Standing outside a window and dressed as Santa Claus, Charlie Muston, of Plainfield, jingled his bells. A little girl stricken with leukemia put her hand against the window from inside, and he put his against the glass to meet it.
Harriett Muston, 79, of Plainfield, didn’t reveal the girl’s name to protect her privacy. However, she recalled the little girl’s parents called Charlie to visit because they weren’t sure she would live to see another Christmas. She was scheduled to receive a complete blood transfusion in New York soon. When Charlie came, she was still too small for him to enter the home, so he stood outside and jingled his bells.
Charlie, who is now 80, dressed as Santa Claus during the season as a habit, and Harriett would sometimes join him as Mrs. Claus. He said he learned early that children would often be too intimidated to start by sitting on his lap, so Mrs. Claus was a great help. Children sit in Harriett’s lap before moving to Charlie’s to give him their Christmas wishes.
He wasn’t the only Santa Claus visiting friends and neighbors.
Rex McClain, 78, of Avon, remembered a man who lived down the street who would dress as Santa Claus and visit his children. Kay McClain, 76, of Avon, reminded Rex that he donned the red-and-white suit to deliver presents for his neighbor’s kids as well. Even after the man’s children had children of their own, Rex kept it up, going as far as Plainfield to visit them.
They all remember giving more gifts to their own children than they themselves received. Perhaps none did so more than Wendell Trent, 91, of Avon, whose childhood occurred during the Great Depression.
Trent was from a family with seven children – six boys and one girl. He thought the first time he talked about Santa Claus was when he was 10 or 12 years old and “that was for the benefit of the younger children in the family.”
Christmas was smaller for everyone then as there wasn’t as much to go around. He and the other boys would usually receive one gift they could all use, such as a basketball or board game. His landlord would give them each a silver dollar, and his grandfather would give him a necktie.
The bus drivers gave children small brown bags filled with candies and an orange on the last day of school before Christmas.
“It wasn’t too common to get an orange in those days,” Trent said.
More than a decade later, Charlie, Dick Muston, and their two brothers would mark trees with ribbon or cloth at the beginning of November. After Thanksgiving, they’d cut one down and haul it inside the house. The tree had to be set in a container of water so it would stay alive and put on a makeshift stand to keep it upright. Often, the stand wasn’t enough, so families like the Mustons and McClains would tie a string around the tree and screw or nail it to the wall. It was easier that way because the trees were usually in a corner of the room.
“A lot of times they didn’t sit in front of the windows in those days because of the air raids and the blackouts,” Harriett said.
Paper chains and strings of popcorn and cranberries were still common adornments on the trees. Silver tinsel and colored bulbs dangled from their branches.
Charlie said “one, two, maybe three” gifts for each member of the household sat under the tree. Handmade clothes if there was a seamstress in the family, basketballs, other sporting goods and the occasional toy were common gifts. Kay said she often received clothing her mother made of repurposed feed sacks from her family’s farm.
For the McClains and Mustons, who grew up during World War II, ration stamps made staple Christmas goods far less accessible. They remember needing stamps for everything from shoes to car tires.
“Sugar was a big thing,” Charlie said.
It was an ingredient in so many traditional Christmas dishes. There were cinnamon rolls and all sorts of pie, fruitcakes, persimmon pudding, and cookies for Santa.
Rationing ended and the economy got better shortly after the war. The number and variety of gifts relatives gave each other increased and the meals got larger.
After Trent returned from the war, his parents made a much bigger deal of Christmas.
“I remember the big dinners my mother and mother-in-law always fixed and we enjoyed them very much,” he said. “We enjoyed Christmas with our children.”
Like learning Christmas recitations and children’s songs to sing in the church choir, it was a sentiment they all shared.
“You didn’t have a lot of gifts,” Charlie said. “It was more the happiness of being together because you didn’t see your relations but maybe two or three times a year.”
The little girl Charlie visited survived and is now a sophomore at Indiana University. As Santa, he continued to visit her and her siblings at Christmas. When she was big enough for him to come inside, her parents left a bag of gifts for her and her siblings outside their door. Charlie picked up the bag and walked inside. She and her siblings sat on his lap and told him what Christmas gifts they wanted. Then Santa Claus personally gave them their gifts before leaving to make more deliveries.
Originally published in Hendricks County ICON, 2016. Republished here for archival and portfolio purposes.