Tonight, I am volunteering for a worthy cause here in Roanoke, Virginia where I live, Illuminights. A more than 500,000 light mega display at Explorer Park. See
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Before, I dive into memories of lights or other outdoor decorations in Greenwood, I have a few more analytics to share with you. Since beginning in September, A History of Greenwood by Those Who Lived It, I have had over 2060 post views with 1789 visits. What does that mean? You have clicked on a post from Facebook 1760 times and 300 times, you have jumped to another post within the series while there. With 385 unique visitors. I shared that we had over 150 followers that had liked a page. Well, that means less than half of the visitors have liked a post. But, keep reading. I am very excited!!!!
As I asked yesterday, please consider liking this post so I know who you are. I am looking for relatives of past Greenwoodians to help tell their stories.
On to the lights...
White lights or colored lights, what is your preference? For me, it is warm white all the way. You saw my trees in
and the post directly in Facebook for my second tree, all warm white lights. However, when my kids were little, I did breakdown and let them have colored lights on their bedroom trees a few years. And, just to show I am flexible, I did put colored lights on a little tree in my front hall because my husband is still a colored light fan. He always had blue lights on the outside of his house growing up. Well, this was not intentional; but, I got solar powered LED lights for the bushes and trees in front of my house and they actually look light blue. He got his wish.
Guess what, in the past, Greenwood was never much for outdoor displays at Christmas. Maybe it was first the depression, then the World War II era. But, I don't remember decorations or lights on houses in the 1960s and 70s when I spent holidays there. Maybe it was just too cold. And, definitely not up on the Hill.
I did get a "I think I remember a single strand of those large colored lights along the front of the station one Christmas" from my dad (John Murray), "and, Dad putting some along our porch at the house in the 1950s."
John Murray here. Greenwood wasn't much for outdoor decorations.There were a few houses in town with the lighted candles in the windows at that time too. And, Jim Murphy had that hand-painted wooden Santa in his front yard. It was about 4 foot tall.
And, it seems that trees, because they were usually cut and brought directly into the house, were not put up until right before Christmas and had more handmade ornaments than lights. As I shared earlier, the scouts started selling fresh cut trees downtown during the 1960s. It seems fresh cut was definitely used over the modern aluminum or tinsel trees of the 1960s whether it was freshly cut by a family member or purchased to help the scouts.
Stan Murray Jr here. We would just go out into the woods and if we found a pretty tree, just chop it down and bring it back to the house for Christmas. Our family usually got our tree around the 20th and it was a family event to decorate it before Christmas eve with strings of popcorn and paper chains. Around the mid-50s Dad brought home some bubble lights to add to it.
I remember the bubble lights. We had those on our tree too. I think Joan (Murray Kline) ended up with them and maybe even used them for a few years.
Stan back. I have to share this story. John had another business idea in the late 1950s. He had gotten about 1000 pine tree seedlings on Arbor Day and he and I were going to have a Christmas Tree Farm. There were ten bundles of about 100 trees that we had in buckets in the garage behind the station just waiting for us to plant on the land up behind the barn at our house (what is now my property). Well, we got busy and John kept saying we will get to to it. We kept them watered most of the time; but, they were in a pretty dark garage. At a point, they were starting to wilt and die and we decided we had to get them in the ground. John and I planted all 1000. But, only one of that 1000 survived. So much for the tree farm.
I also remember a few years when Grandma and Grandpa (Stan and Margaret Murray) had a magnetic sign that stuck to their front door that said, "Merry Christmas from the Murrays" with reindeer and a sleigh. Aunt Ellen (Murray Kilbourn) and Uncle Dean (Kilbourn) used to make them at their business in Salamanca. Kilbourns, if you are reading, comment on when this was.
If you have pictures of your decorations and/or trees or those of your relatives in Greenwood, how about sharing them in the Comments on the Facebook post.