I was a typical child, born in the 1950s. I learned to read with books about Dick and Jane and seeing Spot run. My brothers and I walked to school and back each day and meals were always prepared by mom and eaten together at the table. There was never a boo boo that couldn't be healed by a kiss from mom and some monkey blood. When anyone got sick home remedies cured almost anything. If you had a sore throat you simply gargled with warm salt water.
Families seemed to be closer back then and did more things together. As people get older they tend to remember mostly the good and bad times of their childhood. All the other events were unmemorable.
For me the best childhood memories are of Christmas.
Christmas back when I was a child was the most magical day of the year. There were only two days out of the year that we would get toys, one was Christmas and the other time was on our birthday. Kids didn't get toys all the time like they do now days, at least none of my family or friends did. That made us appreciate things so much more and that's what made Christmas morning so much more special.
We believed in Santa Claus and would write our letters asking Santa for toys each year but for some reason even though we thought Santa brought all the toys we would only ask for certain things and not something unrealistic. Maybe our parents helped us out with our wish list, who knows.
Decorating the Christmas tree was a family thing. Our house was small but we always put up a fairly big tree. As least in my cherished memories it was always a big tree. I loved to put on the ornaments and was very careful to place the icecicles evenly all over the tree
During the holidays, mom would dress us all up and our whole family would go downtown. Downtown Fort Worth was beautiful during the holidays. There were Christmas lights on the buildings and candy canes along the streets. One of the things we always did was to have our picture taken with Santa. It was a tradition and a very special time for us.
Before we went to see Santa we would walk along the sidewalk to the big department stores to see the store front windows. The windows were filled with Christmas scenes. There was always a window with animated Elves making toys in Santa's workshop.
Some of the store front windows looked like a toy store with all the latest toys.
These were the toys we had all dreamed about, because we had seen them in commercials on TV for weeks. We would stare at all the toys to try and find that special toy we had been wishing for. The toy that you had told your mom about over and over again. The toy that had you yelling "mom" every time it came on TV but you could never quite get her to the TV in time to see the commercial.
Seeing the store front windows was fun but the best part of going downtown at Christmas time was going to Toy Land. That's where Santa was. Toy Land was everything a child would dream of and more. It was just like the North Pole looked in the story books, only this was real!
Toy Land was in the basement of Leonard's Department Store. There was a miniature train overhead that kids could ride on. It circled the entire area of Toy Land.
Mom would never leave until we had our picture taken on Santa's lap. My brothers and I got in line with the all the other kids to see Santa. There were hundreds of people watching as the kids each took turns sitting on Santa's lap.
This was our big chance to tell Santa what we wanted for Christmas but I was terrified.
I was worried every day until Christmas came and I discovered Santa is pretty smart. He gave me the Tiny Tears doll I had really wanted.
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