|
|
|
Mike Silvestri never did get that model airplane he wanted as a kid.
|
Holiday spending in the U.S. is expected to reach a whopping $457.4 billion this year.The average consumer is expected to spend $800 on gifts for friends and family, decorations and other merchandise, meals, greeting cards, and postage.
According to the numbers, Americans’ zeal for excessive gift-giving has grown in the past several decades. But what did families do before online shopping and early-morning stampedes outside Best Buy and Wal-Mart?
Harry Fruecht, chief of Peters Township Police Department, says he had a rich childhood despite his family’s modest income. “Don’t get me wrong, we were very lucky, we just didn’t have a lot.”
And his Russian Orthodox grandparents’ values kept the family together and smiling. Each year the entire family would gather at their elders’ small farm in Carnegie. “If you had seen the number of people we fit in my grandparents’ house you’d be amazed,” Fruecht says. “It was like a sardine can.” Though their English was broken, their traditions were not, he says.
According to his grandparents, the first person through the door on Christmas had to be male. Fruecht and his brother made sure they were awake by 4 or 5 a.m. so as not to break the tradition, he says. “It was a big deal.” So was the food.
Yayetchnik, a cheese-like egg dish, was always on hand, along with loaves of homemade paska bread and endless coils of hand-ground, smoked kielbasa. “The aromas in the house at those times ... I mean, jeez.”
Lack of funds may have limited the number of packages
under the tree, but that never stopped the children from writing to Santa (or just telling their parents) about their hearts’ desires, big and small.
Another Peters public safety leader, Dan Coyle, chief of Peters Township Fire Department, remembers asking for a Big Bruiser model tow truck in the 1960s, when he was about 6 or 7 years old. Made of heavy plastic, the truck came equipped with working lights and cables, he says. “I would see it in the store and always wanted it.”
But the toy was fairly expensive, he says, and his family did not have a large budget for gifts. Though it took a long time before he gave up on the truck, Coyle says Christmas was never disappointing: “I got over it. You move on.”
Peters Township Manager Mike Silvestri also learned to accept a wish that wasn’t granted as a child. Growing up in Coraopolis, he says he didn’t recall ever writing a letter to Santa, but he did repeatedly ask for a gasoline-powered airplane. Also a family without a large holiday budget, Silvestri says each family member received one large gift each year, unlike many children today. The wish was nearly granted when he was about 11 or 12 years old, but the plane he found under the tree couldn’t take off like the one he wanted, he says. His father had mistakenly purchased the wrong model.
“I don’t think he understood,” Silvestri chuckled.
As karma would have it, a request for a racecar set with moveable track pieces was completely understood a few years later. His fascination with transportation did not wane until college, when the set went into attic storage. His mother may even have thrown it away, he says.
“Who knows, it might even still be up there. I have no idea,” he jokes.
For Rev. Dave Evans, pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church in McMurray, Santa came through on the first try. As a boy of about 6 growing up in Finleyville in the 1960s, Evans begged his parents for months for a black bicycle with white stripes and high handlebars.
“Everyone else had one,” he recalls.
Santa managed to fit the bike into his sleigh that year, much to Evans’ delight. He recalled riding with his friends along strip mines, up and down steep hills and back and forth across the roads of Finleyville. Constructed mostly of tar and chip, those roads wreaked havoc on the group, who often skidded instead of sailed, Evans says. Still, he held on to the prized bicycle until he left for college.
“There probably wasn’t much left of it because I rode it so much,” he says.
These days, Evans isn’t asking for material Christmas gifts.
“As you get older, you want things like peace in the world, to bring the troops home and for people to remember their values,” he says. “Especially around Christmas you just want to be with your family.”
This year will be the first the Evans family spends in the township, having moved here from Johnstown. “I don’t want to miss what is special to Peters Township and the people who live here during the Christmas season.”
