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Holidays  

For as long as I can remember the holidays have been big deals in our family. I say family and I mean not only the small family group that most people think of today, but in my case the extended family. In most families holidays today are celebrated between the children, and mom and dad. Most families today are so scattered, disjointed or dysfunctional that it is impossible to have the type of family I am going to talk about during the holidays here in this chapter. As you will see there were problems during the holidays, but for the most part they were happy, almost magical times. 

My mother loved the holidays of Easter, Thanksgiving, and especially Christmas. As we were always short of money in our immediate family, there had to be a lot of planning and sacrifice to bring it off. My mother was the main person who saw to it that we had good holidays but my grandparents did a lot as well. Dads working in construction meant that he was unemployed a lot during the bad weather of the winter when most of the big holidays were held.  

During Easter it was just making sure we had “church cloths” and candy from the Easter Bunny. Mom would usually take us to one of the big department stores in Tacoma to buy us our Easter wardrobe. If dad had the family car at work so if one of the grandmas was not going to town, my brother, mom and me had to get to the bus depot. The bus depot was a wondrous place with all kinds of people waiting with their packages. Then, there was a regular good bus line between Puyallup and Tacoma. It may have been a necessity because of the shortage of fuel and cars during and just after the war, but it was a good service and well used. Until just recently there was no comparable service between the cities even given that both have gained considerably in population. Mom would get the tickets and we would wait for the time when the blue and gray bus would come into the passageway between the bus depot and the farmers feed building next door. The smell, heat and noise of the diesel bus engine was exciting and a little frightening to us small boys at the time. Mom took us in tow by the hands and hurried us up the steps to a seat where we could all set together. Of course Denny and me fought to get as close to the window as we could. We looked at all the sights along the old River Road and especially the cars zooming past us. The bus had several stops along the road to pick up at other bus terminals, but finally we were in Tacoma in front of the Rhodes department store. This was mom’s starting place but we would go up and down the streets looking for just the right combination of matching items of cloths. Mom always wanted everything to match from socks and shoes to hats. We always had everything we needed to look like little gentlemen. We were poor but mom did not want people to think we were and made sure we did not look like it. When things were real bad, she would make us cloths, but even then we looked great as she could sew just great and could make everything for us, even suits.  

Tacoma was always very busy. There were no malls at all and everyone shopped downtown. There were several big department stores and each one tried to out do the other with decorations and attractions to draw customers. We hit most of them and of course we would always get mom to take us to the toy section as a reward for being good while we looked at cloths. Up and down the hills we went. As our trip continued, so did the number of packages mom had to carry as well as keeping us boy by the hand. During Christmas time, each store had displays, usually somewhat automated depicting some Christmas scene. There was Santa Clause to visit and tell him our wants for the year. I remember on year that one of the stores had Santa in a big window with the sound of the kids wishes coming out to the street via laud speakers so the parents could hear. When asked what I wanted I said, “ I want a little sister”. Santa told me I would have to ask my mom for that as he was out of little sisters. The people outside laughed and mom got red in the face. At the time I did not understand why. I didn’t get the little sister, but mom got me a life size doll. Kind of strange for boys to have dolls, but to me she was my little sister. I never played with her, but set her in my room in the corner chair and talked to her sometimes, just as thought she was real.  Rhodes store always had a little train that went all around toy land. Each child could purchase a ticket and take a mystical ride. My Aunt Ruth was one of the elf train drives so for a couple of years we got free rides. As it turned out the gal I was to marry years latter, Jackie,  ran the same little train during Christmas.  

After shopping and getting everything we needed to look great for the season, we waited again in front of Rhodes department store for the bus going back home. There were many people waiting there for all kinds of busses going all around the city and to towns around the area. We usually had to wait under the big awning there in the front of the store. This window always had one of the biggest displays for each of the seasons, so we had some entertainment as we waited. One trip as we had been riding back home for a while my mom noticed that Denny was happily chewing some gum. It was a big wad of blackjack gum that was popular then. Mom did not allow us to chew gum much or to have candy very often either, so she was quite concerned as to where Denny had gotten the gum. He was just chewing away when mom asked him where he got the gum and who gave it to him. He said “ nobody gave it to me, mom I found it stuck under the window there as we were waiting for the bus”. Needles to say mom had him spit it out very fast. Denny always seemed to do things like that.  

Christmas Eve was usually spent getting ready for church. Mom was an Episcopalian, and dad a Lutheran. We tried to go to one church one Christmas and then to the other the next year, but most of the time we went to Christ Episcopal Church in Puyallup with mom and her folks. In fact in later years both Denny and I were acolytes and participated in the service ourselves. Sometimes dad would get to celebrating too much and would end up to drunk to go to church. My uncles always got drunk and sometimes would get my dad drinking as we went around exchanging gifts before church. This drinking caused all kinds of problems and hurt feeling in the family. This was probably the only bad thing about the holidays that I can remember. But Christmas morning would find us all happy and all was forgiven. We boys would get everyone else up in our little house to see what Santa had brought. I still don’t really understand with all the unemployment how my parents were able to get us boys all the things for Christmas we got each year. I do remember one year that we got some charity baskets, but we never heard of welfare or any kind of assistance from the state. Each year it was hard to tell where our Christmas started and the toy store ended. We were really spoiled by our parents and grandparents and had more toys then we deserved. Each set of grandparents would do everything possible to see to it that we got what we wanted, almost to extreme. I know for a fact a few years that some of the kids in the neighborhood came over to our house as soon as they could, after their packages were opened, just to see with amazement all that we got for Christmas.  

