WINTER BEAUTY

 

A wintry landscape greets the eye wherever one may look, and we’ve had several cold days. Have had some two inches of snow and frost since Christmas. – Ethel Dobson Robinson, Gilbert (Idaho), January 1937

It was snowing when we arose this morning and had been for some time. It let up for a while and the sun came out, so Mike plowed our parking area with his 4-wheeler. However, it’s snowing again now. It’s cold, and the winter weather advisory continues until 4:00 a.m. tomorrow (New Year’s Eve).

We’re mostly confined to the house, though Mike assures me the Jeep would take us to town if we needed to go. It just seems to me the wisest thing to do is to stay put.

I don’t know how Grandma Ina spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s, but I rather think it was a holiday for her. All decorating, including the tree, was done on Christmas Eve, and she didn’t take it down before New Year’s Day. If family was visiting, her efforts would have gone toward cooking and visiting.

On New Year’s Day, the two Dobson families gathered to enjoy a feast prepared by Bertha, always some variation of the following:

·      Oyster soup (“Willapas,” notes Ina, and very good.)

·      Roast backbone of pork and potatoes

·      A platter of sausage

·      Lettuce salad, pickles, chow chow

·      Not more than four kinds of jelly and preserves

·      Only one kind of pie (pumpkin)

·      And only one kind of cake (fruitcake)

Of course, they had tea, coffee, milk, grape juice, bread, butter, crackers, and finished with nuts and candy. 

Unless I can get out to the store tomorrow, our New Year’s food will be much as usual. And positively no oysters for this girl! KW

'TWAS THE WEEK AFTER CHRISTMAS

I feel like I can settle down to just living again and enjoying my gifts and memories of a very happy Christmas to which you added a great deal. – Ina, January 1938

Christmas Day has come and gone, but of course, the annual cycle begins again, so we have a lot of fun in store. “Already planning for next Christmas,” says Ina.

Winter is upon us now – 20 degrees and snowing, but since I’ve no place to go and my family is safely in their rightful places, I don’t really care. We need the snowpack in the mountains.

I look forward to the week between Christmas and New Year’s as a fun time of doing all those things I didn’t get done before Christmas – baking, sewing, or nothing much at all. I’ll gradually put away Christmas decorations but leave out wintry things that brighten the dark days.

Seems like I do less holiday baking every year, and yet, without the shortbread and spritz cookies my mother made and frosted cookies (my favorite), the list of goodies just doesn’t seem right. I’m a reasonably good cook, but – well, I’d just rather not put my time into lengthy cookie decoration. It’s another way in which I identify with my Grandma Ina.

I didn’t mind the lack of holiday goodies until we decided at the last minute to host a family holiday gathering, but no one seemed to notice or care that certain holiday fare was missing from the offerings. We had lunch (notice I don’t call it a luncheon), and then quietly visited for an hour or so. “You see,” said Mike later, “you don’t need a lot of stuff to have a pleasant gathering.”

I was disappointed to miss little Silas’ first Christmas, but Hallie said, “It’s okay; so did he.” I guess he pretty much slept the day away. Perhaps we’ll have his first Christmas next year. Finishing his stocking is on my “to do” list. KW

CHRISTMAS 2021

 

INA'S CHRISTMAS MEMORIES, 1937

If Ina could have peered into the future from the vantage point of 1937 and seen me in her living room in 1952, she would have been more than surprised. 

In 1952, members of Ina’s extended family gathered at her farmhouse for a Christmas reunion. The group included Aunt Lynn; Aunt Ethel, Shirley Jean and her husband Dale, and their daughter Patty; Vance and Dorothy (my parents) and me. Besides pleasing Ina (Do you think Ina looks pleased?), I’m sure they wanted the little girls to experience an old-fashioned farmhouse “Christmas with Ina.”

 

I suppose they lit the candles on the tree, but I don’t remember. I do remember that the room was dark and shadowy, as it is when a kerosene lantern is the light source. My gift was a doll with yellow hair that I promptly named “Corny,” and a cardboard book of animal pictures with squeakers between the pages. It was supposed to teach me animal sounds, but all the animals sounded alike, and I knew that wasn’t right.

So, for just being three years old, I remember a little about the occasion, as I’m sure my parents hoped I would, and it’s a good memory. 

The photo here is a four-generation picture that my dad took at that gathering. Patty Johnson sits on the floor surrounded  by her grandmother, Ethel Dobson Robinson; her mother, Shirley Jean Robinson Johnson; and her great-grandmother, Ina Dickson Dobson. Shirley Jean and I are cousins, though she was a generation older. I submitted this photo to the Lewiston Tribune’s “Blast from the Past” and was told it would be published Christmas Day.

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a Goodnight!”   

INA'S CHRISTMAS MEMORIES, 1937

Ina continues on the Christmas of 1937:

The cones Vance included in his box are very pretty. I gave Bertha a couple and some of the silvered sprays. I have so many now, for I kept some over from last year. It seems like the paint preserves them some way.

