I was born in 1945, the year the second World War ended. My parents and their generation were ebullient with the joy of having survived this catastrophe, and all the prosperity offered by the post war period. They were full of energy and hope and optimism after a depression, a World War, and the personal tragedies of their own lives. My mother had lost her parents and my father's father had died leaving his mother with three boys to raise and her own mother in a coma after a stroke.
They married, I was born, my brother was born and the Christmas extravaganza was born! My father, being in construction, built a sturdy platform that filled the living room. Furniture was moved out to make way for the double set of tracks, the tunnels, the bridges, terminals, railway depot and the big trains of the heyday of Lionel. I can almost smell the motor oil and had the whistle.
The platform was curtained by brick printed paper, and clothed in sparkling snow paper. There were villages of sparkling "Occupied Japan" made cardboard bungalows with cellophane windows, a mirror lake with skating lead figures, hills with lead sleds and lead people in brightly colored clothes sitting on benches at the train station and in the park. There were 'to scale' platform trees, fences, animals, and actually lighting street lights. In the back corner of the platform stood the live tree purchased from "Down The Neck" which was the historic place where once reclaimed land held farms that now is the Philadelphia airport and shipyard.
The tree was festooned with many colored large bulb lights, glass Christmas balls, and aluminum tinsel. Much later many people went for spun glass 'angel hair' but we never did.
The whole thing was a grand spectacle, all the wires and controls hidden under the platform which stood about a foot and a half high.
Sometimes my father let me drive the trains, quite an honor. You had to be careful to keep up with the track switching so you didn't make a collision.
That magical and Herculean effort of a platform is the thing I remember best and the thing that no one does anymore. Even the model train store that was on the Black Horse Pike until a couple of years ago is now gone. The proprietor, "Mac" may have passed on.
My grandmother Lyons, we all lived within a block or two of each other in South Philadelphia, always made a big steaming cauldron of sauerkraut and pork, with hot dogs in it, and a heap of rolls and a pt of mashed potatoes - a warming meal for the cold cold winter.
Few people bother with live trees, almost no one puts up a platform, and I think after my generation, all that will be a memory. The other thing that I think will die with my generation, and for most of the people I know, has already stopped, is the tradition of Christmas greeting cards. I still write out about 50 but I only have one or two friends, older than I am, who still do that.
People make new traditions, I suppose, I don't know many young families, so I don't know what they do beyond the heaps of gifts which seem to have taken the place of the shared display of the platform.
Well whatever people do, getting together, and bringing light and celebration to the dark days of winter will probably always be with and so, I hope, will the grace of generosity. The gift giving isn't about 'commercialization' an excuse some people use for not bothering, it is about giving and sharing in the bounty that we are so fortunate to enjoy - AND - it is about GRATITUDE!
Merry Christmas!
Jo Ann
ps. Yesterday I enjoyed the most wonderful party that a couple I know give every year where we eat drink and read A Child's Christmas in Wales around the fireplace.
Today, a friend from college has a photograph show opening at Rutgers in Camden in the Student Center - Sharon Harris' 'pin-hole camera' photographs!
Next Sunday, Dec. 9, I am off to Greenwich for the Historic House tour and Saint Lucia festival. I hope you have wonderful plans for the upcoming holiday weeks too!
Also, I hope you, like me, have your lights up, your tree up and all your work done so you can enjoy!
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