Launched in 2005, WellesleyWeston Magazine is a quarterly publication tailored to Wellesley and Weston residents and edited to enrich the experience of living in two of Massachusetts' most desirable communities.
Issue link: https://wellesleywestonmagazine.epubxp.com/i/92498
Holidays Past Barbara Coburn As a child growing up in Worcester in the 1930s, Barbara Coburn welcomed Christmas early in the morning, opening her stocking filled with utilitarian items atop a single piece of candy and a precious orange. Her family pooled their oranges to make fresh-squeezed juice for breakfast, a seasonal treat in the days prior to frozen food making it readily available all year long. After breakfast, Barbara's family cleaned up the kitchen and got dressed for the day before opening gifts under the watchful eye of her mother who dutifully recorded who-gave-what-to-whom so thank you notes could follow. Fond memories of squeezing juice from oranges found nestled in Christmas stockings motivated Barbara to continue that tradition with her five children. Barbara recently moved to Waterstone's inde- pendent senior living community from Weston where she raised her 48 family and taught second and third grades at the Brook and Country elementary schools. Barbara's neighbors at Waterstone, Mark and Estelle Clements, have no recollection of Hanukkah celebrations during the Depression. They did light the menorah with their children, but without exchanging gifts—not due to economic hardship, but because, "Hanukkah just wasn't a big deal; it's not even mentioned in the Hebrew Bible," explains Estelle. Ruth Harriet Jacobs, who lives at Norumbega Point, concurs, "As a child, there were no gifts for Hanukkah. Just some 'gelt' or small change each night from my parents." Ruth Harriet continued the same low-key gelt-giving Hanukkah tradition with her son and daughter, as well. Sunrise resident Lorraine Livingston's Swedish heritage shaped her family's Depression-era holidays. On Christmas Eve she received a few WellesleyWeston Magazine | winter 2012/2013