By Arthur Moore

Just found this one in my brother Richards stories.

Christmas. Putting up the tree was fun! Not so much for dad. I’m sure the tree was done totally wrong for his taste…and those little red and white Santa’s…jeez what were they 50 years old?

Bet they still have some today. Anyway, we had to let dad pick out “the nice full tree” as only he had the eye for…blah blah blah. So we would take it to the fire station to have it fireproofed (which was probably a gimmick). If a tree is dry and you light a match it will burn. So back to the decorating. With a bunch of kids putting the stuff on, I’m sure the tree looked terrible, and after we went to bed I ‘m sure it got fixed. Let me tell you NOBODY did the tinsel but dad. I repeat NOBODY. It had to be hung just right and I guess he mastered in tinsel in school or something. You got the usual presents from aunts and grammies, and when you saw the size and shape of the present, you knew what was in there. Yay, gloves. Yay socks. Yay a shirt (sarcastically). But then you got the good one. A guitar! Wicked nice! I’m sure mom and dad were more than happy to be up at 5 am for all this; who wouldn’t be? Bill and June had the first aluminum looking tree thing with the color wheel that rotated and changed color. I preferred the real thing but finally succumbed to progress later on. I can remember a few bits and pieces from Hinckley Street too. We all got spotlight trucks one year and we ran around in the dark blinding each other with the lights. That was the year I decided to make blinking lights on our tree. We didn’t have them, heck they weren’t even out yet. So I just made do. I kept sticking the cord in and out of the wall socket so the lights would go on and off. GENIOUS! It was fun right up until dad snuck up behind me. “So you want to play with electricity?” He took the cord and made a loop and whacked my hand with it…several times. I really didn’t care much for blinking lights after that. Lesson learned.