The magic of Christmas in a small town

“Memories are great. They whisk you back to an era, a time all but forgotten. They produce mind-pictures of places, houses, towns, valleys and farms you once knew They make almost real again adventures you had in the past or shared with family and friends who no longer live just down the street.”

-—Woodson Knight

By Kimberly King

Pressed between the pages of our minds, are memories that have followed us through the years, and some of the most cherished are recollections of the holidays.

The following is how the late Woodson Knight remembered what it was like at Christmas time in his hometown of Sharpsburg in the mid-1920s.

“In a small Kentucky town, there were a hundred and two ways to tell you that Christmas was coming soon.

There was of course, the huge calendar that hung in my father’s office.

But shucks, a boy of eight or ten years old doesn’t pay much attention to calendars.

There was no television to incite you to noel neurosis.

There was no radio, well, Mr. Adams did have one, but you heard it only rarely.

There were no brightly lighted streets to herald the season.

But you knew because a week or two before the big day, the red and green streamers and the big red bells, (what ever became of those big red paper bells anyway) appeared to decorate Will Sharp’s grocery store.

Not only that, but bucket after wooden bucket filled with Christmas candies arrived to be put on display and later bought by the sack full for the inevitable Christmas stocking.

You knew too, because down the street at Mr. Slick Peed’s store the first shipment of firecrackers suddenly went onto the shelves.

This was a real thrill. You didn’t buy any. You just looked at them wide-eyed and hoped that your Christmas stocking would be chocked full of them.

There were the little ones laced together; there were two-inch ones, and there were the giant five inchers that really made a blast.

There were roman candles too and a few rockets and box after box of sparklers, but they were mostly for girls and for the younger kids.

You knew Christmas was approaching too for Miss Meddie Nelson began wearing a tiny Christmas corsage in her hat.

And her husband, Judge Nelson, our Sunday school superintendent, announced that all young people in the church would report the following Wednesday night to rehearse the Christmas pageant.

You knew too because your uncle Ollie’s store down on the corner became a veritable fairyland of toys and trinkets and doodads, present only during the yule season and brought on for the town shoppers and the country folk around who wouldn’t be able to make it to the big town some miles away.

You also knew because the harness of horses drawing sleighs and farm sleds over the snow-crusted streets seemed to have on more bells than usual.

So finally, the Sunday before Christmas arrived, it was the big day.

At Sunday school you heard the Christmas story told again.

This was thrilling, but even more so to a lad of eight or ten, were the specially decorated bags of sweets passed out to all the children.

Church service was even impressive, or at least the music was.

And then the hour just past dusk you would really be “on stage”.

You might be just a shepherd in the pageant, but better still and more importantly, you were one of three Wise Men, or even Joseph!

When the last carol was sung and you trudged home through the snow with your parents, you might be partly filled with the Christmas spirit, but there was still Monday to go through before the magic of Christmas Eve electrified the atmosphere.

It was a busy time for the grownups, and you were hustled off to bed as early as your busy mother could get you there.

And there you dreamed of what could be under the tree or on the table nearby the next morning.

You dreamed and you tried the very limits of your imagination.

Meanwhile you kept still as a mouse, to hear what you could as feverish work went on downstairs to prepare for the visit of a fat, little, old white-bearded man, whom you weren’t too sure, now, existed, but who just might be real at that!

The night, you thought, would be interminably long.

But, before you knew it, mother or dad was rousting you with a cheery Merry Christmas.

And out of bed you jumped, ran to your sister’s room, pulled her out of bed and the two of you literally raced to the living room below.

And there it was in its glory, the cedar tree you had cut the week before, all decorated with tinsel and flaming candles, strings of popcorn and cranberries.

Nearby, the two stockings were stuffed with oranges, apples, candy and the firecrackers!

So hastily you put on your mackinaw and dashed to the great front porch, where in the dark stillness of pre-dawn Christmas you shattered the crisp air with a bang.

Soon you heard others, as school friends, up and celebrating in the same fashion, joined in the bombardment of firecrackers and roman candles”.

It’s been nearly 100 years since those memories took place, but they stand as a reminder of how the magic of Christmas was alive and well in a small town.