“A long time ago, there was a winter during the Second World War where we didn’t have any snow. It was probably Christmas of 1943 or 1945. Somebody in my family had gotten skates for Christmas and we couldn’t use them. That was a memorial. And during the war everything was rationed for each family. You just got so much sugar. We hadn’t been able to make fudge for a year. But we saved up enough sugar to make some that year. You know, we didn’t have that much in the way of cookies and all that. I was the oldest and so had six younger siblings. I kind of knew what was going on for a lot of years. That year, Santa did get to come to the house. The younger kids got the chance to talk to him and find out more about what he does around this time of year. It just seems strange that we didn’t have snow, or that you could just go outside in a light jacket on Christmas Day. It wasn’t winter-y. It didn’t feel too much like Christmas, but with the war going on everybody was more concerned about that.”