Remembering Holiday Traditions
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The Sloggatt family Christmas tree in the 1950s was typically dripping with tinsel.
A Thing For Tinsel
I have a thing for tinsel. It’s the closest thing to magic that I have in my life.
People talk about the magic of Christmas. To me it was real. And tinsel was the connection.
You see, when I was a child, it was tradition in my house to go shopping for a tree in Christmas Eve. My father would pack a handful of my eight siblings into the car and we would drive from lot to lot looking for the perfect tree. Each had to be stood up, turned fully around and inspected for bare spots. As you can imagine, reaching consensus among so many people was difficult so it was generally a long night. I’ve since come to realize that the primary objectives of the exercise were first to get us all out of my mother’s hair for a few hours, and second, to save money on the tree. With Christmas just hours away, sellers were more than willing to negotiate.
It was always a big tree and once it was tied and bundled onto the top of our station wagon, we’d kill more time driving back streets to look at the Christmas not only in our neighborhood, but in neighborhoods far and wide.
We’d arrive home and drag the tree in, eager to get the tree into its stand and get it ready for Santa Claus. You see, all we did was put up the tree, a monumental enough task that always involved sawing off the bottom – and sometimes the top – so it would fit into the living room. Then we would put on the lights, and nothing more.
Dinner, maybe some last-minute gift wrapping, and it was time for bed. Before reluctantly heading to bed, we would hang our stockings, thinking of what awaited in the morning. Now when I say stockings, I mean my father’s black socks. We would raid his sock drawer, choosing the largest socks we could find. Since we didn’t have a fireplace, each was hung with a thumbtack from a shelf off a niche in the hallway that housed the doorbell. And since they all looked alike, they had to be hung in age order.
Somehow we’d get to sleep, despite the excitement brought by visions of what would be under the tree Christmas morning.
Christmas morning always came early. When we kids would come downstairs, those black socks were brimming. In the toe was always an orange that would stretch my poor father’s sock to its limits, and peeking from the top, a candy cane. In between to orange and the candy we’d find a crazy assortment of toys, games and candy which, again in retrospect, were solely designed to keep us busy.
It would for a while, but we were always eager to get to the real loot which we still had to imagine as it was behind a bed sheet tacked across the entrance to the living room.
The youngest of us (that was me) were dispatched to fetch my parents who I would learn later in life had probably just crawled into bed. Bleary-eyed, they’d stagger out for what would today be called a big reveal.
The sheet would come down, and the tree that just hours before had been a bare was pure magic. Lights, ornaments, and most importantly, tinsel. I know tinsel is supposed to evoke an icicle-covered tree. I didn’t get that as a kid. All I saw was that tree we had left bare the night before was now dripping with silvery strands that shimmered and waved with the slightest movement. My father told me Santa did that with a single toss. A single toss. He’d throw a great clump and that tinsel would magically arrange itself on every branch.
My mother hated the stuff. For months she’d be unwrapping strands of tinsel from the brushes of the vacuum, or find pieces stuck t the back of a sweater. At some point during my childhood she made a switch to pre-strung garlands.
It wasn’t until my adult years that I came to realize the true magic of Christmas was that made by my parents who stayed up all night decorating the tree, wrapping presents and probably assembling countless bicycles and wagons so that we could experience something we could believe in.
I’m a grown up now. But I like to bring back that magic. My own tree has tinsel, and it’s the stuff from my childhood. Through the magic of eBay, vintage metal tinsel hangs from my Christmas tree. I have to hang it one strand at a time in order to make it look like Santa had done it, but it’s still magic.
Peter Sloggatt
The Magic of Christmastime
Christmas was magic for me as a child! We lived in a brownstone in the lovely Park Slope section of Brooklyn when I was small, and of course the traditional trip to the downtown department store to see Santa and sit on his lap was the start of the joy! Santa promised he would come, as I had been ‘a good little girl.’
When Christmas Eve finally arrived, I kept asking, ‘Will he come?”...”Are you sure?” -- as all kids do. As parents do, they assured me he would be there!
Bedtime that night I asked again...nothing was unusual...nice Christmas carols playing, everything looking as always, but no other sign of the special night it was, and I went on to bed, hoping with all my heart that mom and dad were right!
When I awoke on Christmas morning it was still dark but I heard my parents were up and moving quietly around, so I got out of bed, made it downstairs carefully, with my heart pounding ... and magic had happened!
The familiar front room was transformed, bathed in the soft colored lights of a ceiling high Christmas tree glistening in the early dawn! I can truly close my eyes and see it as though it was this morning!
The first thing I saw was a group of my dolls, their dresses freshly washed and ironed, to greet the new doll who was with them under the tree. I can see the little high chair! Presents were simple then, toys of course, and new slippers, gloves, little items of clothing and favorite cookies or candies. There was always a new tie for daddy. Later in the day we always went to my Aunt Lilly’s house for a wonderful dinner and even more presents.
Many years later when my husband and I had children, we continued that traditional magic of Christmas Eve for them. I have a picture of awe-struck children when they saw the transformation of their living room on Christmas morning!
When my son was a bit older he asked why Santa came to the friend’s next door the night before (as was their tradition).
“Why doesn’t he come to our house while he’s here...instead of going all the way back to the North Pole and coming again next night?” he’d ask.
We said we didn’t know!
Creating it was quite something for us to do as my husband owned the first toy store in Huntington, Kiddie City. Christmas Eve meant last minute shopping and even some deliveries made, but when he got home, kids were in bed and we began to transform the living room, including putting up the tree and creating the magic.
Later in the day we shared with mom and dad. the creators of my own magical childhood memories that are precious to this day!
Pat Ross
Northport
