I once heard Grand Old Opry star Grandpa Jones telling of his childhood days in Henderson County, Kentucky. He said that on Christmas morning the Jones children would each find an orange in their stockings, hung by the fireplace, the only oranges received during the entire year. He said the oranges were quickly consumed, peeling and all.

Except for the eating of the orange peeling, I had the same experience as a child at Hardshell, Kentucky, in Breathitt County. Inside my stocking with my yearly orange I would find a big "nickel-stick" of peppermint candy. These gifts from Santa were soon eaten, and I would ponder how long it was until next Christmas. (A year is a long time in the life of a child.)

At our little one-room school the pace would pick up as Christmastime approached. The enrollment increased as dropouts drifted back to school in anticipation of the candy treats, always passed out by the teacher.

A few weeks before Christmas, the older boys would go to the forest and collect a small cedar tree for use as the Christmas tree. The girls would decorate the tree with popcorn streamers, paper chains, and paper cutouts. Boughs of holly would be brought in to decorate the school room.

The Christmas program, to which the people in the community were invited, was the highlight of the school year. All pupils participated. The larger children took part in the Christmas plays, while the small fry recited speeches. The following example of one such speech, recited by a tiny girl, is typical:

I'm Papa's little darling,
I'm only free years old.
Santa Clause will come to my house
'Cause I'm dust as dood as gold.

During some winters, Troublesome Creek froze over at Christmastime, creating a glistening, crystalline highway to which the young folk of Hardshell flocked. Sleds and even wagons were pushed out onto the ice. Now was the time for visits to relatives and friends up and down the creek.

My dad used the occasion to get some fish for the family. One day he pulled me behind him on a small sled when we came to some clear ice, where fish could be seen just below the ice. Dad took a sledge hammer and hit the ice with a sharp blow, just above the fish. The concussion of the blow stunned the fish, and Dad retrieved them by reaching through the hole in the ice.

This fishing process worked fine, until Dad hit the ice too hard, and the ice caved in, sending him into hip-deep, cold water. As Dad sank through the ice, he reached over and pushed my sled and me out of harm's way.

One winter Dad purchased a hand-cranked ice-cream freezer from a mail-order house. To obtain ice for the freezer, he took a coffee sack (burlap bag) to a cliff and gathered a load of icicles. His homemade ice cream was enjoyed by all.

Since oranges were a scarce commodity, we usually had apples at Christmastime that we had "holed-up." To save apples for winter eating, we dug a pit about two feet deep in the garden and lined it with straw. On the straw we placed apples of the late-fall variety. The apples were then covered, in turn, with more straw, some loose boards, and a conical mound of soil that extended about two feet above the ground. Apples preserved in this manner would last all winter.

Darkness comes early at Christmastime. As the evening shadows lengthened, the extended family, sitting in ladder-back chairs, formed a semi-circle around the wood-burning open fireplace. With a good-sized log burning, a warm glow illuminated the room. Now was the time for talk and storytelling, especially by the grandparents.

These informal gatherings played a vital role in the transfer of knowledge and culture from the elderly to the young, a process sorely missed today, at a time when the elderly are shipped off to nursing homes, and our young people depend upon television sets for guidance and counseling.