Holidays, 1960

The Christmas decorations on the streets of my home town were very pretty indeed  for the time period. At least they were real multi-colored 2 watt light bulbs, and not these little wimpy 'LED's' like you buy nowadays at the dollar store 100 lights for $1.99. Everyone boxed up their lights at the end of the Christmas season, which at that time, was the day after Christmas. If you left your decorations up until New Year's day, you were pushing the envelope...People thought you were weird. But if you had decorations up until the middle of January or later, people didn't think you were weird, THEY KNEW YOU WERE WIERD!  Commercial building and churches would have Christmas scenes, like maybe a Nativity Scene, a snowman, reindeer, or a Santa Claus. The lights on our homes were enough to be pretty and to show we had Christmas Spirit, but the average Joe couldn't afford to light 500,000 or more of these 2 watt lamps. A guy would have to work all year just to pay the power bill for December. Not considering, when he turned all those lights on, he would have overloaded the transformer at the corner, it would have tripped the main at the local power plant, the local plant would sense the big power draw, try to ramp up to meet the need, then the district power grid would sense the problem and attempt to divert more electricity to the problem area, causing more power grid to shut down, and before you know it...Badda bing, Badda boom...the entire USA is without power. Now all the neighbors are mad because this is the night for 'Hit Parade, the Patty Page show,  and Ed Sullivan,' and worse, 'Gunsmoke'  followed by 'Peter Gunn.' I love the Family getting together, the decorations, the food and fellowship...and the lights. But the prettiest lights I see every Christmas, are the taillights on the cars as they got out the driveway.

Yeah, Christmas lights and decorations make the holiday more joyful. The one thing that many of us never have and never will leave off the Christmas celebration list. Christmas candies, cakes, and Christmas beverages. We all know from my blog a couple days ago, how my uncles loved their eggnog and Burbon, and not necessarily in that order. There were always two containers of eggnog placed on the table. There would be a clear colored pitcher containing some of the best homemade eggnog you have ever tasted. It was flavored with only a small, small amount, I mean a micro, minute, smidgen of a drop or two of burbon, to give it that famous (well at least in our neighborhood), smooth easy on the palate, June Mitcham flavor, that had been numero uno for many, many, years. The second pitcher, colored red, was for the adults who liked just a little more burbon in their eggnog. (No measurement needed, by taste only.)

Well, as was typical with our wholly dysfunctional family, things did not always go according to plan. Someone, who will remain nameless at this time, broke the red pitcher, and proceeded to fill another clear pitcher with 'Grandpa's' finest burbon. I mean eggnog. Maw, Aunt Ethel, and Aunt Lillian, as they normally did were sitting together sipping on their Eggnog, gossiping, excuse me, I mean discussing some of the neighbors. As their glasses were becoming almost empty, Maw asked one of the girl cousins to refill their glasses for them and Maw said, "be sure to get the clear pitcher, " and she giggled a little, "Lillian can't take too much liquor." They all had a good laugh. The  glasses were all refilled and it wasn't long before the conversation turned to the eggnog. "Why, I believe this is some of the best eggnog, Paw has ever made." Maw said. The aunts agreed. Aunt Ethel commented that it was excellent, much better than last year. Aunt Lillian tried to comment but could only giggle like a giddy little school girl. Finally Aunt Lillian got it out, "My glass is empty, Filler up!" The glasses were refilled and is wasn't long until the ladies were demanding another refill. Uncle John walked up and said,  "come on Lil, work day tomorrow and it's after 10 o'clock." Aunt Lillian leaned back, crossed her arms, looked at Uncle John. "John, sit down and shut up. I'll let you know when I'm ready to go."  The whole room became quiet. Paw looked at Maw, her glasses were a little askew, Aunt Ethel belched really loudly, and Aunt Lillian held her glass in the air and said, "filler up again!"