…a childhood knowing Santa Claus wasn’t real.

Ok, my Dad was about as “anti-Christmas” as you could get.

Oh, he loved the day, the family time, the fun, the gifts, and especially the gift-giving, but he hated what Christmas had become and from whence it came.

We knew that Mom and Dad did all the Santa Clausing at our house, because Mother had a Christmas Club at First National Bank of Germantown, and we knew she planned to spend it all on us.

We liked that part.

What Daddy didn’t like about Christmas was the commercialism and the ‘pagan’ roots of the holiday.

“Pagan,” you ask, “isn’t it about the birth of Jesus Christ?”

Well, the true meaning of Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, but all the trappings that come with it are deeply rooted in pagan rituals from thousands of years gone by.

Take the Christmas colors for example; red, green, gold, and silver were the colors of the Yule season. Yule was a pagan festival celebrated by Germanic tribes prior to the onset of Christianity.  When many of the pagans became Christians, they brought the trappings of their pagan festivals with them into the new religion.  The green color represented the ecology and the trees that were worshiped by the Germanic tribes.  The Gold and Silver was for the precious metals of the same name.  Coins were given for “favors” at the Yule parties.

Yule was a 12 day festival of drinking and partying, etc.  It was centered around pagan deities, and many of the celebrations were raunchy at best.  Some were practically orgies.  An analysis of “The 12 Days of Christmas” could provide some insight.  ’Ladies’ dancing, my foot! And just exactly what kind of leaping were all those Lords a doin’?  But, I’ll spare you.  Plus, I hate that song almost as much as the barking dogs’ “Jingle Bells” and anything by Jennifer Nettles!

But, when the pagans came into the Christian church, red represented the blood of Christ, green eternal life, etc.

Saturnalia was a Roman festival which honored the Roman god Saturn, and hovered around the Winter Solstice.  The festival was a time when the tables were turned.  Slaves were served by masters, women acted as men, men as women, and stuff like that.  Coins and other gifts were given on December 23rd.  And the gift giving we know at Christmas time has its roots in the Saturnalia festival.

Saturn was the god of the harvest.  Saturnalia was a celebration of the reaping.  The parties were pretty wild.

And don’t even get me started on the roots of Santa Claus!  Plus Santa is an anagram for Satan.

So, Daddy just didn’t like it.  Oh, we had Christmas, we had lots of food, there were gifts and toys, and all that.  But every year, we heard the real meaning of Christmas and that Santa was a myth, a little fun, pretend, and that Mom and Dad bought the presents.

So, after learning this week that poor little Justin Beiber grew UP not believing in Santa Claus, well, I just felt so much better!

I mean, really, if a kid like Justin, with all his disadvantages, can survive it, I’m sure I can!

World War II started for the United States on 12/7/1941 when the Imperial Japanese Army’s Air Corps bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawai’i.

The war effort started long before.

My father was drafted when my brother, Charlie was about 6 months old.  He went to boot camp, then shipped out overseas and was in The Philipines and Korea.   Daddy spent 219 continuous days in combat.  He was a sniper in the infantry, and was never the same afterwards.

Bill Steinmetz was in the Airborne, and during his stay in Germany was able to recover a Nazi Flag from the top of Goebels’ Castle.  The flag, which the Steinmetz family still has, can be seen at the Veterans’ Museum in Germantown.  For those of you who don’t know, it is located at the Old Masonic Hall on Cherry Street.  You should check it out, there are wonderful displays regarding the sacrifices many from the area have made for our Country.

Prior to that, Daddy worked on C Line at the Hercules Powder Plant in Blacksburg, VA.

They, like thousands of other G.I.s left brides at home while they were at war.

We hear of “Rosie the Riveter” often, and we see her picture.

She symbolizes the hard work and dedication of hundreds of thousands of American women who kept the country working while the men were off defending it.

But, we rarely, if ever put a real face with the name.

But, there were real women working.  Real women sacrificing, and real women keeping the country going as well as keeping the home-fires burning.

Bill was stationed at Ft. Myers, VA.  Louise, a pretty West Virginia girl, was serving cookies at a USO function in Arlington Farms, VA when she met Bill.  He was playing volley ball, and asked her to join the game.  Three days later, they were married.  They stayed married for almost 50 years before Bill passed away.