 

Next Christmas, I’ll open Vance’s box early and decorate with holly instead of fir. It’s so much prettier on the curtains. I’m already planning for Christmas, you see.

 

Say, did you read the Christmas story, “A New England Christmas,” in the January Readers Digest? It was great. That magazine is the best ever. The “Digest” is a Christmas gift from Vance, and a grand one, too.

 

I enjoyed Christmas 1937 very much. Henry and Shirley stayed over till Monday morning, and we got up to about a foot of wet snow, so Dad hitched up the new team and hooked onto the car at the mailbox hill and took them clear to the highway. He rode on the left fender hooking his right leg over the radiator cap. There were operations to be done, but the lights were off due to the storm, so Shirley was in time after all and they removed the tonsils by flashlight.

[Mike loves peanut brittle. His mother used to send us a batch for Christmas and now Hallie makes it for him. I was interested to read that in 1937, Myrtle sent Ina two big slabs of peanut candy (her weakness), and she sent gumdrops to Jack (his weakness).]

INA'S CHRISTMAS MEMORIES, 1937

 

And now we arrive at the Christmas in question, 1937, of which Ina says: 

December 22 it began to snow and gave us about six inches, just right for Christmas. By the way, that was Henry’s 32nd birthday. [Remember – Henry and Shirley were married in June 1937.]

 

Christmas Day was bright and sparkling. Henry and Shirley didn’t come out till that morning for it had been blowing and drifting the snow badly, but they made it in all right laden with a barrel of flour, groceries, apples, candy, nuts, etc. You can imagine the hubbub. We held breakfast back for them and all enjoyed it to the full. Then a few more packages had to be wrapped, candles lit, etc., and we settled down to look at our beautiful tree, but Dad was uneasy so we couldn’t take as much time as we wanted and June and Bertha drove up before we were done opening our gifts. The room was full of pretty packages it seemed. It was our usual “skimpy Christmas!”

 

Vance’s box came through in fine style and opened up beautifully. It always has personality and adds so much to our pleasure. We used the holly and silvered sprays in the decorations. The holly makes the very prettiest, I think. We used the silvered bull [pine] sprigs of last year again as a centerpiece and the candles. They are so festive; we burned them all evening. We used up one pair of white ones and part of one short pair of red ones and greatly diminished the tall red ones. We recalled that last Christmas Vance had said to light the candles to eat by and thus he would be blessing us as we dined.

 

After dinner, Shirley reduced the table to a round, removed the decorations, added candy, nuts, and fruit and fresh candles.

 

The cones Vance sent are very pretty. I gave Bertha a couple and some of the silvered sprays. I have so many now, for I kept some over from last year. It seems like the paint preserves them some way. KW

 

INA'S CHRISTMAS MEMORIES, 1937

 

My dad, Vance, whose gifts of holiday greenery were mentioned in Ina’s letters, was a master of holiday decorating, fashioning fir boughs, holly (or Oregon grape), and lights into a display on the front of our house every Christmas. And it wasn’t just his skill. As Ina said, his imagination gave his work personality.

 

Daddy decorated our house for Christmas from the late ‘40s, when he and Mother married, until 1986 – the last Christmas he was with us. It was never the same twice. And – as it is with an artist, he worked alone. He did not teach the rest of us how to do it. He probably couldn’t have.

Often it was just boughs, wreaths, and swags, but some years the theme was more obvious. One of my favorites was the silhouette of a couple riding in a horse-drawn sleigh, scarves flying in the breeze, which he traced on plywood and then cut out. He mounted it on the front dormer windows.

 

One year, pixies cavorted on the front porch. Mother fashioned them out of wire coat hangers. Their heads were Styrofoam balls, and they were dressed in colorful cotton shirts. Another year, a large purchased Santa sat near the front door playing a harp that Daddy made of plywood. 

But mostly, it was just greenery and lights with a star on the dormer. Eventually, he had a welder make some large wreath forms for him. 

To my way of thinking, nothing is as beautiful or unique as a house decorated with greenery, and back in the day people did that, but if you see it today, let me know. Things changed. In the early ‘80s, Daddy said that the boughs weren’t to be had. I could hardly accept that, but my neighbor Sonya, who also made her own wreaths and swags, confirmed it. Suddenly, holiday decorating became more artificial. 

So, even before Daddy left us, his decorating style had changed – more lights and less greenery. He was also older and challenged, and grandson Shann became his assistant. From 1987 to 1990, our last Christmas in the house, Shann decorated for Mother.

 

I was taken aback when daughter Hallie questioned her Grandpa Vance’s holiday creations. It was such a big part of my life. “Why is she asking this?” I wondered. And then I realized that she was only four the last Christmas my dad decorated – 1986. He passed away the day after Thanksgiving, 1987.

Unfortunately, I don’t have really good photos of the house in all its splendor. We didn’t have a camera good enough to photograph it. Fortunately, brother Chuck took the photo of the house and Daddy at the piano in 1984. KW