By Gus Bloom, December 14, 2017 — When I was growing up, we had one of those neighbor stores, which were open from 6 to 11, 7 days a week. Since my mother manned the place with some help from the rest of the family, she had no time to make preparations for the holidays. In a sense, the store was our living room and we three kids were missing what our friends were enjoying — putting up a tree and decorating it.
We three children decided to take matters into our own hands and went out shopping for a Christmas tree. Found a scrawny one for 25 cents, dragged it home, and managed to stand it up.
There it was and we realized we had no ornaments to decorate it with. We had received a box of imported candies wrapped in glittering paper and used those for ornaments. Hardly a memorable holiday!