PERSPECTIVES: Christmas Was the Holiday That Jingled!

Above, an image of how clanking chains sounded to ears properly conditioned in the Christmas seasons of not so long ago...

By James C. Johnston Jr.

Christmas is a time to recall great old memories, and it is also a time to make some new ones. One of the first songs that I ever heard, way back in my days of earliest childhood, was Jingle Bells. It was a catchy tune, and I often fell asleep in my earliest Christmas seasons with that song playing in my head. We had a house filled with antiques that somehow just seemed to accumulate without much effort to make that happen, and old songs just fit right in with all of that old stuff. Among those sometimes strange things that made-up our piles of magical clutter were long leather belt-like things with bells attached to them.

I was informed that my great-great grandfather had attached these bells to his horses as part of their harnesses which made-up their winter accoutrement. I loved to grab them and shake them to get a feeling of Christmas in July. Such is the power of suggestion and nostalgia even when the thermometer tells me that it is ninety degrees in the shade! I guess that my hunger for Christmas powered my imagination into overdrive.

The sound of jingle-bells was not confined to just the bells on my great-great-grandfather’s harnesses alone. There were also church bells, the bells of colleges and other institutions, and to top it all off, the jingle of snow-tire-chains which began about the time of the first snowfall. These seasonal necessities, as they were then, are unknown to young people today. They were the one thing that would keep a car on an icy road back in those far-away times. They would bite deeply into the ice and packed snow with the ferocity of an enraged tiger intent on the kill! It was the tradition of putting these chains on the tires of the family automobile at the start of winter snow season that signaled that the time of ice-skating, sledding, snowball battles, and Thanksgiving and Christmas was upon us.

The snow season began much earlier back in those far-away days than it does today in this time of global warming. November frequently saw temperatures falling to zero and even below that. Skating by Thanksgiving was possible. Snow was a reality by that holiday as well. And if we were very lucky, we even heard the fire whistle go off in the morning during the week which was the signal that there would be no school that day because of the snow. How we loved the Snow Gods then.

It was a much colder time in our history back then when I was born almost 82 years ago. I can remember snowflakes falling by the end of October which hinted at what would be falling in goodly fashion by November. Yes indeed. Snow was no stranger to Thanksgiving. Consider the song, Over the River and Through the Woods. That song is about getting into a sleigh and going to Grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving dinner! The song joyfully tells us that, “The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh through the wide and drifting snow!” I loved the song, but it had small relevance, because my only grandmother lived with us, and that was just grand, because we got to enjoy her all year.

How times have changed here in good Old Franklin Town! It is much warmer these days. We have far less snow than we used to have, and I am not complaining a bit about that! But getting back to putting chains on your tires to get you through the snow-drifts of winter, those days are long past. I might add that my father was a master of the procedure. He used some very symbolic magic words to help him along with his annual task that I was not allowed to hear, never mind repeat, or indeed speak. Let us just say that my father’s language “under stress” could be very colorful and altogether rather picturesque! He really knew how to add color to such occasions!

When the snow chains were well-installed, my father proclaimed that we were ready to travel anywhere no matter what the weather brought. Even in the middle of a good-size snow storm, we would all pack into his car along with whatever we were bringing along, usually Christmas gifts. Off we would go on our merry way to distribute largess on the day before Christmas. If there was a mouse stirring in my house, it was a very foolish wee animal indeed not calculated to live a very long life. My ferocious cat, a twenty pound Angora named Katy, had no patience with such creatures, and she was very territorial, and these mice were foolish enough to put themselves on her menu. That bit of occasional snacking brought her seasonal joy. No interloping animal was suffered to live who invaded her space. Indeed, I had seen many a hound that she sliced-up a bit and sometimes literally rode out of the yard while clinging onto their backs with her feral claws buried deeply into their flesh. Topping twenty pounds or so, she was a very serious cat and a veritable force of nature.

She had jaws twice the size of a Maine Coon Cat and huge teeth that were witness to her patrilineal descent from some wild and distant ancestor of the ancient North-Eastern woodlands. Like every pet we ever had, she had just wandered onto the property one day and decided that we were going to be her humans. She just settled in and decided to live with us for almost twenty years. Someday, I will write a fuller account of her remarkable life, but for now, I’ll just get back to the symphony of the snow chains.

Most of the automobiles of my youth had snow chains installed by this winter season which of course began in mid-to later fall, and these musical chains all competed with each other to see which set could create the most meaningful seasonal sound. I am sure that our chains were the best. Through the cold and freezing blast of winter of the late 1940’s and early 1950’s we tore up Route 140 through the ice and snow to Shrewsbury to see my cousins Tom and Rita Maroney. Tom was the co-inventor of the bookmobile and he had his factory in Shrewsbury, and next to that large property, he and his wife had a very large eighteenth century house that had once even contained a ballroom. I loved that old place, and I had a special place in my heart for Rita who had been my mother’s life-long best friend and my God-Mother. Best of all Rita gave me books as gifts, and to my young reality, nothing could be better than that.

