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Probably most American children have fond memories of Christmas.
I do.
My recollection of Santa Claus is foggy.
I don’t know if there ever was a time I believed in him.
I might have been inclined to, but older siblings disabused me of that notion.
There were 5 of them.
Our family didn’t leave out cookies and milk or other treats Christmas Eve in case Santa came down the chimney with gifts.
My parents emigrated to this country when they were adults and hadn’t grown up with Christmas celebration as a tradition.
That is likely true for many Americans.
The holiday was an adjustment for them, but they would do much to make it a special time for their children.
Being relatively poor, we didn’t have a lot of gifts.
Given our large family, my parents had come up with what I considered a novel solution to the gift issue.
In those days (this was decades ago) there were two stores from which we got gift catalogs: Sears and Montgomery Wards.
If you’re old enough, you probably remember them.
The latter had a brick and mortar store in a mall not far from where I used to…
