Christmas On The Isthmus Memories
© Snow Frost
BHS "66"
My favorite part of Chritmas in the Canal Zone, was the arrival of the Christmas trees. My parents would wait in a very long line, for a very very long time, in hopes of getting that "special tree". I could hardly wait to get home from school to see the tree they picked. Mmmmmm, the smell was fantastic---unlike the palm and mango trees. That very night we would decorate it, and dream our dreams of Christmas Day.
When I was very young, there was a great tradition where the community would burn all their trees together---supervised by the fire department of course. The huge blaze, the smell of the pines, the crackling sounds....memories I shall never forget. When the blaze was low, we would roast marshmellows and hot dogs, and enjoy our neighbors and friends....great memeories...
© Mark Shaw
Christmas Trees in the Canal Zone...........
When I was a child, Christmas trees were imported from the States, because
evergreens did not grow in the Canal Zone. You and your parents and everyone
else you knew went down on the same day to a warehouse near the docks and
picked out a Douglas fir or a scotch pine, trying to find one that was the
proper height and had enough branches for the ornaments, and that did not
seem to have suffered too much from the voyage.
It has always -- even when I was a very small child -- seemed somewhat
strange to me to bring a recently-living thing into your house, festoon it
with ornaments and girdle it with gifts, invite your friends over to ooh and
aah over it in envy, and then discard it after the season was over. It
wasn't so bad in the Canal Zone, however, because we had the Bonfire.
The Bonfire was sort of like a Viking funeral for the tree -- and being of
(we children supposed) Scandinavian origin, it probably appreciated the
symbology. The tree was, for a few short weeks, the hero of the household;
it was certainly the pride of he who had chosen it at the warehouse. After
the holidays, the tree, brittle with age, would be denuded of ornamentation
and brought forward, littered with tinsel, to the site of the Bonfire. A
permit would have been issued by the fire deparment, and a couple of the
more responsible adults delegated as fire marshals. About the time the
first stars were visible, one of the fire marshals would start the fire
with his own tree. From then on, until all the trees were extinguished,
each family would come forward with their own tree and toss it upon the
blaze whenever the flames seemed to be getting too low. We would toast
marshmallows, sing Christmas carols for the last time, and chase each other
around the Bonfire. Some of the adults would drink a bit too much beer and
tell funny stories in strange voices. As trees were fed to the fire, flame
and sparks would reach high into the sky as each brittle, resinous corpse
exploded into incandescence. It was a grand time for all.
Not everyone cared to participate, of course. Some would have shift work,
others perhaps a planned trip to the beach. The smart child knew in advance
which would not, attend, and solicited them their tree quite politely indeed
-- taking care not to arrive too soon after Christmas day, lest he offend the
prospect, nor too late, and be robbed of his chance by another. For the more
trees you brought to the Bonfire, the more chances you would have to rush the
flames and feel the awful heat upon your face and hear the crackle as you
flung it upon the bier. Of course, one had to be most careful about one's
choice of a cache for the extra trees. Raids were common in the week before
the Bonfire, as alliances of boys formed and dissolved, and trees disappeared
from patios and roofs. Few families would risk removing their own tree from
the house before the day of the Bonfire, and it would sit like a lingering
dying thing in the living room until the day arrived.
There was something in this custom that would please the Celts who first
decorated trees at the Winter solstice. The cycle seems complete; a living
thing uprooted to become, however briefly, a member of a human household
returns to nature in a shower of sparks and a rain of ash. The tree, however
bewildered it must be by the actions of these strange monkeys, must feel a
sense of honor at being the center of attention even at its end.
I understand that other folks and other areas have their own customs. Some
communities chip the trees to make mulch for landscaping. Others toss their
trees into lakes, for fish and frogs to nest in. Still others clip the
branches for kindling and chop the bole for logs, and burn the tree -- in a
much more civilized way than we did, I suppose -- in their fireplaces and
wood-stoves. The most curious custom I've seen, however, is that of the
Texans; at least, the Texans of my current neighborhood. Their trees are
simply stripped of ornaments and set out on the curb for the trash truck. I
passed such a tree tonight, and I felt a brief surge of anger -- the same
sort of anger I would feel at the kind of person who would take a family pet
to an unfamiliar location and abandon it, I suppose. This doesn't make much
sense; the tree is, after all, quite dead, and certainly never had the
capacity to care about its fate, but there you are. I guess symbology is
everything when it comes to the holidays
© Linnea Angermuller
Great memories..........
