Even during hard times, make the holidays something to remember for the kids
By Kathryn Ross
Most everyone knows that times are hard this holiday season. Wallets are thin and prices at the grocery store are higher every time you walk through the sliding doors. No one knows that better than young parents who are trying to raise kids and put food on the table. Older people on fixed incomes also find their pockets emptier every day and see their savings shrinking.
So, think back, there have been hard times before. Our parents and for many, our great and great, great grandparents surely faced them. My parents grew up during the Great Depression which lasted from 1929 to 1939, ten years, not just 10 months. It was a worldwide event and as I’ve heard many times – “In America you couldn’t even get a drink to soften the blow.” Prohibition ran from 1920 to 1933.
It is estimated that two million people found themselves homeless and without steady employment during the Depression. If you’re a student of history at all, you’ve seen the photograph of the gaunt faced, Depression Era mother in her raggedy clothes looking at the camera with a woebegone expression that poses the question, “What do I do now?”
Many of the social programs which exist today got their start during the Great Depression when there were no agencies to help, only the government under Democratic President Franklin D Roosevelt. But this is not a diatribe on politics and whether a Democratic or Republican dominated government is best for this country.
It is about how memories and traditions help us get through the hard times.
As I think back, I don’t remember most of the presents with my name on them, that were under the Christmas tree when I was growing up. I know there was a Tiny Tears doll, a Davy Crockett costume, Rifleman Rifle, ice skates and other things that kids had to have to survive in the competition for who got the best Christmas presents? While I wish I’d preserved those ancient toys from my toy box, today. The memories of them don’t linger in my heart like the memory of my big red jumping horse.
My grandfather and father made the wooden bounce horse for me. It sat on a sturdy wooden frame and had heavy industrial gage springs. Its elegant head was carefully sculpted by a man who knew horses, my grandfather, and enhanced by a flowing yellow mane that matched its tail and it had large brown eyes. The reins on his bridle were made of soft yellow leather which had been tanned and fitted by Grampa.
I named my bounce horse Big Red. My eyes have never been brighter since the day I woke up on Christmas morning and hastened downstairs from my bedroom to find Big Red under the Christmas tree. For years I pushed and pulled that heavy, boxy bounce horse (they’d neglected to put wheels on it) from the sunporch where he was stabled, through the parlor and kitchen to the living room to watch Gunsmoke every Sunday night.
Then one year when, in my opinion, I wasn’t quite old enough to stop riding him, Red was gone.
My mother, thinking I was too old for the childish toy, gave Big Red away, without asking me, to a boy who suffered from polio, the plague of my youth. I understood the generosity and humanity of her gesture, and that I was too big for the bounce horse, but I never forgave her. Yet, today, I fondly remember my first horse and how he went to a better home to help another child grow and become stronger.
It is a memory and a gesture that taught me the need to help others, if not the joy.
For me it’s those memories – getting Christmas trees with my dad, sitting it up and decorating it with my mother and sister, griding up gizzards, crackers and celery for the dressing and stuffing the turkey on Christmas Eve, sitting up all Christmas night, wrapping last minute gifts on my parent’s bed, and finishing quilts for the kids with my sister and I tying them off and Mom making the ruffles.
Those are lifelong memories and family traditions, I remember and cherish. Those are the thoughts that linger in my heart after 75 years. Those memories and traditions are important.
In these difficult financial times, forego the packages from Amazon and instead give kids memories and family traditions they will remember for a lifetime.
Kathryn Ross is a Wellsville mediaite and community activist. You can reach her anytime, kathr_2002@yahoo.com
