The Ghost of Christmas Past

Taxes were low at Dist. 24.
In one referendum,
indoor plumbing lost.

We enjoy hearing of the special Christmas events taking place this time of year. The caroling, concerts, parties and such all bring a festive and familiar feel to the air around us. But for pure anticipation, excitement and nostalgia, it is hard to top the annual All-School Christmas Programs at District 24, the one-room rural schoolhouse south of Alexandria, Minnesota.
It would be right about now that the big evening would be occurring, immediately before our glorious two-week Christmas vacation, which would herald the official beginning of the holidays.
We practiced for weeks. Teacher had copied each speaking part from an educator's magazine in her perfect long-hand script and we had committed our assigned words to memory. The rhythm band, with its plastic flutophones, metal triangles and wooden sticks marked time as she pounded favorite carols on the beat up upright in the back corner of the tiny space where somehow eight grades of children were learning their ABCs.

This photo is inadvertently dated 1953. See the Great Northern calendar
above the background sheets. Nobody that we knew had TV.
This was great entertainment, an important event, and we knew it.

It was odd returning to our school after dark on the big night. Those parents who could jammed themselves into our wooden desks to watch the performance staged on planks, borrowed from the lumberyard, and raised on concrete blocks in the rear of the room. Wires and sheets, hung on safety pins and opened and closed by big kids, completed the illusion of a proscenium arch.
By then, we knew all the parts, so when somebody flubbed, we immediately cringed and shared a collective pang of embarrassment.
It seemed such a magnificent evening. A few photographs of the event were made on rare color film, revealing in retrospect what a humble celebration it actually was. Even so, it remains the yardstick for all subsequent Christmas events -- and remarkably few have eclipsed its anticipation and excitement.

The finale was always the singing of "Here Comes Santa Claus, Here Comes Santa Claus" as he made his way in, before reading everyone's name from a list he happened to have. We all got brown bags stuffed with nuts and sweets.
Yes, dear reader, that's real, genuine tinsel on the tree. You just can't get that anymore.