Merry Christmas to all. In thinking back of other Christmas's I thought of 75 years ago, a one room school Christmas play. I don't remember much about the play, but it was a cowboy theme, with sitting around a fire of red cellophane and a flashlight under it. Sheets hung on stove pipe wire dividing the stage. Somebody probably brought a Alladin lamp for light.
Eighteen year old red haired teacher, Ruth Bergett. She liked cowboy themes. One song we sang often was "My home's in Montana, I wear a bandanna, my spurs are of silver, my pony is grey", along with the songs like "Skip to my Lou" in our little song books. I believe we only had six students that year: Tom Rasumssen and Shirley Luedke in the eighth grade, then Ann Noteboom, Ivan Noteboom, my brother Norman in 2nd grade and me in first grade. Tom has been gone for some time, and we lost Ivan in Viet Nam. Shirley often helped teach me spelling etc.
I remember the Phonics book, a large book with pictures of a person holding his mouth and tongue to show the sounds of different letters of the alphabet. The school had a large stove in the middle with a metal shield around it, coal and cob bins on the south side of the school to fire the stove.
Another Christmas play I remember: 1963 in Fort Gordon, Georgia: Several of us were picked to go to General Salet's (pronounced "Salay") Christmas play. We were taken to a place where a bus was to pick us up. Another hurry up and wait. We stood out in the cold for 45 minutes before the bus came. Even with overcoats on it was cold. The play was downtown in Augusta. The familiar Christmas story of the trip to Bethlehem, the birth in a manger, etc. The stage had something like cheesecloth in front so when the stage was lit you could see the actors, and when dark and lit from the front they were not visible. Got back to the barracks, cold in there. Went out and shoveled in a couple shovels of coal and with the poker make some holes for air in the coals and warmed it up.
Went to midnight mass tonight, not the usual crowd, but a nice turnout.