Christmas in a World at War

Holidays for both the servicemen and their families during World War II were not the same in 1941 to 1945. Those who served across the world in two wars: in Europe and in Japan. Hearts were lonely and income was limited for most families at home waiting for their men to return. Hearts were also lonely in the war zones among men in uniform. Christmas is traditional and memorable family holiday, but it was different for hundreds of thousand families across America, as well as in the homes of the United States' allies.

My family's Christmas in 1944, the last year of World War II, and the first year after the war, 1945, remain the most memorable in my life. My father and 7 uncles volunteered for the military immediately after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, "the day that will live in infamy".

During the war my family, Mom with 4 children under the age of 7, earned very little income and received a small stipend as the wife of a husband in the military. To make it through the year, our extended family shared necessities by sharing garden and orchard products, canning fruits and vegetables, providing milk from their cows, and helping to make home-sewn clothing. She picked cotton and cut broomcorn in the fields-men were not available to work as hired hands because the young, middle-aged and strong were fighting the war.

We did not have a Christmas tree or gifts in our home when we awoke that morning in 1944; and, there were none at the home of my cousins or at our grandparents' home when our families arrived there. Being under the age of 7, all of us were disappointed.

At mid-morning, our Grandmother told all to go outside and play. It was a cold winter in Oklahoma that year, but they bundled us in warm winter clothing and sent us out of the house. There was no snow, but the seven of us always had fun racing around the circular drive, climbing the low limbs of the big oak tree, and sitting on Papa's John Deere tractor pretending we were plowing his fields. My brother and I had learned how to stand on a 50 gallon barrel and "walk it" all around the lawn. In other words, we had fun while banned from the house for an hour or so.

After a while, Grandmother called us into her small living room where were still no gifts for seven disappointed children. As usual, we had removed our coats and left them on the screened porch before we went inside to get warm by the pot-bellied coal stove. When

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