Christmas on Rainier Street
I don’t remember one Christmas differing from anther on Rainier Street. We never went to midnight Mass that I recall. It seemed a bit too much for any of us. I did go later in my life but that is another story.
Being good Catholics (at least then), I am sure we went to church sometime in the morning. I remember it being hot and stuffy as well as crowded, more so than any other time of year. I did enjoy the Christmas carols and sang along with most them to the best of my ability. The mass was still in Latin at that time, so the words of the mass did not register with me then.
We had a tradition of celebrating Christmas and opening gifts on Christmas Eve. Somehow Santa would manage to arrive at our house when I was distracted and presents would mysteriously appear. I don’t remember most of the presents I received, except my last one at Rainier Street. That one was hard to ignore. It was a Lionel train set. The engine had a whistle controlled by a lever on a little box which made the train travel at different speeds as well as going in reverse. It could also make smoke if I dropped a small pellet into the smokestack. I was very happy with my state-of-the-art model train. My younger brother also got a train set that year but not one as elaborate or nice as mine. I felt that the difference in our train sets was not fair to him although I never heard him complain about it.
Sometimes we had Christmas dinner alone and other years we joined by our next-door relatives. The Christmases I enjoyed most were when we took the train to Dunkirk before we had a car. Those times we had feasts similar to the ones I described in an earlier post with an elaborate dinner and more presents at each set of grandparents’ houses with aunts, uncles and cousins. It was a magical time for me and I will always remember the Christmas feelings I treasured. The wonder of childhood!