A few years ago, I cataloged the Nelson family slides -- surprised? -- attempting to arrange them in chronology order and creating a descriptive list: people, setting, and location. It became a more time-consuming project than I'd anticipated, and, come to think of it, I probably ran out of gas somewhere in the mid-1960s. (Guess I'll find out in a few months, at this rate.) At one time, Dad had organized the slides in a metal, rectangular slide file, completed with annotated index chart.
I look to be very pleased with the bike that Santa left for me, though I'm not sure how much I actually rode it once spring arrived. In Great Falls, the parsonage was located between two very busy one-way streets: 2nd Avenue North (where traffic moved from east to west) and 1st Street North (in the opposite direction). Mom and Dad would have limited my bike-riding to around the block.
It looks as though Mom received a West Bend bean pot and a coffee percolator from Santa. (And that wallpaper; I remember it well.)
I have no idea what's captured my attention, even when I zoom in on the picture. Larry, however, seems fascinated by the tinsel on the tree. There was tinsel on the Nelson family Christmas tree well into the 1960s.
The "gold chair" -- and that's how we always referred to it, reverently -- was a mainstay in the Nelson living rooms in Auburn, Great Falls, and Warren. I think it had been discarded by the time I graduated from high school in 1968. And I should be able to confirm this observation when I reach the mid-to-late-60s section of the slide file.
Dad looks ready to doze off. And perhaps with good reason. If these pictures were taken on December 25th, he would have presided at a children's program and separate service on Christmas Eve as well as another service on Christmas morning. Dad didn't work a regular 40-hour week.
One more comment.
At 4 years of age, I was a firm believer in Santa Claus and already familiar with Clement Clarke Moore's "The Night Before Christmas". One line in particularly, though, gave me great cause for concern.
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
"How will Santa get in the house, Mom?" I asked shortly before bedtime. "We don't have a chimney."
The parsonage had no fireplace.
"We'll leave the front door unlocked," she replied, not missing a beat.
Perhaps it was the same answer her mom or dad offered when she asked this question in the mid-1920s at 6 Hartford Terrace in Springfield, Mass.
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