“On Christmas morning our brothers would get up around three or four o’clock in the morning, long before daylight. They always had firecrackers and Peter would get ahold of them firecrackers and away he’d go. He’d shoot a big firecracker off first—beat the neighbors waking everybody up. You never heard such an explosion! I’m surprised Daddy let them buy such stuff, but that was what they liked.”
—Bernice Williams and Burice Bradshaw – A Foxfire Christmas
“I remember one Christmas we begged Mama to hang her stocking up, and the next morning there was a great big old sweet potato in it. Ohhh! Us kids thought that was so funny!”
—Alma Lusk – A Foxfire Christmas
Each memory from the book brings vivid images to my mind, I’m not sure which I like best. Peter waking the neighbors on Christmas morning would have certainly been exciting, but it’s hard to beat the humor of putting a big sweet potato in mother’s stocking.
I’m a lover of nostalgia anytime of the year, but the memories connected to Christmas are especially heartwarming.
Last night’s video: Come Along For Christmas With The Pressleys – Jokes, Shopping, & Good Fellowship.
Tipper
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We didn’t have firecrackers on Christmas but some of the young men in our neighborhood would speed by in their noisy cars yelling out the window, “Merry Christmas”. The cars were almost as loud as firecrackers. My family were poor while I was growing up. We didn’t get many Christmas gifts, usually the four of us received one small gift and a sack that held unshelled nuts, apple, orange, grapes and some candies. When I was around ten, I received a “Chatty Cathy” doll. You pulled a ring with a string, and she spoke. I don’t remember what she said. I remember one Christmas when I was twelve and times had been hard, that I received a used wristwatch. It was my mothers. I was so disappointed that I had not received a new gift. When I was older, I realized how precious that gift was. I knew that it was the thought that counted. I think my best Christmas was when I was eleven. My parents had started taking us to a Baptist church and they soon received Jesus Christ as their Saviour. I wasn’t saved until I was thirteen and my siblings were saved within a short amount of time. We met man wonderful people and kids our age. After all isn’t this what Christmas is all about. Celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Merry Christmas everyone. I pray you have a healthy and blessed Christmas and New Year.
I’ll share one of my many favorite Christmas memories now. I guess I was around 5 years old at the time, born in 1946. Christmas was coming. We didn’t have a television or much of anything except lots of love for one another. My Grandma Nix was an angel on earth. She loved everyone and everyone loved her and I guess every one of her grand kids thought we were her favorite. She was so good to us. We didn’t have electricity then but Grandpa Nix had a fire built in the big fireplace and they helped me hang my little stocking up by the fireboard. When I woke up the next morning I couldn’t wait to see what ole Santee Claus had put in our stockings. An apple, orange, nuts and a big old stick of peppermint candy in mine! As we all were scurrying around looking at our surprises someone looked over and saw Grandma’s shoes she had pulled off and put on the floor by her bed there in the living room near the fireplace. Much to her surprise, and all of us grandkids, dear old Santee Claus didn’t forget our sweet Grandma! She found a little twist of sweet tobacco wrapped and in her shoe. We were so happy and glad that Grandma got a surprise too. She liked a little tad of sweet tobacco every now and then. I think every one of us were happier with Grandma’s surprise more than any of our own surprises. Grandma never asked for anything and never complained. She was the perfect Grandma all year long so she deserved a treat too. Of all the relatives that I love dearly, my Grandma was a person that had such an influence on my life and memories. She was the sweetest, kindest, most wonderful Grandma that I could have ever asked for and I sure am looking forward to seeing her in Heaven some day. She called me Barbrie. She will know me there and I will know her too. What a happy time it will be! Merry Christmas to everyone!
Dear Barbara,
Just had to tell you how much I enjoyed your comment today! Such sweet memories that brought my own dear grandmother to mind. I loved her dearly and was blessed to live upstairs from my grandparents until I was 11 years old. So needless to say, I spent most of my time downstairs in Nana’s kitchen………watching her cook and bake, and playing cards with her……. while listening to stories of when she was young. Now that I’m 80, I regret not asking more questions about her family history, and now there’s no one left to ask. Loved the story of the little tad of sweet tobacco in your grandmother’s shoe! Thank you for your lovely, endearing comment! I wish you a Christmas filled with Joys and Blessings!
Love, Jackie
My uncle John and aunt Jan would give us this life savers in a kind of open book with all the flavors. Exciting it was.
yes! the butter rum was my favorite!
Not a fan of fireworks at that time of the morning , lol. Love the sweet Christmas stocking memories!
Tipper, do Corie & Katie have a link or something for the crochet bunnies they mentioned in their video . I think they said they were called some bunnies.
Thank you & Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year everyone. Loved the Christmas memory stories. I loved listening to dad and mom and her cousin Jimmie setting up the Christmas toys for us under the tree as I lay in bed waiting for Santa Claus. Jimmie really enjoyed playing our toys too. I remember his chuckling laughs. He always gave us $5 and took us to Thrifty Drug store on Christmas day to see what we would buy with his gift. The Thrifty owners were Jewish and didn’t celebrate Christmas. Jimmie had no children. Fond memories of Christmas in the 50’s.
