Thinking about Christmas traditions. My Dad would tell me every year about Christmas when he was a Child. They would put a plate on the coffee table and the next morning it would have an apple, orange, and a pile of nuts on the plate. That was their gifts for Christmas.
The times were lean, and my grand parents never had a lot, but were rich in their faith in God.
My Uncle told us one Christmas that they survived the great depression living in a shack on the twenty with cracks large enough to throw a cat through them. (The twenty was what we called the 20 acre small farm my grandparents owned).
My maternal grandfather knew the folks that lived on our cabin property when he was a kid. His mom used to shoo their kids into the kitchen on their trek to school in the winter to warm up some, they were barefoot and clad in burlap sacks with arm and leg holes cut in them. I don’t think they, or any folk in the area lacked for food because everyone farmed and the American Chestnut hadn’t been wiped out yet, but you didn’t let any thing go to waste. Also it was in an era where you were pretty lucky if 60-70% of however many kids you had lived, which might have contributed a lot to not investing in clothing that wasn’t long in use from growth for the 2-5/6 YO range.
There were 7 or 8 children’s graves right above and next to where we laid him to rest, all the same family name. Grandma lost 2 of her siblings back then to the flu (and mom and a grandfather).
He got the property (cabin place) in the 40’s on a tax sale but he tracked down their survivors/descendants and asked if they wanted it first and got their sign off on it.