I will always remember one year especially well for what happened. I had gotten a real nice bike about a year and a half before. My brother, Fred and I had all kinds of fun taking turns riding the bike. We learned to ride by leaning the bike against Grandma Sangster’s tree and pushing ourselves off. We had many crashes, and it is a wonder we did not injure ourselves to bad, but we all eventually learned to ride. Fred’s parents had gotten him a fancy English 5 speed bike for his birthday, and this meant that the only one without a bike was Denny. All Denny asked for that year was a bike. On our trip to Tacoma he had looked a flashy Rocket bike at the Sears store. He loved that bike and wanted it more than anything. It was red with a horn and both front and rear lights.  He waited with anticipation for Christmas morning to see if he got it. By this time neither one of us really believed in Santa Clause, and knew our parents were the real Santa’s to us, so Denny hoped they had heard his request. As we entered the living room and looked around there was no bike to be seen. I could see that Denny was very disappointed. We started opening packages and with each one opened Denny got sadder and sadder. After the last package was opened it was obvious that Santa had not gotten a bike for Denny. I felt something was up as I had gotten a lot more presents then my brother and mom made sure that we both got the same amount each year. Denny was trying to act happy and play with the things he got, but he was fighting back tears all the same. Dad and mom had gotten a new box spring and mattress set for Christmas. Dad asked us boys to help him move the set into the bedroom so mom could try it out and relax before dinner. Denny and I went over to help him. Denny was kind of dragging with his head held down. As we moved the mattress set there behind it was a brand new Rocket bike. Denny let out a scream that could probably be heard all over the town. He had his bike. He had a good Christmas after all.  

We asked and got a lot of things from our parents for Christmas that were very expensive and I am ashamed to say that was a little spoiled by it, but we did love them all for it. I remember one year that I asked my grandpa Sangster to get us a set of gold Roy Rogers cap guns with matching white leather holsters. Now these guns were very expensive even for today. I think about twenty dollars a set. This was in the time that a man made thirty-five dollars a week working. He got them for us never the less, because he did not want us to have a bad Christmas. Of all the big things I got, I remember one of the small presents that I got most years when I was young that did not cost to much, but I just loved. These were the days way before we had TV. I knew of TV but we, nor our grandparents had it yet. I just imagined how it would work and look. Some toy manufacture made a small plastic box that either looked like a movie projector or TV set depending on what you wanted. In this little box a person could insert a rolled up film with images from various B movies. I liked the ones with cowboys the most. I would lay on the floor and look at the pictures in the toy and imagine the adventure they were having. I could tell any story I wanted and each time I held the plastic box to the light. I could have a new adventure each time. This toy did not cost that much, but it is the one I remember getting the most enjoyment from.  

Food was always a big part of each holiday. I would eat until I was sick and had to just lay on the bed to recover. Maybe this has contributed to my life long weight problem. My mom and grandmothers would start cooking about a week before the holiday. There were no such thing as pre packaged products. When we had dinner everything was home made and fresh. I especially remember my Grandma Wassman cooking all kinds of wonderful things. In my real early childhood I can remember her making everything on an old wood stove in the kitchen. God, the smell of the house was wonderful. There as always a big turkey and sweat potatoes, cranberries and every kind of pie and cake. There was a seemingly endless supply of things that all tasted so great. Everyone wanted to go to grandma Wassman’s house for the holiday for the great food she served, but everyone also knew they would have to put up with the drunken spells of my two uncle, Bob and Buck. They were not bad drunks. Both of then drank more than they should while celebrating the particular holiday. They didn’t need too much of an excuse. My dad would sometimes join them and then all the women would be mad at them and this sometimes put a damper on things. On Thanksgiving especially the drinking was quite high as both Bob and Buck would go to the traditional football game between Puyallup and Sumner high schools. They would start there and continue on most of the day. My aunts would sometimes end up crying and feeling bad because of it. We, still in spite of this, had wonderful Holidays there and enjoyed ourselves.  

I was lucky that I had two sets of grandparents who lived in the same town as I did. My grandma Sangster had divorced my grandpa who lived in Salem Oregon so that meant that I had three sets that I could be with. His name was George Martus and he lived with his wife in Oregon. We would sometimes travel to their house during the holiday season. We boys for some reason called Grandpa Martus Grandpa Salem. He was very good to us as well and always sent large checks to help buy us Christmas and birthday gifts. They would also come to Puyallup ever so often during the holidays. This caused some problems as can be expected as feelings between the Sangster’s and Martus’s was pretty poor. We kids could tell there was hard feelings even though we did not understand them.  

All in all the holidays were wonderful. Our small family and extended family had a great time. It was so obvious to everyone that there was a lot of love in the family. Others outside the family would come around just to enjoy the spirit that was there. Gifts were given to us kids not out of obligation, but because we were truly loved. Our parents and grandparents would find true happiness just looking at our eyes as we opened package after package. How I love the memory of those days. Even the little things we made ourselves for our parents and grandparents were accepted with love. They were cherished because they new we gave them with much love. We knew and appreciated the sacrifices they made for us. We knew they all loved us above everything else, and we loved them back. Everyone in the family felt love no matter what one of us did, we knew that no matter what, we were welcome in the family. I never heard my Grandma Wassman say an unkind word about anyone. I suspect she could even find something nice to say about the worst of society and hope good things for them. I hope all my children and grandchildren have the same feelings of love and closeness. As I am writing this chapter most of my kids and grandkids live close. The ones who don’t do their best to get home for the major holidays. We now set a empty place setting around the table to remember the friends and family who are only with us in spirit. Each year there are new faces around the table and others to be remembered at the honored table space. It is my hope that we will always do our best to keep our family holiday traditions going. Especially that we should remember to always get together no matter how hard it is during this time and renew the love of our family.  

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