Christmas memories from 1950’s Stoneham
Published on December 26th, 2001
STONEHAM, MA - For as long as I can remember, I've loved Christmas and everything about it--everything that is, except its ending. Early on I learned that Christmas for me was not a day, but a whole season. Clearly, the best part of that season was the month or so leading up to Christmas Day.
When I think of Christmas now, I most often think of the neighborhood I grew up in during the 1950s, in Stoneham, Massachusetts. It was great to be a kid then. Nearly every home around us had a veteran of World War II, (or widow of one), and practically every home had school age children. Little by little the novelty of television was spreading, but there were still more pianos than TV sets in the neighborhood. There was a great camaraderie, everyone knew each other, and there was much sharing. Books, toys, tools and even clothes made their way from house to house. There were few fences and no locked doors. Most parents worked hard and creatively to make ends meet, while giving their children a good life, and they succeeded marvelously. If one family had a backyard swing or slide, it was enjoyed by all the kids around.
Extravagance was not in anyone's dictionary, but we had a wonderful life in a close-knit neighborhood.
Obviously most families did not have a big budget for once-a-year Christmas decorations, so items were carefully saved from past years and past generations. Sometimes a new Christmas item might be purchased each year. It might be a glass ornament or a 78 RPM record with a couple of Christmas carols (or later in the 50's, a 33 RPM long-playing album). Or it might be a pack of four or five pointy (C-6) Christmas lights to replace burnt out lamps.
My birthday falls on Thanksgiving week, and it always has been that the sweetest season starts for me then. I loved watching workmen install the town's decorations on Main Street. They were candy canes with lots of multi-colored lights and greens on the lamp posts. In the first half of the 50's they were old metal "stove pipe" candy canes and the lights were wrapped around them. Later they were plastic illuminated and with lots of multi-colored lights and greens on the lamp posts. I can recall the wonderful feeling I'd get of excitement and anticipation I would feel when I saw those decorations going up. When they were actually lit, it was quite an impressive sight looking down Main Street. In fact, I have not seen public decorations in any of the other places I have lived that were as impressive as those I remember in Stoneham in the 1950s.
Sometime between Thanks-giving and Christmas, we'd go to the next town (Woburn or Winchester) to catch the train into Boston. Riding the train and even waiting on the platform in the chilly air seemed very festive to me. Still does. While shopping has always been a drag for me, the many distractions of Boston in December made me very excited. Seeing all the lights, animated window displays, carolers in the streets, even policemen on horses all added to my feelings of excitement. Of course big stores like Jordan Marsh had toy departments and model trains, and I never failed to find them as a kid.
There has always been something about this period of time that causes everyone to be a little nicer and more forgiving. Even stern schoolteachers seemed to have the spirit. I can recall practicing Carols in grade school and making cards and other things for Christmas and how it took away the tedium of everyday schoolwork. And then there was all the preparation for a school gift exchange. Each of the eight classrooms in our school got a fresh-cut Christmas tree. Part of our class was devoted to making paper ornaments and chains to hang on the tree. What's more, one could almost always hear some class rehearsing Christmas carols during this time. There was a concert grand piano in the basement assembly room and a movable pump organ on wheels that would be rolled from room to room on each floor, so there was much music to be heard before Christmas. Every teacher was required to know how to play the piano and organ.
A significant milestone for our family came two weeks before Christmas Day. That was the day we put electric candles with yellow-orange bulbs in the windows. These had belonged to our grandparents before. The whole house seemed to become festive with them, and it was a delightful reminder of the BIG day yet to come. Meanwhile, all the other great aspects of the season intensified. Around town different holiday displays appeared. From our house I could see two small trees erected on the top of the Patch (Chemical) Factory on Montvale Avenue. Each evening I'd watch with anticipation to see their lights turned on.
In between our house and the factory, there was the Boston and Maine Railroad which dissected our block. Until about 1953 coal burning steam locomotives pulled the morning and evening commuter trains and each time they passed through, they dominated the neighborhood for several minutes. A couple of times I got to ride with my dad when he came home from work in Boston and we'd get off at the Lindenwood Station, near the corner of Montvale and Lindenwood Road. Something about trains always has given me the feeling that Christmas is coming. There were more carols heard around town (even on radio or TV), the aroma of holiday cookies and other goodies cooking in the kitchen, preparations at school, carols being heard in church and Sunday school, and people wishing each other a Merry Christmas!
