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Originally Posted by jp4m2  Alright Mike, you got me thinking about soooo many stories, unfortunately some I won't post about  .....
I remember my dad putting up a Christmas tree and he couldn't afford a tree stand... wait a minute.....he couldn't afford a tree either so he went into a woods and cut down a tree..... and then he nailed two pieces of wood together into a "+" shape and nailed it to the bottom of the tree....when he stood the tree up he drove what appeared to be spikes from the top right through the carpet and into the floor  ....the tree tipped over so he put a hook into the ceiling and tied a string from the hook to the top of the tree to anchor it ...by the time Christmas was over that tree was soooo dry static electricity would have created an indoor inferno......and that my dears was a Christmas to remember...... |
That story really brings back memories for me as well. Mom and Dad had seven children and not much money. Dad worked, but his paycheck paid the necessities and that was it. They had one credit card, Sears, which was put aside for a major emergency; such as a major appliance. And that didn't mean a clothes dryer, because Mom hung up all the clothing outside. I remember them in the winter being as stiff as boards. You couldn't even fold them.
Every Christmas Dad would wait until Christmas Eve when all the people in the City that sold trees had closed up shop. That's when he would get in the car and drive around the City hoping to find a tree that was too disgusting to have been sold. He always succeeded. He would bring the poor thing home and anchor it up as best he could. He would even remove branches from the meatier part of the tree and drill a hole somewhere else to put the branches in to try and fill it out. You've heard of people who would laugh until they cried - well Mom would cry until she laughed. And then we would all go to bed with big smiles on our faces knowing that all was well.
One Christmas the seven of us woke up to a little 45 record player and a complete set of Glen Miller's Best. We hadn't even heard of Glen Miller and I'm pretty sure, in retrospect, that someone gave Mom those 45s and she put them aside for us as our Christmas gift. That was one of my happiest Christmas memories. We played those records endlessly. While other kids were listening to Elvis on their record player, we knew the entire words to songs like Fascination and Chatanooga Choo Choo.
I don't remember ever being unhappy growing up. We didn't have any money, but we had more than enough love.