Christmas memory shines brightly

  • Reader Column / Reader Column
  • Tuesday, December 11, 2001 9:00pm
  • Local News

BY EVALYNE DAVENPORT

All good stories should have a prelude, and so it is with this one.

Evalyne Davenport

The Houser family lived in the Bow-Edison area, between Mount Vernon and Bellingham. There were eight children; I was one of them.

Some people considered us poor because it was such a large family. If we were poor, we sure didn’t know it, for we always had plenty to eat. We were warm and dry, and we had a loving mother and father.

My mother was a happy, gentle, caring person. She always seemed to know when someone needed help, from sickness to an unemployed father. Often she was seen boxing up jams and jellies, loading the car with apples, squash, carrots and potatoes, and off she would go to the people in need.

She’d tell them: "We have so much of this produce. We will never use it all."

And the happy recipient never refused the gift.

About 10 days before Christmas in the mid-1920s my dad went into the woods and came home with a tree, which he set up in a stand. And my mother turned the tree trimming over to us youngsters.

She was happy to be in the kitchen baking the endless loaves of bread and the huge supply of cookies for Christmas.

On the tree went the small supply of ornaments, the well-worn ropes of tinsel and the red chains that we were always making out of drawing paper.

We were allowed to put anything we wanted on that tree: Bird nests, little red crabapples and all kinds of decorations that we made at school.

We had some red paper-like rope that we strung from corner to corner in the room, crossing in the center — where we hung the traditional big, red tissue bell.

What a glorious time we had decorating and redecorating that tree.

The little gifts that we had bought for each other at Woolworth’s were wrapped and stashed under our beds.

At last Christmas Eve arrived, but because we opened our presents Christmas morning, our wait was not over. It had only just begun. We delayed going to bed as long as we could and finally my mother laid down the law.

She was emphatic.

"You kids get to bed if you want to get up early and open your presents."

So off we went, but it wasn’t easy to get to sleep.

It seemed like only minutes before I heard my brothers hopping around in their clothes. I hit the floor like a shot and was out the door at the same time.

When we opened the hall door to the living room, a great sight met our eyes. There were lights on the Christmas tree.

"Lights, lights," we all said in unison.

And there they were: red, blue, green and gold glistening on the tree. My dad must have gotten up in the wee hours to get them lighted for us.

Do I remember what gifts were under that tree?

I will never forget.

There were for scooters for us older ones — just like the kids are hoping for today. And we lost no time getting into our coats and trying them out.

Although we only had a gravel road and barn floor to ride them on, we sure put many miles on those scooters.

But our first Christmas with electric lights was a thrill, and something I’ve told my grandkids about many times. They can hardly believe that in the mid-1920s Christmas tree lights were such a rarity.

Evalyne Davenport of Stanwood has several stories about growing up in the 1920s. Family members are having her write them down so they can each have a copy.

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