Though many negatives characterized 2020 – political divisions, a drought, the pandemic, a tropical storm — there were positive aspects, too. One pleasant commonality was a yearning for nostalgia. We seemed to gravitate toward our recollections, sharing our memories of growing up in Hampton, swapping stories, nudging one another’s remembrances, gathering around a collective affection for our Town. So we sought Christmas memories to celebrate Our Rural Heritage this month. Many of us remember presents at the Little River Grange, the Annual Bazaar, choosing trees at Warren Stone’s Farm and at Popover Hill, where we visited the gift shop to purchase special presents. We remember singing carols at the Congregational Church and Our Lady of Lourdes, our candlelit village, and neighborliness. Though we’re precluded from celebrating with large family gatherings this year, we hope those empty spaces fill with other Christmas “treasures”.
I remember driving the five miles to the Congregational Church by horse and wagon, or by sleigh, depending on the weather. Heated soap stones kept feet warm during the long ride. There was always a live Christmas tree in the church, up front near the pulpit. The tree was trimmed with strings of cranberries and popcorn, and covered with live candles that were actually lit. Each set of parents had brought presents for their children to receive from Santa or one of his helpers. The presents were not wrapped: the dolls hung on the tree, the little wagons were parked under it. Parents usually brought the showiest present their child was to receive.
Helen Matthews from the Hampton Gazette, December, 1978
There could be no special Christmas celebration in the fledging Catholic Church here. Back in those days the priest came here from Pomfret every other week – if he could get through. Nor could anything be planned for the Sunday School children. They had to walk from as far away as Chaplin or Canterbury, and weather could not be depended on. Ours was a family day, with mother always cooking, and all the neighbors up on Station Road coming in to visit. The tree was usually trimmed with popcorn and paper chains, and there were presents – perhaps hankies with crocheted edges, rag dolls, or teddy bears.
Anna McDermott from the Hampton Gazette, December, 1978
At Christmas, the Sunday School had a Christmas tree for the children. So Gertrude Pearl and Helen Fuller and I had a supper ahead of time to raise the money to buy the presents. And we used to go around to different people and ask for twenty-five or fifty cents toward the presents. The tree was over where the piano is now in the church and different people would play Santa Claus – I remember Stanton was Santa Claus one or two years.
Cora Burdick from Hampton Remembers
During the Christmas season each school put on its own program, always held in the evening. There were recitations of poetry, sometimes a play, and songs of the season, all for the entertainment of the parents. If a play was selected (at Goshen School there were perhaps fifteen students, ranging from the first to eighth grade) the very easy parts were given to the young and the complicated parts to the older pupils. All the decorations for the tree or windows were made during seat time. We used flour glue which we also made. LePages was a luxury and there was no Scotch or pressure sensitive tape. Available electricity was not a convenience, so kerosene or gasoline lamps were used, with the greatest of care. Most of the articles for decoration were made of bright colored construction paper and a great deal of tinsel or tinfoil was used so that the flickering light of the lamps produced a variety of colors. There was always a drawing of names for gift giving, usually the limit was set at twenty-five or fifty cents. The teacher received presents from each family. After the program was over, Santa Claus would make his appearance, usually announced by the ringing of sleigh bells. Of course, that was the highlight of the evening.
Charlie Halbach, from the Hampton Gazette, December 1981
During the war years Marguite and I organized a Christmas party at the Grange Hall when every child in town, babies through the eighth grade, was given a gift with his own name on it. We collected money from all the organizations in town and Willimantic merchants were so fascinated by the idea they gave us large discounts. Marguite and I wrapped all those presents ourselves so we could keep them all straight!
Dorothy Holt from Hampton Remembers
When I was a teenager, the Young People’s Group set aside a week or ten days before Christmas to go caroling. We went out every evening until we had visited every home in the town. Does anybody remember being greeted at one house by an elderly gentleman clad only in long johns, brandishing a shot gun? Some fast talking by one member of our group convinced him that our intentions were harmless. He did allow us to sing, and he seemed to enjoy the carols as much as anyone ever did.
Pearl Scarpino, the Hampton Gazette, 1978
The Lambs lived in the red house at the corner of Parsonage Road and Old Town Pound Road. They kept the kids’ Christmas presents at our house. One winter we had a blizzard on Christmas Eve and Lew had to walk down to our house and carry the gifts back on his shoulders. It took over an hour.
