Holiday memories told
In today’s column, originally published in December 2000 as the second of a three-part series, Glenn Tunney’s readers share their favorite memories from Christmases gone by. —
Six-year-old Russell stared at the ring on Santa’s finger.
What could this mean? His thoughts were confused, and his mind raced to devise a logical explanation for what he was seeing. Could it be true?
Could Santa Claus actually be a thief?
It happened half a century ago on the night of the children’s Christmas program at the First Methodist Church in Brownsville. The play was over, and the youngsters had assembled on the small stage at the front of the church’s social room to acknowledge their guests’ applause. From outside the building came the musical jangling of sleigh bells, followed by a robust “Ho, Ho, Ho!” The doors to the social room were flung open, and into the room strutted Santa Claus himself, a huge bag of presents slung over his shoulder.
Russell and the other children rushed forward gleefully to greet old Saint Nick. As Russell approached Santa, he noticed that the jolly old fellow was not wearing his customary shiny black boots. Instead he was sporting ordinary “civilian” shoes that were, in fact, a lot like Russell’s father’s shoes. The children’s laughter around him faded in Russell’s ears as his gaze moved upward on Santa’s ample red-clad body. When his eyes reached Santa’s ungloved left hand, he was stunned by what he saw there.
“I didn’t recognize his face or his voice,” remembers Russ Moorhouse 50 years later. “But there was Santa wearing my dad’s shoes and his ring. What a mixture of thoughts raced through my young mind! Could my dad really be Santa Claus? What boy wouldn’t have loved to believe that? But that thought quickly vanished, as I realized I had seen Dad many times at his work in the Brownsville post office. Maybe Dad was one of Santa’s official helpers that you would see on the street corners. But no, I was sure I would have heard about that or seen his Santa suit in the house at some point.
“The thought of Santa taking my dad’s ring and shoes just didn’t make any sense either. Here was a guy who could have anything. Why would he want my dad’s stuff? A quick look around the room for my dad turned up nothing. That left only one conclusion. That this wasn’t the real Santa. This was my dad playing Santa!
“I was tempted to blurt out, ‘You’re not Santa, you’re my dad!’ However, I kept my cool, and I began to think about the rumors I had been hearing from older kids. That there really isn’t a Santa Claus, that it’s just a story your parents tell you so you’ll be good all year. I wasn’t ready to accept that. How could there not be a Santa? Would my parents lie to me about such an important thing as that?
“I was very quiet on the ride home. When my parents asked what was wrong, I told them that I knew Dad was the Santa. I could tell by the way they glanced at each other that they knew they were on the spot. My mother said, ‘Where did you ever get that idea?’ She didn’t know that I had evidence. I presented my case, noting that since my dad was still in possession of the shoes and the ring, it had to be him dressed as Santa. This brought another glance between my parents. Now I really had them.
“After a long pause, my dad explained. ‘They tried to get the real Santa, but he was real busy at this time of year, finishing up getting all the toys together. So Santa sent one of his suits to the post office for me to use tonight.'”
Half a century later, Russ Moorhouse looks back on that night. “For that one evening my dad was an ‘officially appointed Santa.’ I wanted to believe that more than anything. For a few more years I tried to convince myself that it was the truth, holding on to one of the fragile threads of childhood, but the evidence and the rumor remained in the back of my mind, gnawing away at the fantasy.”
For those who still believed, Santa was everywhere, it seemed. Phyllis Grossi grew up on Second Street on Brownsville’s South Side. There was one place in particular where she could count on having a one-on-one audience with the bearded one.
“Every year,” she recalls, “the men from the bar at Mickey Check’s Bar and Hotel on Water Street would have Santa Claus come to visit. Santa would give the children candy and popcorn, and then we were treated to cartoons. This was something all of us children looked forward to in the 1940s.”
Of course, these pre-Christmas consultations with Santa were designed to allow children to present their “most wanted list” to Santa Claus himself, while mom or dad hovered nearby to surreptitiously guide Santa in his responses.
