Dodge City Christmas 1933

Even those of us my age can recall days when Christmas meant one gift of not too big of importance. Most of our presents were practical like new clothes or shoes that we needed anyway. We didn't have a lot of money and most people really didn't at that time. My dad said that until after WWII people didn't have much at all. You can tell that from the photos of those days and the houses don't have paint on them. People had no money for that. If you watch the Little Rascals the kids were super poor. My mom said they did that so people wouldn't feel so bad about their own situations.

My grand dad said people actually starved to death in Dodge during the Great Depression so times have been bad. Now ppl have more than they need and live way too high causing a lot of unneeded stress.

So here is memory of Christmas past from my dad of simple times. There was no insurance to buy, no rush to own 3 or more televisions, computers, ipads, and other stuff. We all think we need it all. Therein lies the problem. You cant get it all so ppl are not satisfied with life.

 When I was about 3 we moved out of my grandpa's house.  We moved to a house on Second Avenue, which was located a block west and two north of grandpa Kirks house.  I was a little two bedroom house, and was built probably 6-8 feet above Second Avenue.   It had a garage that was under the house and you could drive up a drive shared with the neighbors and turn into the garage.  It had retaining wall on the front and around the driveway .  One Christmas I remember we had a fir tree about 5 feet tall and mom had decorated it with lights and some icecles    Anyway we so excited because this was the first Christmas that we had our own tree, and that Santa Claus would come to our house. So finally the night arrived that we had waited, and waited and waited for, and we were put to bed.

     Sometime in the night I woke up and since no one else was up, decided to see if Santa had been there.  I believe that the tree lights were still on.  At least I could see that sure enough the old fellow had been there and gone and there was a tricycle just like I wanted and it was big enough for me to ride.  I went back to bed and had a hard time going back to sleep.  As I remember it, I never told my parents I had sneaked a look.

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I believe this is my dad's sister Kay who died in childhood. But you can see the trikes of that day are nothing like today.