Chosts of Christmas Past

The elementary school I attended was attached to the high school, the entire building housing this enterprise was built against the side of a hill overlooking the Iowa River.  The last day before the beginning of the Christmas school vacation.  We all stood attentively in our class home room, and at a given signal began to sing a Christmas carol for which we had rehearsed.  While singing we followed our teacher out the door and proceeded to climb the stairs toward the higher grades whom we could hear distantly singing out hymn as well.  Then we moved onto another hymn, ever climbing higher and joining more and more classrooms pouring out into the hall and the volume of singing swelled until we reached the high school level where the students because of their maturity provided extra volume and body to the singing.  It was a dramatic actualization of any number of ideas associated with the Christian story and I know that we little ones were mightily impressed by the powerful qualities being brought to bear on Christmas.  This ritual left me dazzled.  Next was the Night Before Christmas when we were allowed to stay up to hang our stockings along the mantelpiece in the living room plus enjoy a late night supper set at the dining room table before the older members of the family went off to celebrate Midnight Mass at the Episcopal Church.  Oyster stew was a centerpiece of this supper, and it is hard at this remove to imagine that this child eagerly slurped it up but such was the case.  In the morning we raced downstairs in our pajamas and tore at our stockings filled magically during the night with all kinds of goodies.  Then we paused, dressed, at a proper breakfast, and then lined up, marched up to the nursery where lo and behold was a large tree decorated with the most lavish decorations, intricately carved pieces from the famed workshops of Czechoslovakia and Germany, lights twinkling on and off, and the tree almost buried in the piles of gaily wrapped packages for a family of eight.  There were also included wrapped presents for the house servants who stood to the side smiling, who knows with what feelings?, and received theirs before returning to the kitchen and dining room to prepare for the midday Christmas dinner.  Which indeed began on time at one o'clock when we had all returned from church, and sat dutifully in the living room while the grown ups had cocktails before the maid summoned us all to the table.  There were guests, bachelor professors, the dean of nursing, the head professor of nutrition in the medical school, not meant to entertain children, but instead meant to endure sitting next to us, if that were their fate, and making conversation.  After the main course we children were excused and left to our own devices "to work off all the food," whilst the oldsters stayed at table and managed a civilized conversation over liqueurs and coffee.  And it came to pass that we were all happy and satisfied.