Kathleen Phelan’s parents, Don and Stella Burack Laughery, were both Brownsville natives. They often drove from Baltimore to Brownsville to celebrate Christmas with Stella’s parents, Mike and Barbara Burack, who lived across Baltimore Street from the old hospital. The snow-covered two-lane roads through the mountains of western Maryland and southwestern Pennsylvania often demanded Don and Stella’s full attention on the six-hour trip. Little Kathleen, however, was perched in the back seat with a much more serious matter on her mind. It was the same worry felt by any child spending Christmas away from home. How in the world, Kathleen wondered, would Santa Claus find her in Brownsville instead of in Baltimore?
“I worried the whole time,” recalls Kathleen, who now resides in Baltimore. “Christmas was exciting for me, but Christmas at my grandparents’ house was even more magical. Grandpap Burack, whom I adored, had a way of making me feel like I was the most important person in the world. A highlight of visiting in the winter was accompanying him at night to bank the coal fire in the basement furnace. Looking into the door of that silver-painted monstrosity at the glowing coals was fascinating to me. To this day, I still love the smell of coal burning. It made me comfortable knowing that my grandparents had a fireplace and a chimney for Santa to come down, which we lacked in our home in Baltimore. (‘Santa has keys to all the homes without chimneys,’ I was assured.)”
Although Kathleen and most children focused primarily on Santa Claus and Christmas presents, young and old alike eagerly anticipated the culinary delights that highlighted the holiday season in southwestern Pennsylvania. Food, glorious food! For many, the holidays still conjure up thoughts of baccala in tomato sauce, koloshki bursting with nuts, or peroghis filled with potatoes, cheese or prunes. The rich ethnic heritage of this area was never more in evidence than at the dinner table on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
“My most significant memories,” Norma Marcolini Ryan of Brownsville told me, “are of Christmases spent with my grandparents, who lived on a farm near Perryopolis. My parents had a very traditional Italian home, and Christmas was centered around food. My memories are of my dad coming home from the Strip District in Pittsburgh with the imported Italian foods. He would bring the cheeses, salami, prosciuto, cappaciola, imported tuna fish, smelts, and baccala. It was a Christmas Eve tradition to have baccala in light tomato sauce, served with polenta and imported Fontini cheese.
“Another treat was to have the sweets from the Strip such as Jordan almonds, individually boxed and wrapped nougat candies, and dried fruit and nuts in the shells. We all gathered around as Dad unloaded the boxes and gave each of us a taste of the purchases. Meanwhile the house smelled wonderful with the homemade bread, pizelles and biscotti that Mom would make while Dad was out shopping.”
Christmas dinner in the Burack household on Baltimore Street was equally mouth-watering. “Grandmother Burack was a marvelous cook,” Kathleen Phelan remembers. “My dad told me of a Christmas before my time when Grandmother roasted a whole suckling pig with an apple in its mouth! Thank goodness I missed that one, but during the holidays, I can still remember, wafting throughout her house, the wonderful smells of halupki; koloshki filled with nuts, poppy seeds, or apricots; strudel filled with apples; peroghi filled with potatoes, cheese or prunes; and other delectables.”
Experts say that a familiar aroma can bring back memories from years ago. “Not long ago,” said Kathleen, “I attended a local Orthodox church supper here in Baltimore, where they featured Slavic foods. There were lots of folks there with Western Pennsylvania accents. Those delicious aromas brought back wonderful memories of my grandparents and brought tears to my eyes.”
Family holiday meals and visits with Santa are two cherished Christmas traditions. The evolution of a child’s relationship with Santa Claus is part of the coming of age. As we grow up, the wonder of Santa’s magic is replaced by an appreciation for the generosity of spirit that conceived the jolly old elf. It is a spirit born of the love of children and a yearning for innocence. The legend of Santa Claus creates for a child the wonderful illusion that all of his transgressions can be forgiven, and his repentance rewarded, on one glorious night each year.
As we seek spiritual renewal in this holiday season, shouldn’t we allow the little children to lead the way? For in their innocence, they instinctively know what we may have forgotten in our worldly sophistication.
They know the truth about Santa Claus.
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Comments about these articles may be sent to Editor Mark O’Keefe, 8-18 E. Church St., Uniontown, PA or e-mailed to mo’keefe@heraldstandard.com .