Then there was the BIG DAY! No it wasn't Dec. 25. For me the most loved and exciting day of the whole year was, and still is, the day we put up the Christmas tree usually about the 17th or 18th of December. From the very first time I saw our Christmas tree it was love at first sight. It is perhaps my earliest childhood memory, and it seemed more beautiful than anything I'd ever seen. So on my BIG day, a large "magic" box appeared in the living room. Opening it was better than any gift I ever opened. Each year I couldn't wait to peer inside and see the treasures it contained. Modest by collectors' standards, but lovely and magical to me were all the shining ornaments I'd nearly forgotten about, lovingly put away and stored in previous years. When I'd peek into that magic box, it seemed like I was peering into ages past. I can't quite describe it but it was a marvelous feeling. Of course what intrigued me the most were the lights. At first they were cloth covered (probably Noma) strings with speckled composition sockets in loops of 8 lights, later replaced by green vinyl strings of the same type. The little narrow pointy bulbs were unlike anything I saw the rest of the year. There was one old figural bulb--a snow covered house. I delighted in holding them in my hand. Even the smell of the wires with residue from previous Christmas trees was very appealing to me. Before I could count, I learned that all eight bulbs had to be screwed in tight in order for the whole string to light, but for this I had all the patience in the world. We never had more than 40 bulbs on the tree, but when lit, it was a sight that I loved. While there were about eight distinct colors of lights, many old and faded ones gave the tree, the appearance of even more colors. My sister, parents and I all took part in decorating the tree and I loved every moment of it. There were a few art deco plastic stars that came from the late 40s, but most ornaments were prewar and some from before WWI, all in mint condition. There were some that I've never seen anywhere else or since.
Once the tree was up, I was one excited kid. It was like I had reunited with a long lost friend. I could gaze on it for hours. The morning sun reflecting on the ornaments delighted me. Sometimes at night, unable to sleep, I would sneak down to the living room as everyone else slept.
The sight of the unlit tree with the streetlights outside reflecting on the tinsel and ornaments filled me with joy. If there was snow outside the effect was enhanced. Then I would quietly go back to bed, feeling happy. It seemed to me that many of the happiest events would occur while the tree was standing guard in the living room. Friends and relatives we rarely saw would stop by. And one night each year, my parents and many other adults in the neighborhood would go out and up and down Lindenwood Road and West Street singing familiar Christmas carols, stopping at each house. When they left our house, my sister and I would run upstairs to watch and listen from a window as they serenaded the rest of the neighborhood. I felt a sense of peace and friendship when that tree was up.
The last school day before Christmas vacation was a half day, and it was all devoted to Christmas, the exchange of gifts, the singing of carols.
It was always a warm and wonderful feeling for me when the vacation started. There were usually a couple more days before Christmas at that point. Then Christmas Eve my grandparents would come, and we'd have special Swedish and Norwegian dishes and sing carols. It was a wonderful feeling going to bed after wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. Christmas morning was nice and there were gifts to open and such, but it also signaled a change in direction. From that point the Christmas season was heading do wnhill. There were still nice moments.
My grandfather's factory closed that week so he would spend more time with us, even taking me by train to Boston or New York some years, and we'd visit relatives and friends in other towns. But I always felt a bit sad not to be wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. "Happy New Year" to me has always had a hollow ring. Finally the season of good cheer would all come to an end on New Year's Day, the saddest day for me. I can recall always taking down the Christmas tree that day to the sound of the Rose Bowl Parade, so that event to me has seemed more like a funeral procession, and to this day I don't watch it. It also meant that the warmest month of the year gave way to the coldest and it seemed to come with a bang. Not being into skiing or football, January was the emptiest month of the year to me. Still, we would lovingly and carefully take everything off the tree, even the tinsel, to be saved for next Christmas.
And here I am today in San Francisco, 3,000 miles west of Stoneham and five decades away from the 50s and still the happiest time is when my tree is up. I now use an artificial one so that I can keep it up longer. A few of the old family treasures are on my tree, and I still use the wonderful old pointy (C-6) lights, which haven't been made for decades, but I have enough to give my tree a golden glow for decades to come.
There are a few figural lights and something else I fondly remember from our trees of the late 50s -- bubble lights. Often I seek out old ornaments like the ones we had on our trees of old, and I still peer into the tree with wonder. There is something about Christmas that brings back the memories of family and friends that have long since departed, and I see them all as I look into the Christmas Tree. Sadly, discarded Christmas trees start appearing on the sidewalks starting on Dec. 26. Why is it that so many people can't wait for Christmas to be over? I try to hang on to every last shred of Christmas as long as I can. I still enjoy the period leading up to Christmas the most, and by Thanksgiving I try to have my tree up in full glory.
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