Christmas Memories

Anita Hart Fuller

Here is my Christmas memory that might be of interest to somebody.

Guess I was in about the 7th or 8th grade. All I wanted for Christmas was a basketball goal. After we had opened all our presents that morning, Mother asked me how I liked all my presents. I replied in avery hateful voice: "You can take them all back. I didn't get what I really wanted" ..... she then said there's still something on the tree; I looked and there was an envelope stuck way back on a branch. I opened it to read "Look in the guest bedroom closet"..... sure enough, there was the basketball goal, which really would have been too big to put under the tree wrapped, and its shape certainly would have given it away.

I remember being very ashamed, as well I should have been.

Tom, edit this please. Put in quotes or take out. I haven't written it very well, but it's the best I can do. I hope others will start with their Christmas memories. Tell us how or when you discovered there wasn't a Santa Claus.

Tom Pry

Anita, as always, you did fine.

I remember my last Christmas with my “Arkansas Family:” my parents, sister, and maternal grandparents.

It was the Christmas of 1956. I was going to school at ASTC, over in Conway (now UCA), and working at KCON with Tommy Bonner. I agreed to cover for the rest of the student announcers over the 2 or 3 week holiday, except the boss was handling Christmas and the days immediately before and after. (In the screwy setup we had, KCON was located on campus, but was NOT owned and operated by the college). Bus ride home which, in those days, was not Conway-Searcy; it was Conway-Little Rock–Searcy, which took care of the bigger part of Christmas Eve.

Our Christmas bonus from the radio station was a $100 gift certificate. Today, that might not sound like much but, in 1956, that was a really sizeable chunk of money! Remember, we were working for a buck an hour which, I think, was about a quarter more than minimum wage. That certificate let me go down and get some decent presents for my family, including a portable radio for my sister: there were no five buck Japanese transistor radios around in those days.

It was a nice Christmas and then, the next day, Dad ran me back to Conway, where I went back to my dreary room in the gymnasium (tossed out of the dorm for the holidays, but the school administration found me a place to bunk during the interregnum).

That was the last Christmas our family was to spend intact. In the spring, I went directly into the Army and, Christmas of ’57, I was on my honeymoon, in Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD. The Christmas after that was Korea.

Yep, the Christmas of ’56 definitely goes into my memory book.

What’s in yours?