"Tis the Season to be Jolly? "

This is not your traditional Christmas Tale, but I felt like telling it anyway.

I was talking to Janet the other day and I asked her if she remembered ever being told about Santa Claus or getting presents for Christmas. She also has no recollection of ever knowing about Santa......I must say from birth to the age of at least 4 or 5, we had no idea that a Jolly man in a red suit would come to our house and leave toys for all the good little girls and boys.....She did remember getting a doll but we think it was when she was older. Several memories came to mind about what I remember about Christmas.

This was when I was in kindergarten, I was about 5, my class was taken down to the school basement for a Christmas party. The school basement was a dark, musty, dirty place but we did not know any better at that time....I remember we were told to sit at long tables on benches, and on the table each place setting had a plate containing a cookie and a few pieces of can and a small toy..when I sat down, there was no place setting in front of me, the kids on my left and right had them but I had nothing....remembering my mother always telling me never to ask for anything unless it was offered, I just sat there and watched all the other kids eating their cookie and candy......

another memory comes to mind...I think it was the same year and Christmas Eve was spent in my Aunt Millie's apartment on the 1st floor of the house on 8th Street...All the furniture was taken out and long tables were set up running from the kitchen through the cold water flat to a 2nd bedroom....Everyone in the family who lived in 521 was there...it was fun....at one point my mother took me upstairs to our apartment and I went to bed.......a Christmas tree which my father picked up off the street late that afternoon (it was discarded by the person selling them on Vernon Blvd) was in the room right next to my bed...it had no lights but it did have some ornaments and tinsel...I guess I had heard about hanging stockings for Christmas....I took off a sock and I hung on the tree and fell asleep....when I awoke the next morning I looked over and saw that it was still hanging there and still empty...I started to cry and when my mother asked why, I told her and she said that it was too dark and Santa did not see it....I did find a coloring book and crayons under the tree...not wrapped but just placed on the floor....Times were very tough in those days and when you expect nothing and received nothing, you are never disappointed......I am not complaining, just explaining... but all these years later I think that is why I find Christmas a very sad time of the year......Today we all have much more then we need but I guess the old memories over shadow that at this time of the year.