Christmas is over for another year. This time of year always makes me think of Christmas when I was a child.
It was such an exciting time. We never got a lot in the way of gifts but there seemed to be something different in the air. I think I'd first notice it when we would start to sing Christmas carols in church. Those are still some of my favorite Christmas songs. They are about the real reason for Christmas.
I think it was always the first Monday in December that Hoxie would have what they called their Christmas opening. It would start right about dark and the school band played. Everyone gathered at the main intersection of Main and Sheridan. After the band played carols (I can't remembered if we sang along or not) the lights on Main Street were turned on. Hoxie has really cool lights. They criss cross back and forth across the street. There are trees set up on the sidewalks that are also lit up.
The stores stayed open late that night. But for me the best part was walking down to the American Legion (which is no longer there, it's where the Corner Cutter has been) and getting a cup of hot chocolate in a styrofoam cup. I always loved that night. For a little while I also got to run around down town with my friends!
There are six kids in our family and we all bought each other gifts, or that is what I remember. They wouldn't of been big gifts. I remember one year I soooo bad wanted to know what Susan had gotten me. For some reason I thought she'd gotten me this jewelery set that I wanted. It was a bracelet, necklace and ring with my birthstone. I decided to go digging and sure enough I finally found it in Mom's closet (a place where I should not have been!). Oddly enough, I was so disappointed when I found it. There was no more anticipation! I don't think I went digging for my gifts after that.
We always went to Christmas Eve services. I remember Dad missing a service or two because of something going on with his cattle. I'm sure he missed attending. I don't remember missing a service until sometime when I lived in Great Bend and got back to late to make the service. It was disappointing.
After Christmas Eve services, Dad would always drive around for us to look at Christmas lights. This was a big treat when we were little. We lived on a farm and weren't in town that often at night. This is something my family now does. When we lived over by Hoxie and attended church there we would quite often see my brother's family while we were driving around looking at lights. Wonder if they still do that now that their kids are grown. As I recall Dad still drove around even when we kids were living on our own and had just come home for Christmas. Tradition!
We hung our stockings before we went to bed. We had a clothesline that hung catty-cornered across our dining room (don't ask, it seemed normal to us!) and we hung our stockings by age. We didn't have traditional stockings, we each used one of our socks! But I tell you, that sure was tantalizing in the morning when we would take our stocking off the line and carry it around until Mom & Dad said we could open it. Everything made on outline in the sock and we tried hard to guess what would be in there. An orange was always in the bottom. To this day the smell of oranges makes me think of Christmas morning. Mom and Dad always had potatoes in the bottom of their stockings! That really used to puzzle me. We would also usually have a candy bar and a small "something."
The opening of gifts had to wait until Dad had all the cattle taken care of. I really can't remember when we ate breakfast. Once most of us were grown, I know we all tried to be there Christmas morning and have a big breakfast. Somewhere along the way we dropped that. My family still has a pretty big breakfast Christmas morning.
When Grandad (Mom's dad) was still alive we would go there in the evening and Uncle James' family would also be there. I'm pretty sure we exchanged gifts with them.

A lot of Dad's stories have horses in them as he rode them often.
For some reason I thought of this when typing the last few stories. When I was a kid I only remember having two horses. Red and Trix. From what I knew Red was a good saddle horse. Trix, I think was just a horse for us kids. We all could ride him with no trouble. I really didn't like to ride but did a few times. Trix always tried to see if he could wipe his rider (or maybe it was just me) off on the haystacks! I wasn't a great rider but I could prevent that.
Dad and Red used to play a game, or it seemed like one to me. Sometimes Red was kept in the pasture just down the hill (it wasn't much of a hill, but that's what we called it) from the lawn. Red hung around down in the *bottom* quite often and sometimes Dad would walk out to the pastures. When he was going over the barbed wire gate, if Red was there he would reach over and grab Dad's cap with his teeth and wave it in the air out of Dad's reach! Eventually he'd let Dad have it.
I remember watching that and thinking it was so funny. I'm guessing Dad didn't mind. He always had great affection for any of his animals.
If anyone wanted to ride Red, they had to ask Dad, because Dad had to ride him first and wear him down some. He was very spirited. But if you were on the ground he was very gentle. I remember if you went into his pasture, he'd run up to you very fast and then come to a complete stop right in front of you. Almost as if he wanted to scare you. Backing up did no good. He wasn't stopping until he was directly in front of you.
I remember once seeing my oldest sister, Myrna, being drug by Red. Her foot was caught in the stirrup as they went past me. She was probably drug at least a quarter of a mile before Red stopped in the driveway of the shop. I'm sure Myrna told me that the saddle started slipping as she was coming back to the house. It spooked Red and he started running. She was lucky in that she only had a broken leg (ankle?) when all was said and done. Bet she was sore though. I was pretty young and don't remember much except for seeing them run by me as I stood by my bike in the drive out to the road.