We spent a great afternoon with Tom and Rita and their family on the day before Christmas. Then it was time to brave the elements and go to Upton and Milford to make the rest of our Christmas calls. Indeed, the snow was still falling, but with those snow chains, it just added to the Christmas cheer and excitement. We exchanged gifts with the Mc Tyges, the Martins, and other family members scattered throughout the vicinity. Then, it was back to Franklin to visit with more friends, and at last, we ended-up with some of our best friends, the Clark’s on Union Street.

They had a large Victorian pile of a house which had been built by Joseph W. Clark, a mid-to-late Nineteenth Century Franklin magnate who had invented machines that powered the emerging textile industry during the heyday of The Industrial Revolution of the Nineteenth Century and blossomed to become a great success during the Civil War when such things were truly needed by the Union Army which ran through the services of several million men from 1861 to 1865. Here in the Clark House, was Old Franklin and my father’s best friends together in celebration the holidays just as we did for many years.

This wonderful old house, filled with these great people, was a fantastic place to be each year. There were so many stories to tell of the year past in that happy company, and there were so many plans to be made for the year to come including vacation plans for a time when the sands of Cape Cod would be so very inviting. This would be a time when most of us would get together again in warm sunshine.

But next summer was another world and another season. The Clark House was now filled with Christmas seasonal joy and love, and we truly felt loved and appreciated. The giant nine-foot Christmas tree in the front parlor smelled of the distinct perfume of the pine, and the seasonal food tasted so very good as it had all day in all of those many places that our car, with its well-tuned musical snow chains, had taken us. But now it was midnight, and it was time to leave this party which still had more than a little life left in it and go back to our own abode.

Off to our house we went with visions of all of those beautiful Christmas trees we had seen, and Christmas lights dancing in our very sleepy heads. The home-owners whose houses we were now passing by were now starting to turn off their exterior decorations and window lights. They too had surrendered to time and tide. Santa was well-away, busy in his sleigh, and only the sound of the jingling music of the snow chains seemed to be the dominate seasonal reality of the moment. Oh yes, I was ready for bed. My younger sisters had already begun to doze off in the warmth of the car. Those old Fords had great heaters.

My father carried my little sister into the house. My mother took my grandmother by the arm to guide her to the door through the snow drifts, and my slightly younger sister and I were busy bringing in the newly acquired Christmas Loot. We drew-up the rear guard. As it was, I had to make several trips back to the car to bring in all of the presents and goodies with which we had been gifted. I found that my attitude about gift giving was not typical of most children. It was a strange thing about gifts at this festive time of year as far as I was concerned. I always enjoyed giving things away more than I was interested in getting them. I am still like that many decades later.

There was of course an exception to this rule. My parent’s gifts were always unique and spot on. They knew what an odd and quirky kid they had on their hands. Hammers, nails, lumber, saws, balsa wood, stamps, coins, books, and antiques were the things I wanted for Christmas. Only they really knew what was appropriate for me. After all, I was a kid who had never really been a child, and I liked it that way! Besides, I was lucky enough to become a teacher, and I enjoyed my childhood all over again for the thirty-four years I spent with those delightful young people. By then I was smart enough to know how to be a kid and enjoy it. I enjoy my kid’s company still. They are a little older, but we are still kids.

But what I really miss about those old winter days-past, is the sound of the traffic passing my house with snow chains singing out the songs of winter. Those chains made going out in all sorts of winter weather not only possible but an adventure. Life seemed so very much more worth living when challenging nature itself.

But I must go back to 1952. I went off to bed, sleepy from my long-day’s journey. I had brushed my teeth, and then I went to bed under a mountain of reassuring quilts, still listening to the music of the snow-chains. My father of course went out of doors again and shoveled the driveway, walks, and whatever else needing his attention. He was never as happy as when he could be alone with his own thoughts shoveling snow. He was tireless and also my hero. I wish that I had actually told him that, but we guys never say things like that to our dads. That in and of itself is a very sad thing. By the time we get up the courage to drop our machismo and fess-up to loving our fathers, it’s too late. I am sure that when I got-up and looked outside at our driveway and parking lot the next morning, I thought, “At least our dinner guests would have a nice clean-snow-free place to park on Christmas Day.”

Merry Christmas to you all my friends, I am sure that you all have fond memories to relate of your own holidays past as well as new memories to make. Best of luck with both.

Johnston is a retired Franklin educator and author.