DAY 25 -- INA AND SADIE'S EXCELLENT FARMHOUSE CHRISTMAS (FINAL)

Shirley Jean [a.k.a. Sadie] was allowed to slip down and get her sock before everyone else was up. We only stipulated that it should not be too early morning. I put a book in the top of it, so as to keep her quiet till we were up. After breakfast she was allowed to take off gifts and hand them around and was delighted. It was another “skimpy Xmas,” with everyone well-remembered. – Ina Dobson, Christmas 1936

"What time is it anyway?" – Sadie wondered. Gram had said she shouldn’t get up too early. Was it too early now? Just then the old clock in the living room struck 5:00, and she was sure that Gramps would be up soon anyway. As quietly as any little girl could, she crept downstairs and peaked around the corner into the living room. There was her stocking hanging on the mantel where she had left it, only it was all lumpy with the stuff that Santa had put in it. Someone had thoughtfully left a stool so that she could reach it down. In the very top was a new book, one that she could read all by herself. Searching further she found candy, gum, a little doll, a popcorn ball, a new hanky, etc. Then she repacked the stocking, except for the book.

 

Next she surveyed the tree, noting gifts that weren’t there as she went to bed. Yes, Santa had been here.

A little fire burned in the grate, as if someone had tended it during the night. She pulled her rocking chair nearer to the fireplace and began to read her book.

Soon Gramps appeared and put more wood on the fire. As soon as he had stoked the fire in the old kitchen range and put on a pot of coffee, he and Sadie examined the contents of his stocking. Sadie couldn’t understand his delight with a little bottle of something and a little tin of something else and a pair of wool socks, but Gramps seemed to think it was the best. Then he went to the barn to do the chores.

For some reason, the others were not so early to arise, but as soon as breakfast was over, they gathered in the living room to open gifts. With Aunt Shirley’s help, Sadie read tags and passed the gifts to the recipients, that is, until she could no longer ignore her own pile.

And so, Christmas 1935 drew to a close, just as every Christmas does. But our farm family will extend the holiday with visiting, enjoying their gifts, eating the good nutritious food that the farm provides, and just being with the folks at the farm once again.

Shirley Jean & Ethel

Note: The question arises from time to time as to Sadie’s identity. Sadie is totally fictitious but based upon what Grandma Ina wrote in her letters about her first granddaughter, Shirley Jean. My purpose is simply to imagine an old-time Christmas with my grandmother, Ina Dobson, because today my husband and I are the caretakers of her house. KW