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A Bonners Ferry Christmas, 1955
December 14, 2016
By Mike Ashby

We youth of the 1950s certainly looked forward to Christmas as much as any kid does today. For the month preceding Christmas break, our classrooms were decorated with red and green paper chains. Cut-out angels flitted about the room, suspended from the ceiling with strings.

Everyone made paper snowflakes to paste on the windows and there was always a Christmas tree in every room, decorated with whatever the students could make, either at home or at school.

Each child would draw a name out of a hat, then purchase for that person a small gift. We were limited to one dollar each, so a lot of thought had to go into that gift-giving. Often gifts for our classmates included pencils, crayons, or maybe an ink pen. A small balsa-wood airplane then was only ten cents so that was a popular gift item.

Seems to me an occasional squirt gun or maybe a small slingshot would find their way into the classroom, too, but those gifts were confiscated until after school.

A few of us would bring a small gift for the teacher. A bottle of my dad’s supply of cheap wine he hid in the garage made its way to the teacher one year, much to my father’s chagrin.

Our Sunday school classes started prepping for the annual Christmas pageant shortly after Thanksgiving. For my posse, this meant no end of entertainment. Having to wear a huge worn-out towel, carry some limb made to look like a staff and then pretend to ride a stick camel was just plain funny.

A much younger Mike Ashby, age 10.
Seldom, if ever, would everyone remember their parts so most of the program was done “ad lib.”
By 7 p.m. on the night of the pageant, the church would be filled with parents, grandparents and other assorted adults. Sometimes a strong odor of booze could be detected floating about the audience, but that just contributed to the merriment.

The lights would dim, a star would suddenly be lit, and the affair would begin. Little baby Jesus would be added to the homemade cradle. Since this cradle would have a bit of straw in it, one or two of the wise men would always try to feed some of that straw to their stick camels, which made for some guffaws from the audience.

Words to carols were often changed to get a laugh, specifically “We Three Kings of Orient Are” who were “smoking a rubber cigar.” Most parents were usually seated at the back of the church, cringing somewhat at their child’s antics.

After the program ended, we youth were rewarded with sacks of peanuts, oranges, candy canes and maybe a small Bible. Some of the adults with the boozy breath would tell us how much they enjoyed our efforts, swaying back and forth over us as if a wind were blowing them. A few of us would be chided on the way home for our actions during the pageant. “How could you embarrass me so much?” was a common complaint I heard.

Once Christmas break started, we were free every day to sleigh ride on Stone’s hill, build snow forts or just sit in the house and watch the snowflakes drift past the street lights. There was always snow in those days and lots of it.

Once the snow got deep, it was always fun to burrow through it somewhat like a huge gopher. Tossing a cat into four feet of powder would provide a few giggles, too.

In mid-December, my father would bring home a Christmas tree and stick it in the living room. Decorating was a rather tedious affair, and Dad was the only one allowed to put on the Christmas lights.

A very popular tree light in those days was the bubble light. These were wee little glass bulbs filled with colored fluid. Once the things were plugged in, the fluid would get hot and begin to bubble.

They had to be installed perfectly to keep from starting the tree on fire when they got hot, so my father would spend hours trying to get each light to stand up straight and not tip over.

After the lights were in place, it was on to the ornaments. Since all ornaments in those days were made of fragile glass, a small boy was more a threat than a help when hanging them on the tree.

I was usually assigned the job of hanging the “tinsel” or “icicles.”

This stuff looked like tinfoil cut into very long, narrow strips. It was supposed to give the effect of icicles dripping from the tree and reflect the glow from the bubble lights. Since a ten-year-old boy does not have much comprehension of the theory of proportionate amounts, the tree often ended up looking like a seven-foot tall roll of tinfoil.

My mother would always insist on saving this tinsel stuff every year, so getting it off the tree was always a time-consuming process, especially if the 10-year-old had been left to his own devices when putting it on the tree.

