December 23, 2005

Readers share favorite Christmas memories

Christmas in 1946 was fun with siblings

By Keith Bradway
Special to The Criterion

If I could remember back that far, my most memorable Christmas might be one when I was about 5 or 6.

Or it might be the one when I got a shiny, modern sled. It was the most elegant gift under the tree. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a dud, much more difficult to steer and slower than the plainer sleds that my brother and sister used on snow-covered hills.

Or it might be the one when I got an electric train. But once you assemble the track, hook up the engine, attach the cars and run it around the track fast enough for it to fall off a few times, it turns out to be a dull toy.

It might be one of several Christmases when I sang at midnight Mass with an excellent choir.

I know that the Christmas I enjoyed the most was in 1946. My brother had been in the Navy. He spent most of his service time in college in Oklahoma and went on active duty just as the war was ending. He was discharged in the summer of 1946.

That Christmas was the first one in three years when my brother and two sisters and I were able to be together. It was different in another way—my sister, who was four years younger than me, was almost 16 and old enough to join her almost grown-up siblings.

Before Christmas, we went shopping downtown together. We used our dad’s new car, the first one since the start of the war. We ate lunch at Block’s, a favorite hangout for my older sister when she was in high school.

In the evenings, we sat around playing euchre and drinking coffee and eggnog.

By the following year, my older sister was married. She and her husband were there for Christmas, but it wasn’t the same.

Although Christmas 1946 was my favorite, I don’t remember anything about the presents I received.

(Keith Bradway is a member of St. Agnes Parish in Nashville.) †

 

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