ALAN writes:

To a little boy growing up in that decade, it seemed that Christmas was the high point of each year.  The sights and sounds and texture of those Christmases are kept in the deepest and darkest vault of my memories.  It never was the toys or gifts I received that lingered years afterward in memory.  It was something apart from those:  The spirit of those days around Christmas, a palpable spirit of good cheer, confidence, and expectation; the extended family and friends who came to visit; their company and conversation, punctuated every so often by laughter or the silence of remembering Christmases years before; and how the home in which I was fortunate to grow up became illuminated every Christmas by such people and the sound of their voices, the lights and colors of Christmas, and the soothing, inspirational sounds of Christmas Carols and music.

Such days and those people are alive to me again whenever I review the dozens of color slides that my mother took on such occasions.  Here are a few of them:

Juniata Street in south St. Louis on the morning after a sleet storm in December 1956.

My friend and parochial school classmate Tony (at left) sits with me on one of the giant Christmas Cards on display across from City Hall in downtown St. Louis.  December 1956.

On the same night 65 years ago, I stood beside my mother as she took this color slide of the life-size Nativity scene outside the Soldiers Memorial building on Chestnut Street in downtown St. Louis.

My good friend Betty [ “My Betty”, The Thinking Housewife, Feb. 26, 2017 ] standing with me amid the Christmas display of poinsettias at the St. Louis Board of Education Greenhouse.  December 1958.

The mantel in our home, December 1959.  My mother used these two gold candle-holders every Christmas for 40 years.

Around the dining room table on Christmas Day, 1959, are Uncle Gus, cousin Don, Uncle Hap, Aunt Leona, little Alan, Aunt Elsie, and Grandfather.  The two uncles were cigarette smokers.  The aunts were excellent housekeepers and kept their homes attractive and tidy.  Later in the evening all of them shared eggnog.  If only I had known then the depth of gratitude that I owed to these good people but that I would not comprehend until years afterward.

On some Christmas Eve nights in those years, after our company went home, I would be left in the afterglow of their presence.  It was in that setting that I would watch the 1938 version of “A Christmas Carol” that was always shown on late night TV in St. Louis.  A few nights ago, I watched it again; Gene Lockhart and Reginald Owen are now like old acquaintances.  And the good people in this photograph are still here today:  They live now in my interior castle.

— Comments —

Janice G. writes:

I thank you for posting Alan’s Christmas memoirs and the pictures he shared. From them I would say he must be about the same age as my oldest sibling; I see that Christmases in my working class town were very much the same when we were growing up.

Ah… such wonderful memories!

Thanks, Alan.

God’s Peace to all of good will during this Christmas Season, and through the New Year.

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