Memories of Christmas

Two images come to mind. One I remember as a child: My father wanted us to have Christmas decorations like the States. So he built (or had built) a fiberboard fireplace with a light bulb for the fire. The fireplace was solid red without any bricks outlined in white. Every year he and my Mom would put it together and then "chalk" the outlines of bricks on it. At the time, you couldn't buy the pre-fab cardboard fireplaces with the brick outlines already painted on it. I never knew why he didn't just paint the bricks on it one time. But each year they just "chalked" them in. We put up this "fireplace" for many, many years--long after you could buy the cardboard ones.

The other image comes from photographs of when my sister was a baby during WWII. One year, shortly after Pearl Harbor, the Christmas trees didn't arrive on the Isthmus--either in time or at all.  So my father took a segmented fishing rod and a bedsheet and made a Christmas tree. He used the segmented sections of the rod to make a center trunk and branches and spread the sheet over it. He and Mom pinned Christmas ornaments on the "sheet tree." But by God, we were going to have a Christmas tree!

Paul (Buddy) Morgan