Too many Christmases have faded from memory but I remember some from the days when I was a little girl in the 1930's. Those were depression days but I was blissfully unaware of the economics of the day.

        My parents and I lived in a big old ten-room house with my maternal grandfather, my paternal grandparents, and a boarder. I think at one time our home had been a boarding house because the upstairs bedrooms had numbers on the doors! A side door opened into a little lobby with a counter and a separate stairway to the second floor.

        I looked forward each year to my mother unwrapping a spindly artificial tree and straightening the branches with their green paper pine needles. In retrospect, I do believe the Christmas tree of my youth was the inspiration for the sorry tree that Charlie Brown had.

        One little string of lights amply decorated the tree. My job was to screw in 2 light bulbs - one shaped like Santa Claus, one shaped like a Christmas stocking. The Santa bulb has long since disappeared, but I still have the stocking one!

        Stockings! Our house had 3 fireplaces downstairs but I was allowed to hang my stocking at only one. No fancy store-bought fat furry stockings in those days, though. I hung up a regular long, light-brown, everyday cotton stocking.

        In the month before Christmas our little newspaper would print letters to Santa. Of course, I asked for books, a doll, a toy, and candy, fruit and nuts. For some reason, every letter writer wanted candy, fruit, and nuts. I think now that we wanted those things because they weren't part of our lives when money was hard to come by.

        My stocking invariably had an orange stuck in the toe, walnuts, and some colorful ribbon candy.

        When Christmas Eve bedtime rolled around I made no complaint about going upstairs to bed. I knew that THIS year I would see Santa. The upstairs was heated (?) by large grates in the floor in each bedroom so that the downstairs warmth would flow upward. I would lie down with my face on the grate, watching the room below to catch Santa in the act. Apparently my parents would come upstairs later and lift a sleeping child into her bed because I never saw Santa!

        Inquisitive little girls often find things they shouldn't find. When I was about 7 or 8 years old, I decided to investigate the cedar chest in my parents' bedroom. Way, way down in the bottom was a Santa Claus outfit! Mystified, I asked why Santa kept his clothes there.

        I grew up a great deal that fateful day. It was explained to me that my father always played Santa Claus at the Masonic Orphanage in a nearby town. Many men pretended to be Santa, I was told, but parents were the ones who really gave gifts. I was aghast! I was sworn to secrecy so I wouldn't blab this new-found knowledge.

        I wrote no more letters to Santa and I knew better than to spend Christmas Eve staring through a floor grate. Ah, but here's the good part of knowing there was no Santa Claus. Now I could spend the days before Christmas hunting for hidden presents!

        I never found a single hidden present and my Christmas gifts continued to have a tag that said "From Santa" (in my father's fancy printing) so perhaps there really was a Santa Claus!