CHRISTMAS

What Was Santa’s Job at the Moreau House, Exactly?

Maybe he blessed the gifts, then ate cookies the following day

According to an article in journeyz.co, “an estimated 45% of the world population celebrates Christmas…” Families’ unique and varied ways of celebrating can also be interesting.

Most of us have probably heard the familiar story where kids set out cookies and milk for Santa. Then parents send their kids to bed early so Santa can deliver gifts during the night while they sleep. However, my guess is you haven’t heard about what went on at the Moreau household in the 1950s in Iowa, USA, when my mom was a little girl.

This story is relayed how my mom remembers it, voiced by her, in a written version by me (First person in my mom’s voice):

Christmas ribbon

Mom and grandma would head to the basement of grandma’s house in November every year. Gramps set up a card table for the two women, and in no time, it was strewn with wrapping paper, scotch tape, ribbon, scissors, and two ashtrays. They’d spend every evening down there, talking and laughing while they meticulously wrapped gifts, barely able to see each other through the thick leaden blue webs they’d created in that small space.

Each gift had to be flawless, and they created poinsettias, roses, and violets all made from ribbon; it was stick to itself ribbon you licked to stick. This process was time-consuming because they had to pause between puffing on their cigarettes to make the delicate flowers for each package.

Meanwhile

I would stay upstairs with gramps, and he would say, “The girls are in the basement; don’t bother the girls.”

If he was reading, I could watch what I wanted on TV, or if he was watching TV, I would play cards or read. I’d eat cookies or ice cream, which was a treat because gramps had a sweet tooth, and there were never any sweets in my house.

Gramps was a “laundry man”; he drove a truck around town and picked up people’s laundry or dry cleaning and dropped it back off; a lot of people didn’t have washing machines. At Christmas, some of the people on his route gave him candy, whiskey, or homemade fruitcakes. Grandma was the only female buyer who worked with all male executives at Yonkers, and the vendors would give grandma candies at Christmastime.

Sweets and a special Christmas Eve meal

Mom and grandma made fudge and some other sweets at Christmas. Christmas Eve was the day we opened all our gifts; everyone did things their way, and this was ours, so I didn’t think much of it.

Grandma and her sisters had to work at Yonkers on Christmas Eve until 5:30, and everyone came to grandma’s house with their families for the festivities. We had ham, bread, mustard, mayonnaise, black and green olives, chips and dip, and baked beans. We only had this indulgence once a year; it was the same meal every Christmas Eve, on paper plates, which was also a big deal.

The Santa blessing

When I was very young, my family would tell me they heard Santa on the roof, so I had to hide in the bathroom for a few minutes, and then I could come out. When I came out, nothing had changed. Everything still looked the same, and the tags on the gifts all said who everything was from, so I knew who to thank, and there was never anything from Santa.

It took me a while to wonder what Santa did while I hid in the bathroom; bless the gifts? Then we’d go home that night and set out cookies and a carrot for Santa and his reindeer, but we had already opened all the presents. I wondered if this was some tithing for him blessing the gifts earlier at grandma’s house.

I heard from kids at school that they received gifts from Santa, so I made a point to leave unwrapped gifts for my kids when I grew up. Christmas morning was kind of a letdown because I’d already opened and played with all my gifts the night before; we’d go back to grandma’s for turkey, and a couple of years, my mom made a goose.

No Santa bunny

A few years my cousins came over, and grandma said, “Let’s go upstairs to the bathroom and sing Christmas carols while Santa comes.”

We all went up there because the family said they heard sleighbells, so my cousins, grandma, and I all crowded into the bathroom together, and then we all came racing back down the stairs. That’s when our exciting questions began; “What did Santa look like?”

“Why didn’t he leave footprints?”

“What did you do while he was here?”

Yet nothing had changed, and everything looked the same under the tree. To each their own; thankfully, none of my aunts ever sewed me a pink bunny set of pajamas.