As I sit here at my computer I think of the differences of Christmas in the 1950s and 2014. They are as different as night and day. How can Christmas change so much in nearly 60 years? It brings sadness to me when I see that the true tradition of Christmas has left us forever.
It was in the 1950s as a young boy that I would sit at home and look through the Sears & Roebuck and Montgomery Ward Christmas catalogs. Those catalogs were a big part of our Christmas shopping in those days. It was so much fun to see what was in those catalogs and many of my Christmas presents in those
early years were purchased from those catalogs.
In those early years our main town to shop in was Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. We would go there and walk up and down main street. Two of the main stores were J.J. Newberry store. Stroudsburg was the birthplace of the nationwide chain of J.J. Newberry stores. The other store was Wycoff's Department store. Both were located a short distance apart on main street. At that time the Sears store was located in the basement of the Wycoff's Department store. It was a peaceful and easy paced time of shopping. It was enjoyable and we would have lunch either at the lunch counter in the J.J. Newberry store or the one in Woolworth's drug store.
Yes, I think back to those lunch counters where people would sit, have something to eat, and chat with people that they didn't know like they were best friends. I think now that not only Christmas has changed, but people have also. The fast food places drove those lunch counters out of business.
Now I am in 2014 and have been doing my Christmas shopping in an entirely different way than I did in the 1950s. There is no more Sears & Roebuck or Montgomery Ward Christmas catalogs. Now I have the Internet where I do about 90% of my Christmas shopping. It is easy, but there is not the same feeling as leafing through those catalogs. We no longer have the pleasure of shopping in a little town. Now we have large shopping malls, with hundreds of stores under one roof. Now we have, Black Friday, something that was not even thought of in the 1950s.
Now stores are packed on Black Friday to get those deals. There are fights in many stores, over a toy or an appliance. Is that the was, Jesus, would want it to be? I surely think not. In the 1950s nothing was put out in the stores until after the Thanksgiving holiday. It was a tradition that I loved and it made Christmas seem more like Christmas was special. Now I see Christmas things in stores even in early October. It is wrong and ruins the spirit of Christmas. Christmas is no longer the holiday it used to be. Now it is greed by the large corporations that think of nothing of their employees and the true meaning of a very important holiday.
Greed has destroyed the pleasure and the true meaning of Christmas past. I often think of those walks down main street in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania a few days before Christmas with a light snow falling. People were so easy going then and not in a hurry. What has happened to people anymore? They don't shop like they are enjoying themselves they rush like it is a matter of life and death to beat someone else to get a toy. I don't understand it, I just don't.
Greed has taken over Christmas, but it can't take away my memories of my childhood Christmas times.
Copyright Larry W. Fish 2014
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