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First Things
Ghosts of Christmases Past
If the charm of the holiday season is starting to wear a bit thin, here's the perfect solution: fix a bowl of popcorn, find a quiet place, and settle in with this issue of Farm Collector.
Forget about malls and electronic elves and shopping lists and burnt-out lights in the outdoor display, cards to be sent and gifts to be wrapped. It'll keep.
Fields covered in a blanket of white? In the south, that's cotton ginning time. We've tracked down a vintage cotton gin in North Carolina (page 7). Every fall, a volunteer group there puts the 95-year-old machinery through its paces to demonstrate cotton ginning, keeping the past alive.
And wish lists... Mail order was at the height of its glory at the turn of the century, as Sears and Roebuck and competitors Montgomery Ward sought to reach every rural homestead with their wares. In "Let's Talk Rusty Iron" (page 30), Sam Moore reflects on an era when one mail order catalog held more treasures than a farm family could imagine. Perry Piper, too, recalls a time when holiday pleasures were simpler, yet somehow more dear, in "Santa Claus Confirmed" (page 20).
What's that on the rooftop? Could be an antique weather vane (collectors give their tips on page 28). But at our house, anyway, it's more likely the fat man himself, accompanied by eight trusty reindeer. A study conducted last year found some 13 percent of American adults still believe in Santa: count me in that camp. I've seen the glow on toddlers' faces... the superhuman efforts the women of the house pull off with aplomb every December... the divinity and fudge produced by men who, the rest of the year, are strangers to the kitchen-How else to explain the magic of the season?
Go ahead; take a break from the holiday hubbub. Toss another log on the fire, and let your mind wander back to Christmases long since past, when less was somehow more. Celebrate the simple pleasures, and the magic of the season. Merry Christmas from all of us at Farm Collector-