Christmas Memory

We all have our favorite Christmas memorieswe like to share.

J.K. (Kent) Lilly of Camp Creek is no different. Although the 88+-year-old Mercer County native had witnessed many changes in the way that the Christmas holidays are celebrated, he still looked forward each year to the festive occasion.

Lilly recounted some of his boyhood recollections a while back during an interview at his Stovall Ridge homestead. He also related some World War II Christmas memories from his stint in the U.S. Armed Forces in Europe in the 1940s.

“During the (Great) Depression, we kids went out hunting for a Christmas tree a day or two before Christmas. We’d heard tell of people climbing and topping some trees, but they didn’t look too good to us once we climbed up there.So, we cut smaller trees at the edge of the woods.

“I was raised a few miles from where I live now. Back then, there were acres and acres of white pines, gorgeous pines they were. We would cut one of the trees and tote it up on the mountain to our home.

“I remember one Christmas when Dad and Mom went to town to pick up some things for us kids. It was mostly hard-tack candy during the early years of the Roosevelt administration. Dad had taught school for 19–and–a–half years, when he was laid off during the Depression. If you were anything but a Democrat in those days, you had difficulty finding and keeping a job.

“Dad was a pretty fair musician, however, and he soon had a following of guitar and fiddle players who liked to gather at our house during the winter months. We loved it when they played songs like ‘Jolly Ol’ St. Nicholas.’ We often sang on Christmas Eve.

“One year I got a pair of cowboy gloves made out of dark cotton. Boy, did I love those gloves. Another time I got a box of small firecrackers and I’d go out on the front porch at night and shoot them off.

“We got a Roman candle one year. Dad lit the fuse and handed it to me to hold. I aimed it right at Dad, trying to give the exploding fireworksback to him. Flames shot out the end of it and set Dad’s coat on fire. He ran to the back porch where the water bucket was stationed for drinking purposes and doused himself all overwith the cold water and beat the fire out.

“It’s a wonder that he didn’t take the hide off me; he was a pretty good sport about the incident, though he never allowed us to mess around with Roman candles after that.”

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Lilly joined the military right out of high schooland served in the U.S. Army during World War II. Part of his time was spent in Austria after the war ended, guarding some Nazi SS prisonerswho had been hospitalized there. He tells one Christmas story about his experience:

“We put together a Christmas party for some kids in Austria in December 1945, after the Germans had surrendered and the war was officially over. So, we put together a Christmas party in the town where Franz Gruber, the author of ‘Silent Night’ was born.

“And as luck would have it, I used to play music myself, and I got hold of a guitar and played it over there. I traded two packs of cigarettes, which cost us servicemen about 7 cents a pack, for some meat grease. The man with the guitar wanted some lard, which was really just pork grease that had been drained off the meat and cooled.

“Well, I got the man with the guitar a gallon of meat grease from our head cook, and the guitar man gave me his instrument.

“About 300 children showed up from the local district, and we put on a Christmas show for them. They particularly liked the hard-tack candy that was given out to the servicemen in 5-gallon containers. We gave them our portion of the candy; then, we all sang Christmas carols for the next few hours. The children seemed happy and grateful, because they hadn’t had much to sing about, on account of the war and all.”

“It was a good thing that I had the guitar, though, because when Franz Gruber showed up to play ‘Silent Night’ on the church’s electricorgan, he couldn’t play it. The church mice had chewed the cords up and there was no time to fix it. So, Franz took my guitar and played ‘Silent Night’ so beautifully it brought tears to my eyes, on account I was so far away from home and all. And to cap it off, the town’s mayor presented me with a pair of leather shorts and a pair of stockings that went up to my knees. That was the appropriate sort of dress where those folks came from, I reckon.”