Making a trip into Spokane from Bonners Ferry in the mid 50s was a journey only for the intrepid. The highway from Bonners to Coeur d’ Alene was a narrow, winding two-lane affair, with numerous one-lane bridges.

Meeting an oncoming semi and deciding whether to “goose” the car and get across that narrow bridge first or stop for the truck was often a call drivers had to make.

Since my dad seldom drove in heavy traffic, once we reached Spokane, he would park at the very first parking garage he found and we walked everywhere the rest of the day.

Arriving in downtown Spokane, a world of beauty and displays of Christmas awaited us.

As a small boy, I was a touch baffled by how many stores Santa was in. Just to be on the safe side, I crawled onto Santa’s lap at each store we went into, repeating my list and occasionally giving those greasy Santas a written record of my demands.

The two main stores we visited were the Bon Marche and the Crescent. They were high-end department stores with amazing amounts of stuff. Their multiple floors were connected by escalators and elevators with human operators at the controls. Their sidewalk window displays would cause most people passing by to just stop and gawk.

There were elves, Frosty the Snowman, electric trains running everywhere, reindeer, Santa’s sleigh, Alvin and the Chipmunks, music being piped outside to the passersby and multiple Christmas trees, all beautifully trimmed and lighted.

These window displays were always more works of art than marketing tools. I remember the one window display at the Crescent stretched almost for one whole city block and then continued about halfway down the next block.

A kid could spend well over an hour gazing at all the displays in those windows.

For a young boy, the third floor of the Bon was literally heaven. Every possible toy made was there, all within reach of a short little guy. Most of the adults would simply deposit their kids on that floor and leave them.

We sort of referred to ourselves as “toy orphans.”

I spent many a happy hour on that floor, mostly redoing my Christmas list and making tracks back down to the resident Santa to present him with my revised wishes.

Perhaps the highlight of a trip to Spokane for me was lunch at the Woolworth’s lunch counter. A malted milk shake was .25 cents, a banana split was .39 cents, a baked ham and cheese toasted three-decker sandwich was .60 cents and for dessert, a piece of apple pie was .15 cents. For two bucks a kid could really get his tummy full.

On Christmas Eve, I would be sent to bed early. I was admonished to “Go to sleep, Santy won’t show up if you’re awake, you know.”

Well, maybe my parents thought he would not show up, but I know I heard the bugger a few times when I was little.

Later I learned that Santa had hired my folks to put the toys under the tree. I figured that one out when I found crumbs in their bed the next morning that matched the cookies they had left out for Santa.

We opened presents on Christmas morning, which was always fun, but just a touch low-keyed.

Since I was the only child, most of the presents under the tree were mine. I had several uncles and aunts that really doted on me. As a consequence, I would receive some rather high-end articles of clothing: Pendleton coats and shirts, western boots, cowboy shirts -- just nice stuff. Toys were limited, sad to say. I remember getting a wind-up tank one year, games like Pick-Up Sticks or Dominoes, just things an only child could play with by himself.

After the morning of opening, I would dash outside and make tracks to my friend Gary’s house. We would spend a few minutes comparing gifts and throw a few snowballs at each other before I would head back home.

The balance of the day would be spent watching my folks sacked out on the couch or chair while I dinked around with the tank or tried on all the new clothes.

One Christmas, however, my dad really out-did himself for me. I was 12 years old that year when he gave me a .22 rifle. That rifle would later prove to almost be the death of me, but that’s another story.

Once Christmas was officially over, I remember being a bit sad as I watched the tree being thrown over the bank behind the house with a few clinging strands of tinsel flapping in the breeze.

Christmas was fun in the ’50 s, no doubt, and as an adult I have continued several of the traditions of my childhood with my own family.

But the greatest joys and the best memories of all are from the Christmases when our five kids were here at home.

My prayer is that each of my adult children will take a moment to recall their Christmas memories of long ago and share them with their own children. Nothing warms the heart like hearing a child giggle as he hears about his dad’s antics when he was a kid.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!
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