Homestead Christmas
Part 2 – A Homestead Christmas
As we waited with concern for some word from Daddy, Mamma kept busy with her knitting. Mittens in the catalog paled beside the hand knitted ones that filled the mitten box in the back room. Mamma was always knitting mittens for friends and us; she could do it quickly and hardly seemed to need to look. She did a lot of knitting, crocheting and sewing once the days grew short. Argyle socks she would make for bachelor friends of theirs too, and that was fascinating to watch.
We also spent a lot of time planning what to make for each other for Christmas. An oatmeal box could be recycled into a pretty good doll bed, by cutting out part of one side and gluing the lid on. It was a cradle that would rock. Then it could be covered with pretty paper or flour sack fabric. One year a set of rescued wheels from a broken slinky toy turned the cradle into a baby buggy.
Sometimes we sewed doll clothes for each other, or passed on a prized Teddy bear or panda, or drew a picture. Once Denise selected a particular piece of driftwood and carefully wrapped it for her Daddy.
Another year a much handed down baby doll was scrubbed up and a new dolly bed was made complete with bedding. Denise and Linda sewed clothes for it by hand, under Mamma’s supervision, from flour sacks. They used to come in the prettiest floral designs!
Finally, a calm day with no snow, icy but nice. Was that an outboard motor? No, definitely not. A small airplane coming closer? Yes! After a low circle of the cabin it headed north toward our small airstrip. Mamma bundled us into our winter gear and we headed out at full speed. To our great delight, it was Fred Hickock with word from Daddy. He was fine, working, and Fred had volunteered to deliver our supplies and mail. We eagerly unloaded the boxes and with Kayak and the sled got it all home easily. Fred was apologetic because in the back of his small plane, the oranges and eggs had frozen! We did not care; it was like Christmas had come early after all.
By storing the frozen items in the woodshed, we could thaw as needed and they did not spoil. Nor did they last long as there was an immediate flurry of baking and preparing. We all helped make cookies, decorating the cut out ones of course, and carefully packing them in tins for safekeeping. On Mamma’s birthday, 3 days before Christmas, we were allowed to do our first sampling of our creations. One cookie each, the others to be kept for Christmas.
The day before Christmas, we awoke to a wonderful surprise, Daddy had gotten home late the night before, AND cut a Christmas tree and brought it in! We never had room for more than a 2-foot tree, and this one was ‘special’. Having cut it by moonlight, he had missed the fact that it had twin tops!
We were so excited that Daddy was home and our tree was up. It was time to get out the ornaments and the garland, paper chains, etc. that we hung around to decorate. Some we had made and some were quite old, like the honeycomb bells that had been in Daddy’s family forever and the Victorian ornaments that were also from his family with tarnished tinsel. Then the foldout ones that came from Mamma’s family in England. Not to forget the ‘Hoochy-Koochy’ beads from Mamma’s performance at the first Strawberry Festival in Haines. Then our stockings to be put under the tree at bedtime, red topped wool socks. And the nativity set, with baby Jesus set aside, as after all he wasn’t born yet.
The next morning, the wonder of checking our stockings and finding nuts with shells on them, ribbon candy and just maybe a tangerine. A good year would find balsa wood airplanes in those stockings. One year Denise and Linda each got their first ball point pens. You would have thought those were the most valuable things in the world…grown up stuff! Baby Jesus would be in his manger, and there would be mysterious boxes around the tree or under the sewing machine it sat on.
Watching her eyes when “baby” Ruth opened her gift of the surprise “new” dolly that we had all worked on made the little worn doll and the oatmeal box bed look like the best one ever in the catalog. Daddy’s serious acceptance of the piece of driftwood Denise gave him for a handle for his tool drawer was always remembered. Every item was oohed and aahed over, and enjoyed by all.
Between the morning festivities and Christmas dinner, weather permitting we would go out and fly our balsa wood airplanes, or maybe have a quick run in the dog sled with Kayak proudly pulling us. The main course might vary, once it was bear ham, but most years we had our plum pudding served flaming, and of course fruit cake and mince pies. Stuffed and happy, we would fall asleep in the warmth of the wood fire and Daddy playing his guitar and Mamma singing or playing her comb.
But Christmas was not over…. when Daddy made his first trip of the New Year, he would always bring home a package from Gramma Stelting. She just never could figure out the length of time it took for a package to reach us. It was Christmas all over again! There was always something for everyone, books and games for the girls, maybe a new handpainted brooch for Mamma and Gramma’s special box of divinity candy, just for Daddy.
There would be neat little stuff wrapped in nearly every piece of newspaper stuffing. Linda specially recalls the year that we got the brightly colored aluminum kool-aid glasses.
The last part of Christmas was Mamma having the girls sit down and write thank you notes to friends and relatives, some just in Haines, some as far away as Oregon, California, Pennsylvania and England, who always sent Christmas through the mail. Christmas on Glacier Point was a long season full of anticipation, giggles and wonder.