I am going to try and get several birds with one stone with my comment. Ed, I also like cold Van Camp pork and beans. I only want the Van Camp brand. Donna, I have just finished eating my dinner, it was a can of Armor Vienna sausage, a few slices from a bar of cheese, saltine ( soda) crackers and ice water. It shore was good! I will try to make this short, one of the our family’s best tricks was played by my brother in law (Chuck) on another brother in law (Mike). Mike was one of the first 25 employees hired at the Greenville, SC BMW plant and often went to Germany. Chuck got ahold of some German cheese that stunk so bad it would make a buzzard pass out. Chuck gave this as a gift from Santa Claus to our newly married nephew’s wife. Naturally we all blamed it on Mike. I have heard it said Vienna sausage was God’s gift to an outdoorsman. I will add a lot of blue collar workers like’em too.
I mentioned the fresh McCall sausage I buy a few days ago. I have already bought some yesterday and plan to make sausage balls. I went back this morning hoping he would still have some so I could buy some for a lady my son works with. He had told her about how good they were. I teased the man that makes them and told him he was gonna have to pay me a commission for selling the ones I picked up this morning. He said you won’t believe this but someone is coming up from Atlanta to buy some. I am sure he had put some back and was saving them for this person.
We couldn’t afford firecrackers either. Even if we could somebody would have to drive out of state to get them. Now, don’t feel sorry for me! My best friend Beanie’s father worked at a quarry. The quarry used firecrackers to blast open mountainsides. Those firecrackers were a bit bigger than a M-80 and packed an exponentially more powerful punch. When those firecrackers didn’t go off when they should Beanie’s Dad would pick them up and bring them home. There was nothing wrong with them but the quarry operators just weren’t allowed to reuse them.
One year just two of our “firecrackers” shook people awake at midnight for miles around so that they could welcome the new day.
At about the same age as youngsters, whose parents could afford them, were first allowed to play with firecrackers, we were playing with these free used but still viable ones.
You know, when you are poor and think you have missing out on all the good things in life, you might just wake up and find you have accumulated a rich history of things that those of means were denied.
Good morning everyone, one of my fondest memories were getting to go to work with my dad. Later in life it was my niece and daughter who got to go with him. We all enjoyed having soda crackers, sardines or Vienna sausages with a coke. Just stopping at the local grocery store was a journey, no telling what Dad would get but always had a couple of of the above.
I miss those days…. not to long ago I asked my daughter if she wanted me to pick up Vienna sausages and she said Nope!! What?? Why not?? I had to many with Granddad! Dad pulled so many pranks with us 3 girls then his 2 granddaughters…so no telling why she doesn’t like them. Dad never got to met my daughter’s son Rowdy!! And trust me…that name fits him like a glove. Hard to believe he’s 26. Dad and Rowdy would have been 2 peas in a pod!!
Love to all…Tipper please give Granny a hug and kiss on the cheek for me.
Where we live, people put off firecrackers and shoot guns for New Years but not for Christmas. I was like Randy growing up…we would never have had money to throw away buying firecrackers at Christmas or any other time of year. It was a struggle for my parents to make sure all the kids had a gift from Santa. Any extra money would have went for Christmas dinner and candy making.
I’d never heard of letting fireworks off at Christmas , but I think I like it better. Foxfire books are so good. They draw you right in from the beginning.
No source for firecrackers anywhere near where I grew up as far as I know. (If so, I was likely shielded from that knowing.) I recall once hanging my stocking on the inside door knob ’cause we would be gone when Santa came to fill them and I thought I would hear it bumping on the door when we came home. I got so excited because it worked! Our stockings were just that, one sock of a pair. They didn’t hold much but it was riches to each of us. Wishing each and every one of “the BP&A gang” a Christmas that fills the heart with love and thankfulness, sets the spirit singing and creates blessed memories to last the lifetimes of each one present.
I’ve heard of people putting off firecrackers on Christmas morning, but to my knowledge none of my people ever did. If my oldest brother thought he could have gotten away with it, I’m sure he would have. Christmas does indeed bring back sweet memories, but some sad ones too. I have to remind myself that the reason we celebrate Christmas is because the savior of the world was born, Jesus the Christ. It’s His Birthday we celebrate. Jesus isn’t still a baby laying in the manger, nor is he hanging on the cross, nor is he still in the grave. He grew up, died for our sins and rose from the grave in his full living, breathing body to give us victory over eternal separation from Father God. This is the reason why we celebrate to remember. If Jesus hadn’t been born none of us would ever have the hope of eternal life with God. Jesus is the reason we have hope and eternal life after our earthly death to live with God in heaven. All we have to do is believe and accept God’s only Son Jesus into our lives. We do this through asking Jesus to come in our hearts, mind and soul. The Holy Spirit will do the rest by guiding us to seek God’s Word in the Holy Bible. It’s only natural we will ask for forgiveness of our sins when we feel the power of the greatest love this world has ever known enter into our lives. This is my greatest memory of why we celebrate Christmas.
