By Peggy Caivey Patten, Saint Ignatius Alumni, 1942-1947
Guest Columnist, Sun Post-Herald
December 23, 2010

The frost on the window pane was real so we rubbed the glass to make a clearing in the ice. We were told that Santa would land his sleigh in the middle of West 112 Street and we wanted to make sure that we would see him. We planned our secret hiding place on that Christmas Eve of long ago; our bed was pushed under the window and all of the pillows that we could find were propped up to reach the windowsill. No storm window then, so we wrapped the woolen blanket from Ireland around our shoulders and waited.

The fresh fallen snow below sparkled from the glow of the lights and the few cars that passed made silver ridges in the roadway as we waited. A beautiful scene that lured Eleanor and I off to sleep in our magical Christmas youth and we missed Santa Claus and his sleigh. Christmas morning was still wonderful. The tree in the front room window bay was loaded with gifts, the little gas fireplace was lit and the whole family was there. Those are my first memories of Christmas. St. Ignatius of Antioch School made my second set of memories. In the first grade, I learned the words to my first Christmas song "Silent Night" and when I hear it, I'm transformed back to the classroom in the yellow brick building. I can remember being terrified that I would join in on the wrong part, mess up the song and be laughed at by the rest of the class. I went to my first Christmas play, and learned I"d never be picked to play the Blessed Virgin because I had red hair and freckles. I learned about Advent and giving up something for the Baby Jesus. I learned which pew my classroom sat in for Mass. I learned to be part of the student body and feel the protection and closeness of a Catholic education system. I learned to love someone or something not related by blood to me.

For the Irish, everything centered on the church and at St. Ignatius the holidays were celebrated with pomp and circumstance. The enormous cathedral- like church was magnificent at Christmas time. The altar was bedecked with poinsettias in gold urns and the large lifelike nativity scene was in front of St. Joseph's altar. Each grade had their "signature" song to sing at the children's 9 a.m. Christmas Mass.

The beautiful high Masses with altar boys in red cassocks and priests in regal gold-trimmed vestments leading a possession up the center aisle with a gold incense burner filling the church with the sweet smell of incense were awe inspiring. When the adult choir sang the haunting Latin hymns, it was a perfect marriage of a magnificent pageant and Christianity and a joyful way to start the holiday. St. Ignatius was a large and prosperous parish and it seemed that everyone was related to us. Aunts, uncles, great aunts, great uncles and of course, dozens of cousins. We always met on the church front steps after Mass to meet and greet each other.

The third part of my memories was of course, Sears and Roebuck department store that stood on the corner of West 110th Street and Lorain Avenue. The large showcase windows were decorated for the holidays and rivaled the downtown stores. We loved looking at them and picking out hopefully our next Christmas presents or clothes. We would drag our Mom past them on our way to church and chatter endlessly about how we would look in the plaid taffeta dresses in the window. She always dressed us alike, so we made it easier for her when we liked the same dress. Santa was on the second floor and we made it a habit to stop to see him every day on our way home from school. He gave out coloring books and he had to recognize us but he always acted like it was the first time and the sweet old guy always gave us the books with a smile. The kids in the neighborhood did their Christmas shopping at Woolworth's which was across the street from Sears. This was a place where your hard earned savings of $1.50 would go far.

One Christmas I brought my mother a green plastic apron with ruffles on the edge. It was the first one anyone ever saw and she said she loved it, but it melted on her when she took the Christmas turkey out of the oven. The Christmas dinner was a big thing because we ate in the dining room and my mother used her wedding dishes of pink Depression glass and we drank our milk out of the matching tall pink wine glasses. It was an early meal about 1 p.m. so we could go outside and show off our Christmas presents.

On Christmas night, we took our matching new dolls to bed with us in our own safe little world of West 112th Street and promised that next year we would stay up and see Santa Claus. Patton is a longtime resident of Cleveland's West Park neighborhood.

Printed with permission from Ms. Patten.