Christmas then and now

It's was back in the 1950s, or say 60 years ago, but some of my memories makes it seem like yesterday. Our District No. 2 schoolhouse was about 6 miles north of Arthur, Nebraska, and a half mile west. It was a one-room school running north south with a little enclosed porch off the south end. We hung our coats on the porch, and that's where the water bucket and ladle sat on a little cupboard. You entered the school from the back so the north end was the front. This was where the stove sat and also where the blackboards were.

Maybe 75 to 100 feet north of the school was the horse barn, where the kids back through the years would ride to school and tied their horses. West of the barn was the girls' outhouse, and the boys' was east of the barn. It seems like they were one-hole outhouses. In all the years I used an outhouse, I can't remember a single time when two of us used a two-holer at the same time.

A few weeks before Christmas, the big kids strung a wire across the back of the room from side to side where they'd pin sheets from side to side that made a kind of stage. When the evening of the Christmas program rolled around, it seemed like everyone in the community attended. The one-room school was full. Of course the parents came, but so did neighbors and friends. It was a big deal back then.

Everyone had to memorize a saying or verse or something. The older you were, the longer the piece. It was always scary saying the memorized pieces. One year I made a one-string guitar. I used a broom stick, an old cigar box of Grandpa Piihl's and one guitar string. So I played a special that one year. We'd sing songs and do a skit.

Then we all got a sack of goodies with cookies and popcorn balls and homemade candy in it. Some of the candy was taffy we made and pulled at school. It was flat hot when we started to pull it. We had to butter up our hands so it didn't stick. When you pulled the taffy, it would start to have white strings running through it. It was fun making, but, man, it tasted good. We also made popcorn balls.

One of the most fun parts was handing out the gifts and ripping open the package. The gifts were all under the tree. I don't have a clue where we got the tree, but we made the decorations. We made chains out of colored paper. We'd make a link and either staple it or glue it. We made popcorn strings, where we ran a needle and thread through the popcorn. We made paper snowflakes and hung them all over. We made some paper candles. Thinking back on it, most everything was made right there in that one-room school house.

I can't remember there being snacks and drinks, but knowing the people in that community there had to be goodies. Most of the settlers were immigrants who could flat cook. I honestly think their specialty was cakes and cookies and pastries and desserts and such. And along with the tasty goodies was probably Kool-Aid, which began in Nebraska, and there had to be coffee. You were flat weird if you didn't drink coffee by the gallons.

There have been a lot of changes since then. The one-room schoolhouse has disappeared, along with the horse barn and the one holers out back. The water bucket and the community dipper would make the COVID people stroke out. Some would say good riddance, but I'm not one of them. A lot happened in that little school. We learned how to read and write, to do math, to pay attention and to mind. We learned about community and how to get along with other kids from kindergarten through eighth grade.

Christmas was special, not because of all the gifts, but because of the people you celebrated with.