Ron (BHS '47) remembers always having trees during the war in Balboa. He
said they were pretty fresh but a limited supply. The Panama Canal ships
were all in military service, and the United Fruit ships brought the trees.
(He remembers that the SS ANCON became a communications ship in the European
Theater and was later, in the same capacity, in Tokyo Bay at the time of the
formal Japanese surrender signed on the USS MISSOURI.)
He remembers that the Commy had many shortages and mayonnaise was rarely
to be had; they ran out of toilet paper at least once and substituted the
Sears Roebuck catalog; he said they made great efforts to send turkeys down
for Thanksgiving, he can't remember if there were turkeys at Christmas. He
worked for the Sanitation Div. as a student asst. and once spotted a small
jar of Kraft mayonnaise far back on a shelf at the Chinese Garden in Rodman.
He brought it home to his Mom, who was thrilled.
Ron always got our tree on the Atlantic side for many years, but one year he
couldn't go early to get it and I was assigned. I took my small kids with me
and we waited outside an airplane hanger at Coco Solo, puddles here and
there, end of rainy season and that "dry season feeling" beginning, with
Manzanillo Bay in the distance.
I didn't want to be in front of the crowd since the kids were so little,
so I stood back a ways. The hanger doors were finally opened and out came a
nice fragrance of pine forest and the crowd surged in, and then the entire
forest began waving around and up and down! Quite a sight. When I finally
got inside, I grabbed a small fat perfect tree and told Larry to stand right
there and guard it with his life. Then I searched further for a tree for a
friend and took the two trees to the cash register. Somehow we got thru the
cash register line without a kid being poked in the eye with a tree stump!
© Oleta Tinnin
"DRY CHRISTMAS"
(White Christmas)
I¹m dreaming of a dry Christmas, balmy and breezy as of yore,
Where the sun shines brightly, and the stars twinkle nightly,
And waves lap soft against the shore . . .
I¹m dreaming of the dry Christmas Panama always has in store,
Give me sunny weather galore, and I¹ll have all I want
And more.........
© Jim E Phelan
Everybody liked Santa Clause Lane,
some of my other favorites:
the motor pool out at Ft Clayton always had a display --
the earliest I remembered was the reindeer
(female? cause they had antlers)
in the orig JEEPs and Santa in a half track
then later the JEEPs were newer,
and Santa was in a tank.
My number one favorite was
on Las Cruces St. below Morgan Ave
there was a house that for many many years
had a Santa wearing a short sleeve montuna
(that had shorts instead of pants)
and a fancy Panama style hat with red tassel
that was standing on the back holding some reins
of a large alligator with a red glowing nose.
© Sharon Tully
I have many fond memories of all the Christmases in the Canal
Zone......
One of our teachers and I forget which one hung her tree from the ceiling.
I loved the way my mom decocrated a tree, it was so very very
and I stress very beautiful. My mom went all out and decorated the whole
house. I loved her table center pieces, I would bake dozens and dozens
of homemade cookies, Louise would make Jamican rum fruit cake, mercy was
that good. We would all put Christmas tree needles in a sock and have
the odor for months. Kept it under our pillows.
The Apples, my
godparents made a mean egg nog. We had sooo much food everyone was
stuffed and of course eating turkey leftovers forever it seemed.
I love
the bon fires with the trees out on the beach and roasting marshmelllow
and hotdogs and telling jokes and scary stories.
Those were the days my
friends, those were the days.
To each and every one of you I wish a Merry Christmas a Merry Holiday
Seasons and a Happy New Year. May each and everyone of you have a
blessed new year in the year 2001...........Sharon
© Dennis Tully
I have many fond memories of Christmas in the zone.....
My grandparents coming
down and all of us sitting around the table for our Christmas meal. The
smell of the Christmas tree and seeing all of the presents under it when we
were allowed to come downstairs. The wait would kill us but was well worth
it.
The Christmas tree gangs. Oh, yes and the home made and I stress home made
Egg Nog. Yum, yum. I also had a lot of fun sliding down the hills on the
boxes after we opened our presents. Everyone outside trying out their new
toys. The list goes on and on. Christmas in the Zone was very very special
and is not like anywhere else.
***Do you have a Canal Zone Christmas memory that you'd like to donate to this page? If so, please email me.
CZ Memories
"Wonderland"
Copyright © 1999-2007 Snow W. Frost
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Reproduction without permission is strictly forbidden.