Xmas’s of the Puckett Family
I thought maybe I should write about the early Xmas’s of the Puckett family.
(This is what I can remember)When I was 4 years old I received a Red Tricycle for Xmas. My dad (small as he was) Played Santa Claus at the Elgin, Ks. Methodist church that year. The Xmas that stands our in my memory more than the next 2 years we lived in Independence. I remember going to Sunday School at Episcopal church & waffle suppers at the Parish Hall, but don’t remember Xmas. When we moved to Sedan I remember Dad always got a Native Cedar tree that we decorated with odds & ends of lights & a few ornaments. Most of our decorations were made by stringing cranberries on string & Popcorn too. We made paper ornaments & our Star for the top of the tree was made from Card board, that we covered with tinfoil. We never threw away tinfoil. We Salvaged it from Cigarette packages & candy bars. Se we could have it to make decorations.
Mom always made home made fudge, taffy (we pulled) & divinity (which didn’t always set up solid) we ate it with a spoon. Chestnuts we use to roast in the front of the old wood stove. When the steam built up in them they would pop open & out of stove onto the floor & we scrambled to get them to keep them from burning the rug.
Xmas dinner was usually Home grown Roast chicken with Home made dressing. When Dad made dressing he would put onions, Giblets & sometimes sausage or chestnuts in it. He always used “Morton’s Sausage Seasoning” for the seasoning instead of sage. Mom usually just used onions, Giblets in Hers. We usually always had mince meat pie as that was our favorite. Different members of the family had favorite pie for dessert. So sometimes we had pumpkin pie too and Choc cake.
We got clothes for Xmas which always made me happy cause I liked clothes. We usually got a game of some kind that we could share. We were happy with what we got and felt “rich” with our presents. Until we saw where other kids got bicycles & coaster wagons. But I couldn’t ride a bike anyway, legs too short & poor balance. I loved my roller skates. I loved skating & did so ever chance I got.
All of us that could always spent Xmas at home with Mom & Dad. In afternoon sometimes we played cards or some game.
Christmas Through The Years
I have several fond memories from Christmas’ past. My Mom and Dad divorced when I was 4 years old and we moved first to Wichita Kansas and then finally back to Sedan, Kansas where my grandparents lived and where my Mother grew up. In 1957 (before she remarried) she had bought me a doll for Christmas. She looked like a Barbie but cost much less. My mother was a nurse most of her adult life and she worked the 11 pm to 7 pm shift this particular year. Well she handmade all the clothes for my doll. I have a photo that one of the other nurses took of her working on them. I don’t remember what I named her, but I still have her and the clothes that Mom made. In facts I have all my dolls from when I was a child.1957 Mary Alice making doll clothes for Christmas
After my Mom remarried money was tight and she would have my step-brother and I look through the Sears catalog and pick out three things that we liked and she would always try and get at least one of them. She always made my clothes and I always got something handmade from her. It was usually something I had found in the catalog that I really like and would keep me in style with all the girls at school. I was always into fashion and still am. Purses and shoes are my weakness.
The next one I remember is when Robert “Robi” my son was little. We were living in Arkansas City, Kansas. Well this particular year he wanted a bicycle like all little boys, so we got one and Leon stayed up most of the night putting it together (this is when they came in a box) and then took it to the garage out back of our place to hide it. It just so happens that we got up before he did so Leon got the bicycle and brought it into the house and placed it by the tree and when Robi got up you should have seen his face! I have a wonderful photo of him with his bike. It is a priceless picture of a 6 year old boy!
A couple of years later we moved to the country and I loved living in the country. Wide open spaces, clean air and it is quiet. Leon drove for Groendyke Transport and hauled crude oil. This particular year I wanted to put up a cedar tree. So Leon started watching around the different fields and he would spot one out and watch it all thru the summer and fall and if it was still in good shape we would all get in the pickup and go out and he and Robi would cut the tree and we would take it back and Robi and I would decorate it. Those were fun times and I really miss them. 1975 - Robi and His New Bike
The next Christmas was the first one we had with the family after moving to New Mexico in 1984. Now this is the year that got me started on genealogy. We had visited some good friends in our home town of Sedan, Kansas and he got his family history out and we were taking about families and when they arrived in the area. After we returned home I began to get interested and as the saying goes “The Rest is History” I finally found my calling in life and have enjoyed every minute it!
