DAY 6 -- ANOTHER SKIMPY CHRISTMAS WITH INA

Now I must go and build the fire in our room and wash my late dinner dishes and do all the little things to make the evening comfortable. – Ina

The last Christmas at the farm, 1952*

While Ethel went off to meet Sadie on her way home from school, Ina sat down in the rocking chair near the dining room window to rest a while before doing “the little things to make the evening comfortable.” She mustn’t sit long, for daylight would soon wane, but for a few minutes, she would let her thoughts drift toward the pending Christmas celebration.

In Ina’s world, the Christmas season was not extended. That is, there was no advanced decorating. “Getting ready for Christmas” meant wrapping gifts, packing boxes for mailing, writing one’s Christmas cards, and perhaps baking fruitcake. All household decorating was deferred until Christmas Eve.

Christmas Seals

And even though the post office was trying its best to get people to mail early, Ina was not obedient. She had her own schedule for holiday happenings. Her cards and boxes were mailed by Dec. 20. The one exception was the package to daughter Pearl, farming with her husband in northern Alberta. That box was mailed a little earlier – just a little.

On Christmas Eve, Jack would cut a four-foot fir tree and set it up on the library table in the living room. Then together with other family members, Ina would decorate it with a few Shiny Brite balls, tinsel (likely saved from previous years), and candles in clip-on holders. Oh! She must remember to buy more candles when she went to town. Before they opened the gifts on Christmas Eve, they would light the candles, douse the kerosene lamps, and enjoy the beauty of the tree for a few minutes. It was especially beautiful when bathed in moonlight. Maybe that would happen this year if the sky were clear. Then they would blow out the candles and resume their festivities.

 

Additional decorating might be done on Christmas Eve also. Boughs would be placed over doorways and pictures. Sisters Ida and Mabel, still living in Drain, Oregon, often sent holly, and Vance, living near the Washington coast, would include a swag for the door and additional boughs of holly and bull pine with his box of gifts.

But – Ina had no holiday knick-knacks, nor did she want any. Her celebration was understated – and just right, in her opinion. KW


[*Ethel Dobson Robinson, her daughter Shirley Jean, Ina Dobson, and Shirley Jean's daughter Patricia]

A HOLIDAY VISIT WITH INA -- DAY 9

“We promised to have a regular tree and we’ll all be children and have a lot of fun out of it.” Ina Dobson, Christmas 1932

I’m a firm believer that without toys, Christmas isn’t much fun. Certainly this is true for a child, but it may be true for adults as well. Yes, I know – it can be overdone. Still, parents have to find ways to manage the flow so that children are not deprived. Deprivation at any level isn’t fun.

The following Christmas memories were written by my mother, Dorothy Dobson:

When I was five we moved to a farm six miles from Weippe. Christmas Eve was the time my dad went out to get the tree. It was set up and decorated after we went to bed. We knew my brother would get the pop gun he wanted the Christmas we heard someone playing with it. Santa always brought the presents and they were under the tree in the morning. That same year I got the doll I wanted. I would like to have had it be a girl doll but my brother said he wouldn’t play with me if it wasn’t a boy so I named it “Albert.”

We moved back to Orofino when I was eight. That was during the First World War and there was a scarcity of everything. My best memory of the next few years was Christmas in the [Orofino] Mercantile. There was a long table near the center of the store filled with toys of every description. As soon as school was out we hurried down town to “play with” the toys. There weren’t any decorations in town but that toy table was enough.

[Here in real time, we have snow in our valley, which may well turn to slush before long. Looks like it will continue to snow in the upper country and probably accumulate. KW]