the foot of the Christmas Tree. He made buildings for his town out of cardboard and paint. He put lights inside them, ran cardboard roads between them and sat little plastic or cardboard people in front of them. Then, all around his town he laid track for a toy train. So, after he was married, he continued his tradition. When my brother, Nathan, came along in 1954, Dad built a toy town under the tree for him and gave him a train set. Each year thereafter the town grew bigger and more involved.

By the time I came along in 1957, Dad was putting the town up on a platform, a raised 5’ x 8’ board covered with green (for grass) crepe paper. He had holes drilled through the board through which Christmas lights could be pushed over which the houses could be placed. Having the board raised a foot or so off the floor allowed space underneath for the electrical wires needed for the lights and the trains. The tree, however, always remained in the center.

This photo from 1966 gives you an idea
of the final product we’d create.

Our trees were always real trees. We all agreed that the best tree for a Christmas Tree was a White Pine. It’s still my first choice when I can find one.

Usually around Thanksgiving, Dad would announce it was time to go get a Christmas Tree. We’d pile into his truck and off we’d go to a local tree farm to begin the search for “the perfect tree”. Once found, Dad would crawl under its branches and begin to saw through the trunk, down close to the ground. Then we’d bring it home to wait for Christmas. It was the most fun I could imagine. The day Dad told me I could do the honors of cutting it down was a thrilling day without equal, although I think I needed help getting it cut all the way through that first time. Then it would wait out in the barn until the day came for it to be brought into the house and decorated.

When we were very little, before we went out on our tree-hunting expeditions, Dad got the tree on his own without our knowing. On Christmas Eve Mom and Dad would send us to bed as early as possible, as early as we would let them, anyway, and then go to work putting up the tree and building that town, trains and all! In the morning, Christmas Day, we would rush out into the living room and there we found presents, a whole toy town and a fully decorated Christmas tree that had not been there the night before when we went to bed. Then it was a mad dash into my parents’ room to tell them what I, at that time, thought was fantastic news: SANTA HAD COME AND HAD GIVEN US A TREE WITH A TOY TOWN AND A TRAIN AND PRESENTS TOO!!

My poor parents had probably only gotten into bed maybe an hour earlier if that, having worked the entire night! But up they jumped, well, they got out of bed, anyway, and let me pull them along down the hall to see the wonder that had happened overnight. My brother, who was both older and smarter than me, caught on quicker, earlier than I did, to what was going on. He did his best to keep their work a secret from me. I remember one Christmas he had to drag me back into the bedroom and make me wait, WAIT, QUIETLY, until the sun came up around 7:30am (he didn’t think he could make me wait any longer!) to make sure they were back in bed and perhaps get at least a few winks of sleep. I thought that sun was NEVER going to come up! After I caught on, things got easier for Mom and Dad. Well, at least they got more sleep on Christmas Eve.

About a week before Christmas we would begin the “process.” The furniture would be moved out of the way and the platform would be laid. Then we’d go out to the barn to get the tree, now usually sitting in a bucket of ice. We’d march the tree around to the front door, set it into the tree stand, then push it through the door and into the living room. There was usually some thing that had not been moved far enough away that would get toppled by the branches as they swept by. Then the tree would be placed right in the middle of the platform, right in front of Mom’s floor-to-ceiling living room window, and the decorating would commence.

Mom loved Sonny James. She even got his autograph.

Mom loved Elvis, too. No autograph from him, though.

Mom loved just about any Christmas music there was but especially if Sonny or Elvis was singing it.

I found a stack of Sonny James and Elvis records along with a few others but,
except for these three, none of the Christmas records.
I don’t know, you don’t think she took them with her, do you?

Onto the record player went a stack of Christmas records and for the rest of the evening the house was filled with Sonny singing “Barefoot Santa Claus”, Elvis singing “Blue Christmas”, all of us singing along with Mitch Miller, listening to the Nutcracker Suite,  hearing Gene Autry singing “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer”, Bing Crosby intoning “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas”,  and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing songs of the season, and more.

The lights were strung on first, usually beginning as a balled-up mess left from the previous year that always elicited words not expected to be heard at Christmas. Then across the couch and any other available chair or space, would be spread the numerous boxes of Christmas Tree ornaments: chains, bells, globes, toys, glass icicles; even angels and glass grapes that once hung on mom’s mother’s tree! 

Angels and Grapes at the top of the tree.
What? Did you think I was kidding?

Carefully Mom would unwrap each ornament from its tissue paper wrapper and with even more care, hand it to one of us to hang on the tree. Usually, in the early hours of the evening, there was a story that went with the ornament, but as the evening grew longer, the need to finish overcame the need to tell stories.

Some of the ornaments she didn’t trust to hand to us. She placed those on the tree, herself, such as the angels and grapes. That was probably because some of those she DID entrust to us didn’t make it to the tree! Then there were those few times when she, herself, failed to get an ornament to the tree, or back in the box whole again after Christmas. I hate to admit it but I did note a strange twinge of pleasure, kept way down deep inside, of course, those few times when the ornament found its way out of Mom’s fingers and down to the floor. 