Now that Robi is grown and we have no grandkids around close Christmas does not have the meaning it once did. Guess that is a sign that I am getting older. The greatest present that I have ever received was this year, and that is the story that my mother wrote and gave me about Past Christmas' in our Puckett family. I will cherish it for as long as I live and it will certainly be passed on to my son who I hope will treasure it as much as I do now. I have done a “Christmas Past” family newsletter this year and ask all my cousins to send me their favorite Christmas story and so I hope a new tradition has been started and will keep going.
Merry Christmas to you and God Bless all of us!
Christmas in Arizona (1944)
(d/o Mavis Hutton and Everett Powers, gd/o Eleanor Copple and Bob Hutton, gt gd/o William Copple and Almira Heaviland and gg gd/o Sarah Ann Jobe and John A Copple Sr.)
The Christmas I am going to tell you about happened sixty years ago. I find that fact alone hard to believe that I could remember a Christmas that happened that long ago. Could I get getting old?
This Christmas may have been memorable to me because it was so different from any other Christmas in my memory. Christmas of 1944 I was almost 6 years old and my little brother, Bobby, was almost 5 years old. It was during WW II and our father was working in a defense plant in Phoenix, Arizona. He had a serious leg injury as a child and because of this he was not drafted into the army. He was, however, able to work on security and defense plant jobs. So here we were, living in a small apartment in a big city, a far cry from the small Kansas town of Sedan. Our mother said it didn’t seem much like Christmas with the warm, sunny days and palm trees everywhere.
At night we covered our windows and when the sirens went off we turned out every light. They called this a “black out.” It was as dark as pitch in the room where we all four slept. In my cot at the foot of my parents’ bed I was absolutely terrified. Daddy would whistle tunes, popular songs of the day and Christmas songs. I would try and guess the songs, like in “Name that Tune”. I am still good at this game. This made a fun time out of a frightening event.
We had a car, but because of shortages of gasoline and tires, we didn’t drive much. We walked to the grocery store often. As we walked we passed a small jewelry store. We gazed at the window displays and Daddy asked Mother what she liked best in the window. She had her eye on a brush, comb and mirror, a ‘dresser set’ it was called. I remember of wishing she could have it, probably so I could enjoy it as well.
One day, a few year before Christmas, Daddy was taking care of us while Mother was out. He brought out a large box from the jewelry store and it was the lovely dresser set. The brush was especially nice with a mirrored back; a lovely comb and two-sided mirror completed the set. All were encrusted with what I thought then were diamonds. We were amazed to have this beautiful set on our own house. Daddy had the idea to repack the set in a smaller box so Mother would never guess what it was. He cut the box down, wrapped it all back up in Christmas wrapping and swore both Bobby and I to secrecy. When Mother came home the first words out of Bobby’s mouth were “I’m no telling you what it is, but the brush has a mirror on the back.” Now there was no secret, but Mother and Daddy laughed and laughed. From that time, whenever someone in the family would give up a secret someone else would say, “The brush has a mirror on the back.”
Time passed, things changed. My mother and father were divorced. Mother, Bobby and I moved back to Sedan, Kansas; our father stayed in Arizona. I still remember that last Christmas we were together and all the laughter over the “hint” Bobby gave Mother about her Christmas give.
Merry Christmas!
Linda Powers Beason
My Memorable Christmas
(-Alma Gail (Puckett) Forbes, Mary Augusta (Myers) Puckett, Sarah Ann (Jobe) Copple Myers, Edward J. Jobe, James M. Jobe, Enoch Jobe Jr.)
I remember one year, (1970’s) not sure exactly but Terry (her brother) came home on leave from the Marines. Mother knew he was coming and said that the tree wouldn’t go up until he came home. We waited for days, or should I say, I waited! Finally Christmas Eve he gets home. We went to the YWCA or YMCA down the road anyway. Well they didn’t have too many left. This is Christmas Eve mind you, so there isn’t to many so called good ones left. We looked at all of then and decided on “Charlie Brown”. It was so sad looking and small, you knew no one would buy it. But I wanted it, I thought it was the most beautiful tree in the world. I had Terry home from the Marines, and Santa was good to me.
Another was my daughter Hanna wanted a cabbage patch doll. She was very specific about it too. It had to have Blonde hair (curly) blue eyes, and the most difficult of all was, it had to have her name in the dolls name. Her first name mind you would have been easier, beings its Ann. I looked at every store I could find, finally at all places Service Merchandise had one named Fayette Hannah and she had curly blonde hair and blue eyes. What a pain that was, but to see the look on her face Christmas morning was so very well worth it
I have that doll today, sitting on my Grandma Forbes and my Auntie Mary’s high chair (that I just gave her last month, it has been in our family for almost 100 years now.) It’s great. I hope everyone has a Healthy and Happy Holiday.
