Christmas on my grandparent’s ranch is one of my earliest and best of memories. The ranch was homesteaded in the 1800's by my great-grandfather who was renowned as a cattleman and also as a hunting guide and good friend of Thomas Alva Edison, a frequent visitor when he needed to get away from the patent wars back east. It was a big ranch in southeastern Wyoming near the Colorado border, and at 9000 feet elevation, very cold in December. Often the wind would drift snow as high as the roof of the big one-story ranch house, requiring tunneling out to the luxury of the outhouse and breaking ice for hauling bathing and washing water from the creek.

We cut our own Christmas tree, of course, Gramps and an uncle hooking a team to the sled, loading axes and heading up into the foothills. I begged to ride along, reveling in the crisp air and the beauty of virgin snow blanketing everything except the tallest pines. Once returned, the fir tree would nearly reach the ten-foot high ceiling of giant lodgepole pine beams. The smell of the freshly-cut tree brought the ambience of our beloved timber claims inside the sometimes stuffy winter atmosphere inherent in a house full of people. Gram, my mom, her three sisters and the hired girl would decorate, stringing popcorn for garlands, hanging special home-baked cookies from pieces of ribbon. Since we didn’t get electricity until 1953 from Saratoga ( population 450 or 500 depending on whether the Rawlins Limited train was in town during a census) we hoarded some lids from all the canning cans that weren’t crushed for the war drive, and placed homemade little candles on the tin lids to fasten to the branches.

For warmth, big chunks of fragrant cedar and pine were stacked near the single huge walk-in stone fireplace that heated the whole ranch except for a pot-bellied stove in the kitchen which did various duties, such as cooking, heating the sad irons, kettles of hot water for the galvanized bathtub and warming the room. Grams had some ornate ceramic pottery to decorate the mantle, the favorite of us children being the candy dish which was white with painted flowers and fashioned in a unique basket-weave pattern. Home-made candy and walnuts were a big treat after Christmas eve dinner, then we would all sit and listen for an hour or so to the 12-volt battery-operated Airline radio ordered from the thick "Monkey-Wards" catalog, which served double duty as a link to the manufacturing world as well as being useful in the outhouse. The radio could get short wave and overseas stations on a clear night when skip waves were strongest but we listened instead to the Denver station that played our favorite shows. Gramps insisted we listen to Gabriel Heater and the news to find out how the war was going and which east-coast politicians were in hot water that week. My favorite show was Jack Benny but the older folks wanted to listen to One Man’s Family. Afterward, we would break out the instruments to play and sing Christmas music. Everybody was musical so we had a full range of guitars, banjos, a piano, a sax and even a trumpet to create our own Original Amateur Hour.

Christmas morning we all got up early, as usual on a working ranch, excited and happy with the anticipation of gifts to be received, but even more anxious to experience the warm, good feeling from seeing the looks of pleasure on those who received our gifts. The giving was better than the receiving, as they say. Most gifts were made by hand beginning months in advance. They included hardwood figurines patiently carved with each man’s Case pocket knife from that perfectly- grained block that was the result of months of searching the back country. Some worked leather into tack, belts and wallets, each piece carefully cut, scraped, then cured by stretching it along the bunkhouse wall facing the sun and massaging it with saddle soap so it was soft and supple, then sewing and engraving until it was the envy of every hand on the ranch. Raoul, the blacksmith always fashioned some superlative conchos, bits and Mexican-roweled steel spurs adorned with his own version of silver and copper engraving. I still have a pair he made in 1934. The women sewed tailored western shirts, bandanas, and dresses. My first remembered gift at age four was an actual "store-bought" pair of denim overalls, grey with black stripes. The stripes were vertical since penitentiary convicts seemed to have a lock on the horizontal ones. Gramps put me and my cousin on a prize Hereford bull for a snapshot, which was de rigeur for country folks. City folks posed their kids in front of cars. I suspect Gramps was prouder of the bull than us ornery little buggers. My favorite gift for my eighth Christmas was a .22-caliber Iver Johnson single-shot rifle which became my tool for hunting pests for state bounty and to protect Gram’s garden and chickens. For my tenth Christmas, a bonanza of a Winchester .410 pump and a Laloo Jr. Beaver Stetson for "go to town" or rodeo wear. Funny how now I can’t even recall what I received last Christmas. I think it was a digital camera that did everything but take good photos and some sort of gift card for a store that has absolutely nothing I want.

Christmas dinner on the ranch was a real feast. Luckily, the war rationing didn’t affect us much since we were self-sufficient, growing our own vegetables and livestock. We seldom ate turkey as the only birds like that were sage hens that roamed free and were sort of Gram’s pets. Antelope steaks were an occasional favorite entree, cattlemen didn’t eat mutton and our stock was too valuable to decimate. The meat dish was accompanied by canned veggies and potatoes from the root cellar, and of course freshly-baked bread and rich butter churned on the porch. Milk was the preferred cowboy’s drink, until they got to town. I preferred the sweet, cold artesian spring water we kept outside in milk cans.

It is hard to compare Christmas then with now. This is a different time, different place, a different world. The pace of life is much more frantic, noisy and stressful and technology seems to be taking over every aspect of society. Gift shopping, for archaic men like me without a cell phone or GPS is a dreaded chore and I feel naked in a crowded mall without a sidearm. If it wasn’t for wanting to be with our own family members at a special time when everyone can come together and revel in my wife’s superb cooking, Christmas has become almost more of an ordeal than a blessing. However, our family still retains as many traditional values as possible. Seeing one another again and catching up with one another’s lives reminds us of how much we love them and is the best present of all.