By Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette:
AND SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS
Tom Flick’s raspy voice erased all uncertainty. “Ho-ho-ho” was a dead giveaway when that man put on the red suit.
The years that Santa wasn’t played by Tom, my friends and I had a dickens of a time guessing who was behind the white beard.
Every year on a Saturday in mid-December, Santa Claus (a Lions Club member) arrived in Pawnee Rock to deliver sacks of candy to kids who gathered around the fire truck.
Yeah, a fire truck. This was small-town Kansas in the ‘60s and it was one of those use-what-you-have situations; the town had no sleigh and the real Santa Claus was apparently otherwise occupied.
But the pseudo Santa was always punctual. At 10 a.m., he rode the fire truck down the hill from The Rock (i.e. the North Pole) with the wind-up siren blaring. The fire truck turned off Main, stopping on the side street between the grocery store and the post office.
Dozens of kids swarmed. We’d squeeze against each other, happy for the warm herd of bodies around us. With arms extended up, we’d wait for the offering, delivered one at a time.
After I grabbed my small brown paper bag, I went to the low concrete bench at the side of the grocery store to sit with friends where we’d trade and eat candy.
A good deal of the bag was filled with peanuts-in-the-shell and there was an apple. We might find Brach’s candy – Neapolitan pieces, candy orange slices and chocolate peanut clusters. And there was always a Snickers or a Hershey’s bar in our sack.
After the bags were handed out, Santa drew names for the turkeys. Before the event, residents could purchase tickets from the Lions Club for a chance to win. My dad always entered our names in the drawing, and one year I became the proud owner of a frozen turkey.
Santa coming to town was the event of the year for downtown Pawnee Rock. We didn’t have anything else. During the 18 years I lived there, I think there was only one parade. Our town had no festivals, no street dances. Santa Claus was it.
And it wouldn’t have seemed like Christmas to any of us without Santa’s arrival. It gave us a moment when we could all stand around together, as a community, on a Saturday morning.
The cold that rimmed the top of our ears and burned our cheeks helped make it feel like Christmas. And there was joy and excitement in that downtown intersection, an uplifting spirit in the air. Greetings among the adults were cheerful; partings were signaled by a bright “Merry Christmas.”
In my little hometown, Santa Claus riding into town on the fire truck was a prerequisite for the holiday. Once he showed up, Christmas seemed certain; at that point it was less than two weeks away.
The Christmas season has more traditions than a Douglas fir has needles – and those rituals vary from family to family, from church to church, from town to town. Whatever the traditions are, there’s a comfort in those familiar moments that we count on every year.
Not everyone participates in the holiday. There are those of different faiths, as well as those who put their faith in other things. But whether or not one celebrates Christmas, it is all around us: the music, the candy, the decorations.
Each December, we’ve come to expect certain things: holiday parades and programs, carols in the air, the ringing of the Salvation Army bell.
For some folks, it’s not Christmas until they put up the tree with the kids or until they hang their own childhood ornaments. Maybe Christmas doesn’t seem like it’s real until you watch “It’s a Wonderful Life.” For others, they know that it’s Christmas when they sit in a pew on a frosty evening and hear a lone voice read Luke 2:1-20.
The feeling of Christmas hits different people at different times.
I don’t know if Santa Claus still shows up in Pawnee Rock, but every December that hometown scene replays in my mind. When I recall the images of Santa riding in on the fire truck, well, that’s when I know that Christmas is here.
Copyright 2009 ~ Cheryl Unruh
John Lennon: (Happy Christmas)
Stirring up the memories there, Brown paper sack and lots of the ribbon candy, peanuts and candy canes and chocolate drops with the funky white stuff inside or the chocolate stars.
I can feel “The cold that rimmed the top of our ears and burned our cheeks” especially this week. Your attention to detail is amazing. Thanks for the memories. G:-)
Very reminiscent of the arrival in Valley Falls in the late 1950s. Cities like Topeka had Santa arriving in a whirlybird…a post war dynamic when many towns were home to veteran/service club members who used skills acquired during their service.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABlnheFt0CA
Yes, I remember the brown paper sack with the ribbon candy, peanuts, candy canes and chocolate drops with the funky white stuff inside too. And they were mixed together – we didn’t have to worry that they were contaminated with germs. If they were, they were good anyway.
That special little brown bag was always handed out after the Christmas eve program at Emmanuel Luthern Church in Elk River MN when I was a little girl in the late 1950’s. During the annual Christmas Eve church program, one girl always sang Oh Holy Night, we’d all say the little parts that we had memorized in Sunday School and we all sang the wonderful holiday church songs ending with Silent Night and each one held a candle. The treat bag included the ribbon candies, some old fashioned anise flavored candies with a tree or bell shape through the center, chocolate drops filled with either pink or white filling, no candy wrappings either. Then the nuts in the shell, an apple and the most pungent of all…an orange. This was the only gift many of us received for Christmas, but we never told anyone for fear of being ashamed of being so poor. About 20 years ago it was my turn to host the family Christmas gathering. I made up similar little paper bags for every person who attended, just to honor the memory from my childhood and from the child hoods of my 6 brothers and sisters.