Christmas Is Where Warm Memories Live

Mrs. Annie Williams, Shady Dale, remembers her childhood Christmases of 70 years ago as the “best” and a whole lot different than Christmas is now.

“We didn’t have electricity in our house, so of course neither did our Christmas tree. I remember my father and us children would go out into the woods and choose a tree. He would cut it down to bring back to the house.

“Us children, there were 10 of us, would make paper decorations. Chains and paper bells. We would use colored paper that was a special treat at Christmas time just to make the ornaments.

“My Daddy always read The (Atlanta) Journal (and) Constitution and we children would look all through that paper to find bells and things to use as patterns for our ornaments. Mom would hang candy canes on the tree and we would sneak them so that by Christmas there would be very few left,” chuckles Mrs. Williams with a definite twinkle in her eyes.

“When we got new shoes we would save those boxes for Christmas. We would put those shoe boxes in a Kroger bag.

My oldest brother, he is still living you know,” she continues with a look that looks as if she is seeing the scene all over again, “would tie that bag full of empty shoe boxes by a rope and hoist it way up high in the barn so we would have those boxes when it was Christmas.

“We would put our names on our box. Each of us would put the box under the tree for Santa to put our presents in, all ten of those empty boxes lined up under that tree.

“On Christmas morning Santa would have filled each box. It was just wonderful. Not like now when children get so much they hardly have time to play with it all. I know. I see children with so many toys that you can’t walk through the room without stepping over them. We never had that problem.

If your one doll was in your arms it wasn’t in anybody’s way. Each of us would get some candy and a rubber ball. We girls would get a doll in our box.

“All the children would get a new wagon to share. We bigger ones would pull the littler ones in it. The bigger ones would be scolded they would break the wagon if we got in it,” as she speaks, her eyes twinkled as if she might have been the one who was usually the cause of the reprimands.

“We had a glass fronted (pie) safe and Momma would empty all the china out of it before Christmas so that she could put her Christmas cakes in it.

“Of course we had a wood stove and it was the children’s job to keep enough wood nearby so that Mom could cook. My older brother and my dad would split the wood and we children would carry it when Mom needed it. My Dad was a farmer and he grew all our food and we had good vegetables.

I remember digging potatoes and putting them in mounds. We would have good potatoes all winter and the few that were left in the spring would be enough sprouts to plant. It was a good thing because buying an acre of potato sprouts would have been too expensive.

“We moved around some. I remember one time it was near Christmas and we were moving. Mom’s stove fell off the wagon and broke. It was a big wonderful stove with lots of room and warming places. Her new stove was very small, but she managed to bake all her cakes.

“She would make a pound cake, a pineapple cake, a lemon cake and a colored cake. She would buy the food color from the Watkins man and dye a layer red, one green; one was white and one yellow. She would arrange them so that when you cut into the cake you never knew what color it would be. We would always ask her why we had to eat green cake.

“She didn’t use flavoring in the lemon cake she would squeeze several lemons to make the filling and would add some grated peeling too. I remember the pan she used was a very deep frying pan. Lots bigger than the one I have.

“We would look at those cakes and we would get so excited about Christmas.

“She would also make pressed meat. She would cook a pig’s head and grind up all that meat in our sausage grinder. She would add lots of spices, sage and others. Then she would put it into a bucket and Daddy would hang it high up on a tree so that it would get very cold and get solid enough to slice,” said Mrs. Williams as she pointed outside to a nearby tree.

“We girls always laughed together wondering how Mom would “press” the meat. We thought how funny it would be if she used the iron that she pressed the clothes with. The iron we knew was made of metal and was heated on the stove to make it hot enough to press the clothes.

“Sometimes my Aunt would come and bring her children to Christmas dinner. She didn’t cook as well as mom. We would have our table and bring in the one that usually stayed on the porch. The kitchen was full of tables and we could hardly move around.

Christmas dinner was usually ham, turnip greens rutabagas, potatoes and canned vegetables like green beans. We would sit and eat and eat. One of my uncles told my dad that we children would eat ourselves to death, but his children ate just as hardy when they were at our house,” Mrs. Williams laughs.