Christmas is past but the tree with its lights and dozens of a variety of ornaments continues to provide pleasure and will until it comes down after New Years. Why is it fun to put up the tree and decorate it but it is work to remove the ornaments and take the tree down? Thinking about Christmas decorations brings to mind how hard during the depression people would look for ways to show the holiday spirit.
During the Christmas season a girl brought to our seventh grade room a tree she had made. It consisted of a limb off a thorn tree sprayed with silver paint and ornamented with a gum drop on every thorn. We came in from lunch one day and found the tree had lost some its gum drops. The teacher, Oren Trout, flew into a rage. He demanded the miscreants confess, and when no one responded he demanded that everyone make a list naming every person that had stolen a gum drop. I had not seen anyone so the paper I handed in was blank. Not so was some of the papers and as he read names off my name was called several times. His anger abated somewhat, he invited all who claimed innocence to make their case. Students who did not defend themselves faced punishment. I no longer remember what that involved but he loved to use a paddle so I was happy to be accepted as innocent.
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