Holidays

Halloween: To get the most perfect pumpkin the family would drive to the pumpkin patch some place south of Santa Barbara. The rule was that we could have any pumpkin that we could carry. Many times I miss judged because as I walked back to the car it would turn out to be too heavy for me to cart all the way back, so I would have to pick a different one half way back. We craved our pumpkins out in the backyard, roasting the seeds in the oven with salt. Halloween was fun because the whole neighborhood would dress up and we got to trick or treat all the way around the block. When we got back from trick or treating we would dump all of our candy on the table sorting through our goodies. There were many years that Nancy made our costumes. At school we got to wear our costumes and had a parade around the school field.

Thanksgiving: We always celebrated with the Iddings family. They were long time friends of Pop and Mom. They had three kids (Bruce, Helen and David) and we took turns celebrating at each other’s house. Mom served shrimp cocktail first and then turkey with all the fixings. We needed at least a couple cans of olives because we all loved to put them on our fingertips. Fixing the food was a family affair with everyone at least putting a handful of stuffing into the turkey. Mom made pumpkin and mincemeat pie, plus hard sauce with brandy. The kids had to clean up the kitchen after the meal.

Christmas had a lot of traditions:
Picking our Christmas tree was a big deal. Pop would cut a pole from the bamboo garden that was the height of the ceiling in the living room then we would drive to the Christmas tree farm by Ojai. We would usually take a picnic and then walk the entire length of the tree farm, or so it seemed, trying to find the best tree. Then Pop would crawl under the tree and cut it down, with a little help from the kids. The problem was that then we had to carry the tree back to the car and it was always further away then we remembered.
Over the years a large assortment of Christmas ornaments were made. Some of the early ones were out of string, colored plastic straws and dyed macaroni. One year we made them out of clear plastic beads that were baked in aluminum foil with bits of colored glass in them. Dough ornaments were also made. A family tradition was that every year my Mom gave each kid a new “good” ornament so that when we moved away we would have something to decorate our own trees with.

The day before Christmas the whole family would pile in the car and take a picnic to the mountains. The idea was to get us away from the other kids of the neighborhood. If we were left together we would get each other all too hyper. After the picnic we would hike around to help wear us out. When we got back to the house we had waffles, salad, sausage and snowballs for dinner. The thought was that it was an easy dinner and something that everyone would eat. The snowballs were balls of ice cream that were rolled in coconut and had a little bit of frosting on the top with a candle stuck in it. We would try to eat the snowball without the candle going out, eating all around the sides. After dinner we would gather around the piano and sing Christmas carols and then read the story of the Christ child’s birth. We hung our stockings and went to bed.
We never opened presents on Christmas Eve. Some years my Dad had to hang a sheet in the hall so we couldn’t see what was going on in the living room. On Christmas morning we all got up together and got to open our stockings before breakfast plus open one present. Then everyone had to sit down to breakfast before the rest of the presents were opened.

My parents had a large Christmas open house every year. It started in the early afternoon and went until dinnertime. Many people came to this party. My favorite items at the party were the ginger bread men from Irene Davis bakery. They were all frosted and each one was individually hand painted so no two were alike. I would eat the feet, then the hands leaving the head until last.

Valentine’s Day: We usually made our own valentines with construction paper, lace doilies and lots of glue. Candy was not given out then as it is now. The classes made valentine boxes that sat on our desks and we made a card for everyone in the class.
Easter: We dyed eggs the day before Easter. This was an outside activity since it was usually pretty messy. We used wax crayons to put our initials on the eggs. On Easter morning we would wake up to Easter baskets placed by our beds. We then hunted for our eggs, which were outside. I only remember one really bad Easter. The day before Easter we had been to Los Angeles and had gone to the Farmer’s market. I ate something that made me really sick. So when I woke up in the morning, after throwing up repeated all night, the basket didn’t hold any real appeal.

July 4th: This is my father’s birthday so we always had a big celebration. In Santa Barbara the fire department put on a big show at the stadium by the beach. We would go and watch all the stuff they did on the field and then as it got dark they shot off lots of fireworks from a barge off the beach. I have always loved fireworks.
Birthdays: We would gather in my parent’s bedroom and open presents on their bed. Even though Joanne and I were twins we got two different cakes. When we were young we had birthday parties. I remember a couple at the Samarkan swimming pool and a couple at the zoo. All six birthdays are within six weeks of each other so we had a lot of cake from the middle of May until July 4.