After the last string of popcorn (saved from a previous year!) was draped around the tree, on went the finishing touch, TINSEL! Sometimes Mom’s trees looked like they were covered with a spiderweb! She loved tinsel. “It makes the tree SHIMMER!” she’d say. She had to give the tinsel up, however, because it sometimes fell onto the train tracks. The aluminum kind shorted out the system and the plastic kind sometimes caused the trains to jump the tracks. Then we went to town building the toy town below the tree.

Lights were pushed up from below. I liked doing that when they’d allow me to when I was little. The job got “older” as I did too. Buildings of various styles were set over the bulbs; some were made by Dad as a teen, some were store-bought cardboard, some were Plasticville brand. Plasticville had people too so they were added as well. Life-Like brand dirt and trees were added for paths and parks, cardboard roads were laid and matchbox cars placed on them. Animals, birds, even FISH could be found someplace on one of our platforms. These worlds we created were involved.

I’m not sure when this photo was taken
but that is my Diesel train on one of Nathan’s tracks.
He had an oval with an inner and an outer loop.
Switches he controlled from his side of the platform
could be changed to allow one loop or the other to operate.
His outer loop is seen next in the photo to the right
and my loop ran around the outer edge of the platform.

One Christmas morning, 1967 I think, I came out of the bedroom to find that now I, too, had a train set. Nathan’s trains were steam locomotives. My new train was a shiny, silver Diesel engine and three passenger cars. I also, eventually, got a locomotive or two as well. My parents weren’t stupid, either. Nathan’s train, on its own set of tracks, was controlled by a transformer and buttons set up on the East side of the platform. Mine, also on its own set of tracks, was controlled from by a transformer and buttons set up on the West side of the platform.

The cattle pens and “Cow-on-the-track” were to the left of this photo
 just out of the frame so not shown.
You can, however, see one of the switches there in front.

Nathan’s side of the platform was a farm/rural area. He had a cow that would “walk” out onto the tracks and stop his train. He had a cattle yard that had two pens of cattle. These cattle would “run” around their pen until a specific button was pushed and the pen’s gate was opened. Then the cattle would run up a chute and onto a cattle boxcar. Then Nathan would run his train around the oval until the boxcar was back beside the cattle pens. Doors and gates opened, button pushed, and down the chute the cattle would come, off the boxcar and back into their pen.

My side was the city. I had a Semaphore Man who would could stop the train, a Milk Boxcar that unloaded barrels of Milk, a Flatcar that unloaded lumber, and a flatcar that unloaded an automobile. All of these trains and accessories were American Flyer brand trains.

The city side was a busy place. There is a Park, Church, stores, Train Station, work crew, Gas Station and more.

Once we were all in the Living Room on Christmas morning, the opening of the presents commenced! Pieces of wrapping paper and ribbon flew everywhere! 

Below is a shot from 1967. I guess it is obvious but that’s me in the leopard-spot PJ’s and Nathan is looking down at one of his presents. I do not know what I am hugging but I seem to be glad to have it. I am also not sure what the game is there by my side. The box on top of the game says “Woody Woodpecker Hand Puppet”. I did love that puppet. And there on the left side of the photo, peeking in, is my old turtle. He was almost as big as me and I loved sitting on that turtle. I wonder if that was the Christmas when I got him or if he was already a family member by 1967.

Families growing up also can mean families moving apart. Nathan went his way during his mid-1970’s college years and I went mine a few years later. Dad died in 1986 but Mom continued to put up the platform year after year as long as she could. I came back a number of times to help her put it up. The last platform Drumyngham saw was put up by me in 2006. Here is a photo of it (note there is no tree in the middle. Mom’s tree was off to the side that year. By then she preferred an artificial tree; easier to put up and less danger of fire.

The 2006 layout was a tad smaller and had a different platform (one I made instead of the one Dad had made). Many of the things in the photo were on the childhood layouts but some are “new” as well. Mom and I reversed the traditional configuration, placing the farm on the West side of the platform. You can see the barn in the back upper right of the photo. There is a white church, then a yellow building, then a red church-like building. The yellow structure is a Library I made and the red building is a Plasticville church we made into the town hall. On the righthand edge of the photo, almost out of the picture, is a red brick building with the letters “WHAT” on its roof. That is a radio station my dad made as a teenager. You may note a panda bear in the lower right corner. We got him at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.  You never know what you’ll find on one of our platforms. In the upper left corner, you can see a yellow rectangular object. That is a school bus I made. About half-way down the left-side of the photo is a large wooden building. It is a warehouse I made. It is open in the front to receive the cargo, lumber or automobile, that is unloaded from the flatcar or milk barrels from the milk boxcar. On this platform but just off the photo was also a whale, a light house I made, and, around the train controls, I built a Power House Electrical Plant.

Christmas at Drumyngham was always magical.

Which brings me back to my Christmas Spot. Pine trees have pine-pitch. It gets on just about everything. So, if you measure just a tad off, or pick your tree up too high as you place it on the raised platform, as we did, you are in danger of bumping your Christmas Tree into the ceiling, as we did, and leaving a bit of pine-pitch behind. That’s how the spot got on the ceiling.

And Mom was right, at least so far, it will be there forever, to remind me of all that once happened below it.

Thankfully.

Merry Christmas.