Christine, I agree with you 100 per cent. I can’t understand this partying with so many drinking and getting drunk and then calling it celebrating Christmas when Christmas is suppose to be about the birth of Jesus, our Savior. When I was working, I refused to go to my department’s Christmas dinner (supper to me) if it was going to be at a place that also served alcohol.
Haha! This sounds like a Christmas tale befitting of my home county of Marion County in Tennessee! If you’ve ever traveled the highway or interstate between Chattanooga and Nashville you’ll know you’re here because of all the fireworks stores dotting the landscape between Nickajack Lake and the literal foot of Monteagle Mountain! They used to make the Black Cat firecrackers and other fireworks just down the road from Lodge Cast Iron’s plant, so there’s an abundance of cheap fireworks here and a lot of folks use them for (literally) every celebration! The 4th of July and New Year’s are the most popular, of course, but I’ve heard fireworks pop-off on Labor Day, Memorial Day, Halloween, and even on Superbowl Sunday during the halftime show (admittedly, the fireworks show was better than whoever was performing that year). We don’t need much reason around here to pop some rockets, so I’m kind of surprised I’ve never heard them here on Christmas! I guess we could start a new tradition this year? I think I’ve still got some firecrackers from a July or two ago? Regardless, nothing beats celebration this time of year and any celebration to remember the birth of our Savior is a good thing! Even if bottle rockets or M80s are a few decibels louder than the drumming of the Little Drummer Boy per the song.
Logan I one time came from Nashville to Chattanooga driving on Interstate 24. I was in a rental Chevy Astro van and had the transmission in second gear trying to keep from riding the brakes and burning them up when coming down Monteagle Hill. I know of the M80s but back in my day it was the cherry bombs- I know of someone blowing up some downstairs toilets after flushing a cherry bomb down a toilet from an upstairs bathroom while they were in high school.
In my family, all the guys get a box of 22LR ammo and some Slim Jim’s or other meat snack in their stockings. Oh, and several of their favorite candy bars.
The Foxfire Christmas book is great. Just got it from our local library.
Paul you need to use Tipper’s recipe in her cookbook for sweet potatoes. Delicious and easy to make!
Randy we could never afford to buy firecrackers either. The only time I was around firecrackers was celebrating 4th of July in Lake City at the ball field! Now those were good memories!
Yes I remember RedBird brand Vienna Saugage! With saltines. Stockings had fruit and nuts in them. Memories!
True, Christmas memories do tend to be the warmest. Other than Thanksgiving, it is the most family centered holiday. Which could account for all those warm memories.
We always got an orange in our stocking. Later as an adult mom told us it was a way to fill space and make the stocking look full. I continued the tradition with my kids and think of my mom trying to make something special on a dime store budget.
merry Christmas everybody, God bless you very much
I love to hear those old memories you can just see the light and childhood come back to peoples faces after so many years.
You know I’ve always wondered if you know much about or would talk about the way women managed to look so pretty with all their hard work and struggles. I guess you’d call it their beauty routine. I often look at those old pictures of mountain women, share croppers etc and think “HOW did they still look so beautiful and feminine?!” Maybe an idea for a video or blog post next year. I am fascinated by those simple things like a beauty or hair routine and how women throughout history have managed to bring beauty into their lives no matter what.
We shot fireworks at Christmastime and of course, NYE when I was youngun’. The tradition still goes on around here.
Last year I offered to make “Mom’s” sweet taters but didn’t have her recipe so I went online for some suggestions and winged it. They were so bad, it was suggested that next time I add more potatoes to my mix to try to make them better. All that would have done was ruin more sweet potatoes! Later I found out Mom used canned yams with marshmallows. THAT will be my next and hopefully successful attempt…could NEVER be as good as Mom’s. I’ve got blueberry (accidentally typed “glue”) biscuits in the oven right now; want one? Merry Christmas everyone!
I don’t remember any of us meaning the neighborhood kids too, having fireworks at Christmas or any other time of the year. Money was too hard to come by, just to be able to get a true gift was a blessing. Shooting firecrackers was considered the same as burning your money. I like the idea of getting a sweet potato, in my wife’s family we would sometimes give some type of food to one another as a gag gift. Think of sardines, pork and beans or Vienna sausage. Shoot I like the Van Camp pork and beans or the Armor Vienna sausage. That was no gag gift to me. Anyone remember the Red Bird brand of “Vienny sausage” as we pronounced them?
The gag gifts were funny, Randy. I can imagine how surprised I’d be if I got those sardines!
Randy, my grandma was real creative with food stuff in our stockings. My sister and I got canned smoked oysters and jars of baby food bananas in ours. We thought they were real treats, especially the baby food bananas. She couldn’t stand sardines though, so if we got those, they were from our mom.
I remember getting my uncle Bud a bottle of mouth wash..He smoked cigars and they stunk..just a little kid trying to help him out..lol
I like Van Camp pork and beans and Armor Vienna sausages too. I eat ’em right out of the can with crackers. Got to be cold, refrigerator cold! Sometimes I dump a can of each in a bowl and mix ’em up and eat ’em thataway. That’s a meal for me!