The pretty bride was a secretary for the State Department in Washington, D.C.   As a matter of fact, she worked for Cordell Hull, the Secretary of State under FDR, and was Mr. Hull’s personal secretary.   She had graduated from high school at 16, and went to work immediately.

Bill went to Germany, Louise stayed home, worked, and provided exemplary service to the State Department in a time when doing a good job was more than critical.

Louise kept the home-fires burning as well.  After her job ended, she moved to Dayton, Ohio, and moved in with her in-laws, whom she had never met!  When Bill came home, it was on the QE II, and he got home in six days.  He was anxious to see his bride!

Over the years, Bill and Louise would have six children, three boys and three girls.

Like I said, my Dad went to the Pacific Theater. Daddy took his physical the day my brother, Charlie, was born, 09-17-1944.   When Daddy was drafted, they were living in Radford, Virginia.  Mother was working at the same Hercules Powder Plant in Blacksburg, VA, she stayed there three years.

Mother and Daddy had two kids, Judy and Charlie, when Daddy went off to war.  My grandmother Brads came and stayed two weeks with mom and the kids while Mother worked.  Grandpa needed Grandma back at home in Glasgow, VA, and Grandma was on the hunt for a capable sitter to watch her grandkids.

Enter Mrs. Sumner.  I’ve no idea what her first name was, but she moved in with Mother, cooked, cleaned, took care of the kids, and did every thing except iron.

She did not iron – AT ALL.  Mom said, when telling me her war time story that, “…every thing had to be ironed back then.”  Apparently, no one was fond of it.

Mom worked in the nitro-cotton lab and weighed, tested, and produced gun-powder.  It was a labor of love as she knew that Daddy might be using it shooting “The Japs”.   It was ok to say that then, we were at war.

[The dress code for the ladies was a coverall and matching turban. In the lab the employees measured the strength and texture of the powder. They also made the nitro glycerin that tested the powder and they tested the viscosity of the nitro glycerin.]

Having no car, she rode to work in a ‘car-pool’ with others.  No one used that term back then.

To get to work each week, she had to give the driver a gas stamp, and on some weeks, $1.00 for gas.  Gas, sugar, and other items were rationed, and ration stamps were like gold.

With gas at 21 cents a gallon, a buck was almost five gallons.  These days, with a dollar you can smell the hose!  Maybe!

Women did with out ‘nylons’, hair-pins, and other niceties.  Meat was rationed as well.  The boys over seas needed to be fed.

When the war ended, so did Mother’s job.  Daddy came home, she quit working, and Mrs. Sumner went back to her family too.

Mother and Louise are just two of thousands of women who made America great.  Sacrifice, substance, sincerity:  all qualities that last.

Does your Mother or Grandmother have a war time story?  Ask, you just might find a whole new woman in the family you didn’t know existed!

And today, as we welcome soldiers home from another war, think of those who are serving now and the ones at home who are keeping home front strong.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to the troops!

About 22 or so years ago, among other things, we started collecting Christmas Angels.

It, like all other collections got obsessive hoarderesque out of control crazy to be a bit much.

We had all kinds of angels, paper ones, plastic ones, cloth ones, country ones, Snow Baby ones, pretty ones, scary ones, ugly ones, you name it, we had have them.

The two I like to call The Baldwin Sisters, Judy and Ann, UP in North Carolina caught wind of this disturbing obsession hobby, and sent us a glass angel.

It had a light bulb inside and it lit UP.

Very cute, very nice, a “keeper”.

When the kids were little, lived at home, cared enough to call and not text , and were super excited about Christmas morning, the Glass Angel came in handy.

You see, when he was done leaving presents under the tree, Santa would turn the on angel before he swooshed UP the chimney.

What the old dog was doing to turn the little strumpet on is beyond me, but none the less, she was lit UP every Christmas morning.

And the kids knew they couldn’t come out of their rooms until the Angel was “lit”.

Amazingly, they were always really good about that.  Shelby and Donovan stayed in their rooms anxiously waiting to see the light come on, and if it wasn’t, they didn’t budge.

So, when the boy came over this past weekend, and put UP the tree, I was pleased to see the Glass Angel sitting on the table in the entryway at the bottom of the stairs.  Take that, Elf on a Shelf!

Some traditions take hold.

Some memories keep.

Some things matter.

And some things touch a little kid.

And a Dad.

…Donovan…

Party like it’s 1989!!