Each year, in December (okay, a few have been in late-November), I post about some memory of past Christmases, specifically those from my childhood years. If I keep this blog up long enough, I may run out of those and have to go to teen years. Examples of some of those posts are:

December 2015: Progressive Christmas decoration

December 2014: Wrapping Paper

One memory I’ve wanted to write about, but haven’t because of a lack of photo to illustrate it, was our candy house. Other people do gingerbread houses; we did a candy house. My brother got all the family photo albums; one of his sons now has it. I keep forgetting to ask him for a copy of some of the photos. I’ve finally done that. However, as I wait for a good photo that shows the house in it’s full glory, I found this one in the photos I have. It’s from 1953, from before my memories, and it shows an early version of the house that would over the years morph into the one I remember.

Dad built the house out of plywood, put a simple light bulb base in it, with a blue incandescent bulb, and voila: you had a house that would be pretty with that blue light shining through the windows and door. All that was left was the decoration.

This happened either on Christmas eve, or maybe a couple of days before. Mom would make a large batch of white frosting (no store-bought stuff for us, if it was even available then). The whole outside was covered with this to represent snow, with the frosting dripped from the eves to form “icicles”. Then candy was stuck to the frosting. Necco Wafers for shingles on the roof. Red and green M&Ms for bricks on the chimney. Also M&Ms for the Christmas tree on the back. Gum drops to line the windows on each side.

The house was set on a thick piece of glass, which would also be covered with frosting. Spearmint candies made nice landscaping. Either spearmint or gumdrops lined the walkway leading to the house. The final thing was a candy cane stuck to the front door.

On to the dining room table it went. But, the decorating wasn’t done yet. All around the house were put various figurine. Carolers, snowmen, reindeer, someone in a horse-drawn sleigh. And, in the chimney, a right-sized Santa Claus, ready to go down.

The photo I give you here doesn’t do it justice. This was early in the candy house tradition. You can’t actually see any candy on it. In fact, I suspect this was the first year for it, when my sister was 3, I was almost 2, and baby brother would make his appearance two weeks later. They made a nice, white house—very pretty—and went with the external decorations. After this they probably thought, “Why not stick candy on all that frosting?”, and in later years did so.

How long did the candy last, you wonder? With three young kids in the house, you’d think not long. But the rule was: No taking candy off the candy house until New Year’s Day! And we obeyed. On new years day we could begin. I always went for a Necco Wafer first, then a gumdrop, then a spearmint tree. I’d break an “icicle” off and have that. It would usually take four or five days to get the house and “grounds” clean of candy.

Dad built several of these candy houses. I know he gave one to his sister Esther, who decorated it. I’m sure he made at least one more, though I’m not sure who got that.

Years later, in the mid-1980s, when we were living in North Carolina, I asked Dad if I could have the candy house. He had no kids in the house and no wife to prepare it. He said yes. I remember we decorated it one year, around 1986: same house, same base, same candies uses, different accessories. We have a very nice photo of our daughter next to the house. If I can find it, I’ll add it to this post. But, I believe it’s in an envelope somewhere in the house, never having been put in an album.

I thought this year would be a good year to make the candy house, for the grand-kids to enjoy. I wouldn’t even make them wait until New Year’s to take candy from it. Alas, I can’t find it. It appears that, from our many moves, the house and glass are gone. Did a mover steal it? Not likely. Did I give it to someone rather than store it when we moved from NC to Kuwait? Possible, but not likely. Is it hiding in a box, somewhere in our large and poorly-organized storeroom? Perhaps. If not, I don’t know what’s become of it. A piece of Dad gone forever.

Perhaps I’ll learn woodworking skills that Dad never taught me, and figure out how to make one; or find a kit at a hobby store. Maybe I can build a house for next year, and the wife and I can figure how to make it look half as good as Mom did. If so, you can be sure I’ll post it here.

Back in December 2010, I started this series, intending to do a post each year, or many a couple, around Christmastime about my memories of childhood Christmases, maybe linking that to how times have changed. I didn’t do a good job with my series. I made two posts in 2010, then not another one until last year. Time to resume telling about Christmases past.

Long past? No, my past.

One of the things our family did, which perhaps was unique, was how we did the nativity scene. We called it the manger back then, or perhaps the crèche, not the nativity scene. That term entered our family much later, but I’ll use it now since that’s what most folks call it.

This was, perhaps, the first Christmas decoration to go up in the house. Last year I wrote about our tradition of progressive decorations. Well, the nativity was one of the first to go up, two or three weeks before Christmas. But it had only animals in it. I remember a cow, a donkey, a horse, and some sheep. Maybe we had a shepherd too (can’t remember), but probably it was just the stable and animals. So where were Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus?

They were somewhere across the house. Joseph and Mary were, that is. They were enroute to Bethlehem, to the stable. Every day they moved a little closer. I think the nativity was placed on the closed sewing machine table in the dining room. If so, Mary and Joseph were somewhere in the living room. But baby Jesus wasn’t with them. He wouldn’t appear until Christmas morning.

Day by day the couple inched their way to Bethlehem. Obviously the geography of the Holy Land wasn’t a factor. Focus on the journey, not accuracy, was the intent. Eventually they made it to Dad’s desk, also in the dining room, then to the Windsor chair next to the sewing machine, then finally, on Christmas eve evening, they arrived at the stable. Christmas morning Dad or Mom would bring out the baby, and one of us would put it in the empty feed trough. And a couple of shepherds would arrive, along with their sheep (three, if I recall correctly). And I think we added an angel as well, on top of the stable. What about the wise men, you ask?

They also appeared on Christmas day, but not at the nativity. They started a long ways away from the stable, and started their trek there, which would end on January 6, Epiphany. The next day the nativity would be put away with the rest of the decorations.

So for one brief day, the nativity scene was complete. This was a lot of fun for us kids. And I think it helped us to better understand the dynamics of the story. Rather than have a static scene of all participants, we had a moving story that we participated in. We never actually read the Christmas story, ever, on that morning. But we understood what was going on.

What about in adult years? I think I tried this a year or two when we lived in North Carolina. We had a large, older home, with lots of territory between Nazareth and Bethlehem, and between lands to the east and Bethlehem. But the tradition never got going. Maybe all the relocations we made made this impossible. Not every place we lived would have worked for a moving nativity. Plus, the nativities we had didn’t have as many moving parts.

Now, with just me and the wife, and now the mother-in-law, in the house, it seems unnecessary. So the manger sits, all participants in place, as if it were Epiphany. The photo above is of how it looks this year, on our new console TV converted into a table. It’s pretty, even if it’s not historically accurate.