This year, in 2006 I was out visiting Uncle Sandy a few days before Christmas. We were having a nice talk about Christmas memories. He said that the one thing he really remembers as a child was going to midnight mass at the Alsace Church. This would have been back in the mid 1930's. They would hitch up the horses, Grandma would bundle up the children and they would head off in the cold night air to church. Some of the people would have sleigh bells on their horses and you could hear them from miles away. I get a nice warm feeling just thinking about what it would have been like to have been there. The church was decorated with a tree and back then all they had for lights was either coal oil lanterns or candles.
When they got home around 2:00 am Grandpa (who always stayed home) would have a roaring fire going and the Christmas tree set up, but not decorated. The children would go to bed, and when they got up Christmas morning the tree would be all decorated and the presents under it. They had little clip on candles for the tree and they would be lit Christmas morning for a short time. Grandpa always stood close by with a bucket of water.
Uncle Sandy was telling me what when he was young kids didn't ask for toy cars, they asked for horses. He was very young only 3 or 4 years old (we know this because his Grandmother Josephine Toeppner died in 1934) he got up one Christmas morning and found a white toy horse tied to the leg of the side table in the kitchen. It had reins and someone had put a little hay in front of it. He remembers his Grandmother saying the horse's name was Schimmel, which is German for white horse. Uncle said it had wheels on it, but doesn't remember much else about it. I found this picture on the Internet, not sure if it was exactly like this or not.
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