Carol Jean MacKinnon Lavoie
Some of my favorite memories are those related to selecting and cutting down our own Christmas tree. When I was little, our family planted future Christmas trees on the back field. Somewhere I have an old, black and white photo of us in old coats and scarves, digging and planting the straight rows of saplings…and encircling each with a cardboard ring. The cardboard rings were my Dad’s Yankee invention — to discourage the grass from growing faster than the sapling and thus not choking the tree. We watched over and tended those plantings for many years. And those early saplings eventually resulted in having a good selection of Christmas trees each December. We’d help Dad cut some down and haul them to the front yard for sale. Another of Dad’s Yankee preferences was that none of the cut trees were wasted. As Christmas neared, he’d deliver remaining trees to neighbors, family and friends — often with a batch of our homemade cookies to enjoy. And while we kids enjoyed the entire process, there was one component that was not to our liking: We ended up with the most deformed, disproportioned, asymmetrical tree of all! It was such an annual event that we kids would make bets ahead of time as to which tree would be left for us! Our years of experience had taught us to solve any misproportioned problems a tree could present. Our tree was ALWAYS in the corner to hide at least the worst side. We learned how to adjust the screws in the tree holder, put up fishing line to keep a crooked tree from toppling over, put big baubles here, small ones there, hang tinsel and garland to camouflage empty spots. When really desperate to fill a gap, stick a lightweight, wrapped present in the empty area! The use of “imperfect” (but I use that term rather affectionately) Christmas trees lasted into the years when my own children were growing up.
Kathie Halbach Moffitt
Christmas Eve service at the Congregational Church, ringing our bells on the last hymn. We have been all over the United States, Canada and Alaska and we have never found anything like it.
Ralph Hosford
Living on Main Street and adding our candles in the windows to those of other homes, ushering in Advent to Epiphany as well as Hanukkah. White lights, wreaths, menorahs, red bows and berries….a beacon of home and hope as you turn onto Main Street.
Wendy Timberman
Coming home from college with Tom for Christmas, he’d turn off the car headlights and drive down Main Street slowly. It was magical with all the Christmas candles in the windows, enough to light our way.
Anne Curry
We sold our home in October of 1994 and moved into a one bedroom apartment on Main Street with our two-and-a-half-year-old daughter and our son who just turned five. We lived there for two months while our new house was being built, moving in on December 17th, the week before Christmas. Maurice Bisson had all our belongings in a tractor trailer which he pulled up to the front door in all the mud and snow. It was wonderful to be able to unload everything right at our door regardless of the mess. The house being new was cold and with nothing on the walls yet, it certainly wasn’t “homey”. Then the power went out! A local business opened after hours for us to buy a generator, thank God! So here we were — trying to unpack, make the house look somewhat like Christmas, trying to shop here and there. I had just started back to work full-time and life was a bit crazy. One afternoon there was a knock on the door. It was Clarence “Can” Stone. Over his shoulder, he had a Christmas tree for us! I had tears in my eyes, it was the most gracious, thoughtful gift ever. My thoughts were, and to this day are, “Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus.”
Bobbi Harrison Blair
Christmas Day in the morning!
It begins with birds, yellow and black and white and blue, a score of jays and nearly half a hundred evening grosbeaks, perched in the apple tree by the terrace. They are scattered among the branches like living ornaments on a decorated Christmas tree.
Christmas Day in the afternoon!
We make a Christmas census of plants still green. In sheltered places we discover ground pine and shining club moss and haircap moss, the striped leaves of the pipsissewa and the ribbon leaves of the wood sedge. Green are the needles of the white pine and the juniper and hemlock and cedar. But the deepest, richest green of all on this Christmas day is the green of Christmas ferns amid the snow. For a hundred yards along the eastward-facing slope that climbs steeply above the trail beyond Hyla Pond, we walk below a tilted carpet dense with their massed fronds, dark and glossy-hued.
Christmas Day in the evening!
After dark has fallen, Nellie and I return to the Starfield. It is before the rising of the moon and the cold shimmer of the stars sweeps across the whole arch of the sky. It is always, for us, a deeply stirring, strangely spiritual experience to stand in silence beneath so vast a star filled sky. After a time we turn back along the meadow path. By starlight we find our way home at the end of this day, this special day, at Trail Wood.
Edwin Way Teale