Editor’s note: Because we miss our weekly hit of humor and insight from John R. Williams, who is recovering from pneumonia, and because it’s Christmas time, we looked up a column we fondly remember that he wrote, reporting on the Old Men of the Mountan’s May 30, 2023 breakfast conversation. — Melissa Hale-Spencer
 

It was a beautiful late spring day and the OFs were talking about Christmas and what Christmas was like when the OFs were young. It was nothing like today.

It was the time when the country was just coming out of a depression and entering another war to end all wars. During this time, many of the OFs were from 4 or 5 to about 10 or 11 years old, when receiving one gift was a pleasure because some did not receive anything at all.

The OFs started talking about what they received and how happy they were to get it, or what they were able to get for others with less than a dollar to spend in order to get something for three or four people or maybe even more.

The OFs compared how their Christmases were to how they are today.

As one OF put it, “There is no comparison.”

Another OF said, with his grandkids, there are enough presents to fill the whole living room, while another one commented that, in his case, one of the presents was so large for his grandkid it had to be left in the garage.

One OG said that he would like to go back to one gift per child. He thinks, in his time, kids were much more appreciative of the one gift and it meant something to them. This OF said he remembers the one gift, his grandkids can’t remember any of theirs 10 days later.

“Not only that,” one OF muttered, “none of them even think about sending a thank-you.”

Is it them or us? This was brought up because we had so little.

Did we indulge our kids to the point that they think it is normal and now they try to outdo it by over-indulging their own children? Maybe we are looking at the culprit when we look in the mirror. Who knows?

One OF remembered getting 10 cents to purchase a gift (10 cents!). This was a time when smoking was not only OK, but thought to be a good thing.

The OF took his 10 cents and went out to find a gift. After searching for some time, he spotted a nice ashtray and it was four cents.

The OF said he purchased the ash tray for four cents and received his six cents in change, and the OF hung onto that six cents. He heard about not returning the six cents quite sternly, and what he remembers most about that Christmas is not returning the six cents.

Another OF said he remembered during the war years when everything was scarce getting a bicycle that his father had made from parts of bikes that his dad had scrounged from all over. At that time, the OF said, he thought it was the best looking bike in the world; not only that, but it worked great.

The OF said the gift was so great he was the only kid on his street that had a bike at an age when all his friends should have had one. The bike was the envy of the neighborhood and all the OF’s buddies wanted to ride it.

Today, an OF said, his grandkids think nothing of asking their parents for something at any time let alone Christmas, and the item will have a price tag of hundreds of dollars. This is almost normal because all their friends have one and it’s just a matter of keeping up.

Another OF said that, at Christmases in his house on the farm, items were scarce and no matter what was given to you, you took with genuine thanks. It was really a treat that anybody got anything at all because there were 13 kids in the family. Many of the gifts were handmade, and the giver might have worked on these gifts all year.