The following is from a talk by Helen Cobb at 
a Christmas meeting of the Homemakers Club at Bairoil. 
                           [Early 1950s] 

	Meeting again at the crossroads of the year with memories of 
happy hours gone by and high hopes for the year to be - this Christmas 
we have still, as through all the ages, great need for a spiritual 
preparedness. What is the process by which a child selects an hour to 
hold in his heart forever?  If we knew, could we make life memorable for 
our children in this hurrying, frightening world? Be comforted, 
mothers, by the certainty that our children will remember what belongs 
to their childhood as we remember whatbelonged to ours. We who are the 
parents are the architects of memory.

	The only time I long for the "horse and buggy days" is on 
holidays and particularly on Christmas. Christmas is so commercialized 
today. It is hard to keep it otherwise, despite all one's trying.  I 
think children of today are short changed because most of them have 
Christmas the year 'round.

            When I was a child and that is really not so long ago, 
Christmas didn't start arriving months ahead of time, with toys being 
sold in October and Christmas songs being sung the day after 
Thanksgiving - but it flashed upon us suddenly as a deer out of the 
forest. All in a minute it was the week before Christmas, the landscape 
glistened with a myriad of diamonds and hen we arrived home from school 
in the afternoons, the house smelled of fruit, spices and all 
kinds of tantalizing odors, but never a glimpse of the goodies did we 
get until the appointed day. And then there were the "forbidden nooks" 
in the house where each one had his surprises hidden.  And such 
surprises - no $25 dolls, $15 skates or out of this world electric 
trains. Maybe it was a pin cushion or a doll dress Mary had made for me 
or a dainty silk hanky Hal had saved pennies for months to buy and 
which I still treasure today and carried at my wedding - and there 
still reposes in my treasure chest a small ivory fan which was the love 
of my young life. I have carried the traditions of my girlhood home 
into my own home and they are very dear to us. 

           We pattern all our Christmases after those in my parent's 
home. There we had our Christmas tree on Christmas Eve and it was so 
'beautifully decorated and surrounded with gifts. Some one of the 
family played Santa and he chose helpers who passed out the gifts, 
after Santa had read off the names. After the gifts had been duly 
admired, we had a family program and each one participated - the 
Christmas story, poems and songs. My father always played his mouth 
harp and mother did her share in singing and reciting. We always 
clamored for my father to recite "The Night Before Christmas" which he 
had remembered in its entirety since he first recited it on his fourth 
birthday. After all kinds of Christmas goodies had been partaken of, 
all and the stockings were "hung by the chimney with care",  and the 
children hastily retired to their beds in anticipation of Christmas 
morning.

            We never failed to find our stockings filled with a lovely 
toy, orange, apple, candy and nuts. My joy was never more complete than
the morning my sister and I found Santa had left each  of us a large 
rag doll, dressed in beautiful clothes, all made by Mrs. Santa.  And 
then there was the Christmas morning Santa left my sister, my brother 
and me, each a sled that my father had made and painted in Christmas 
colors of red and green. When we used the sleds we found that my father 
had tempered and polished the runners to such a degree that they were 
the swiftest and sailed the farthest of any sleds in the neighborhood. 
There was as much rivalry among our playmates over whose sled was 
swiftest as there is today among men over whose car is fastest. 

          Coming to Christmas day - our family held the annual 
Christmas dinner for our relatives and about 11 a.m. we began listening
for the sleigh bells. You who have never heard the sweet music of 
sleigh bells in the crisp, frosty air have truly missed a rare treat. 
About this time the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins began 
arriving loaded with gifts. 

           The table was embroidered with holly berries and leaves in 
color. A certain crystal dish held the cranberry sauce and each kind of
food had its special dish. Such a feeling of nostalgia engulfs me as 
see in memory the Christmas table. Lately when my mother asked me to 
choose something for my own it was such a task - should it be the fruit 
bowl, the cranberry dish on the holly doily? And then, being so very 
fond of cut glass, I wondered, hadn't I rather have the cut glass rests 
for the carving set? I wonder how many of you are fortunate enough to 
own one of these sets. Ours was of cut glass but I've seen them of 
silver and china. Maybe someone has never seen one - they are shaped 
like a dumbbell and one is placed on either side of the carving 
service.


	(remaining pages have been lost)