Before There Was Light Part Two

The Christmas Tree 

This is a continuation of a story that hasn't been posted yet (Before There Was Light). Think of it as kind of like the prequels to Star Wars, minus the Jedi Knights, all the weird hair and costumes.

Christmas Before Electricity 

The farm where I grew up had no outside source of electricity until I was about four or five years old. The Delco light plant (a 32 volt home electric generator system) had been submerged when the basement flooded and could not be repaired or replaced during the war (WWII). After the war, they knew the REA (a government subsidized rural electrification program) was coming, but not exactly when the electric lines would reach our farm. So the Delco plant was abandoned with the expectation of light poles appearing up and down the road. Many of my earliest memories are of that year or two when there was no electricity in that farmhouse in Lincoln County South Dakota.

The Christmas Tree

That Christmas in 1945 or 46; my sisters wanted more than anything to have a tree to decorate. I wanted a tree too; I had seen them in town all covered with electric lights, colored balls and tinsel. Looking at the tree with all those lights was was a very pleasant experience for me, enchanting almost to the point of hypnotic.

So my mother decided we should have a tree and that we would have to light it with candles.
Getting a tree was no problem, there were evergreens in the grove, but this time we bought one from a store in town. I remember walking with my mother and two older sisters, Suzy (Anne) and Nancy; my younger sister Christy (Kris) was usually left with Aunt Ann who lived in Beresford. We walked all over downtown Beresford looking for candle holders for a Christmas tree. First to the dime store, then to the K and K dry goods store and finally to Gambles hardware store. I think the clerks probably said something like, "Sure we used to have those, but we haven't sold any for a while." I think we finally went back to the dime store and bought just the candles. As I remember, the candles were in different colors with spiral twists much like these birthday cake candles only larger:

When we got home, my mother and sisters got the tree set up. Momma went upstairs to the store room and  after a while came back with a couple strings of Christmas tree lights in a box. She took the 32 volt bulbs out and inserted a candle where each bulb had been. They strung the lights around the outer boughs and then added the colored glass balls and tinsel icicles. We couldn't light the candles until Christmas eve because they could only be lit once and then it would be over. We had our Christmas present openings on Christmas eve. --Jesus was born that night you know, so that was when Gods gift to mankind took place and was therefore the only appropriate time for opening gifts-- After the dinner (often oyster stew), and the table was cleared and all the dishes were washed, we could sit down in the front room (a.k.a. living room) and the Christmas presents could be opened.
On that evening, I imagine the tree looked something like these pictures:

It must have been incredibly beautiful, but to me it just wasn't as pretty as the trees with electric lights like the people in town had. By the next year, the REA had brought electricity to our farm and new electric Christmas tree lights were bought at a store in Beresford or Canton. For the rest of my young life I was mesmerized by lighted Christmas trees. Sixty-five years later and can still remember that feeling. But that enchanting experience faded as I grew older, replaced by other pretty things (like Bonnie) and other adventures. But that's another story for another time.

FYI, here are two links with interesting information about the history of Christmas lighting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_lights
http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/a/Xmas_Lights.htm