Tip-Toe Through the Mistletoe

The mystique of Fellowship Street, the home in which I grew up, resulted in part from the instilling of Great Depression values and pragmatism into our daily routine. When these qualities really rose to prominence, however, is when it came to raising a little extra capital. And when do you need a little extra capital more than the Christmas Season?

Cost you $0.15.

Papa worked as a heli-arc welder in a steel factory all those years, which belied the fact that he was extraordinarily artistic. We saw it in his carpentry skills, which included masonry. He did everything one could do with sand, gravel and cement, including building fireplaces. He built sail boats, crafted and installed kitchen cabinetry, created desks, chests of drawers and hope chests, and welded ornate metal bases for decorative tables. 

Papa built this desk.

He would then lay plywood down on these metal frames, tile the surface of these tables in ornate designs, including a majestic red and black dragon on one occasion, and offer them for sale. When he sold them he inevitably invested those monies in further projects. 

Much of the metal he used was discarded scrap from State Steel, which he utilized to create what was needed around the house. One year it was a stainless steel roasting pan, capable of “housing” a 41-pound, home-grown turkey. Other times he would acquire a chassis for a utility trailer, weld a frame together, build the trailer and put an ad in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune to sell it. 

Where I would get mistletoe today...

When it came to consummate family effort, none surpassed that of the mistletoe extravaganza long about the first or second week in December. We did it two or three times, I think. This involved an excursion up into the San Gabriel Mountains to obtain mistletoe and pinecones, the attractive packaging of these commodities, and the peddling of said seasonal embellishments, both door-to-door and out in front of good old Sav-on Drugs Store.

It was a game the whole family could play.

In going door-to-door in the ‘hood, we would be familiar figures. Being Catholic school attendees, we sold raffle tickets for turkeys at Thanksgiving time, we sold tickets for the parish car raffle in May and we sold The World’s Finest Chocolate at Christmas time. 

Additionally, I did magazine sales and other fund-raisers for the Boy Sprouts, as Mama [fondly?] referred to the Boy Scouts of America. I was an enthusiastic participant for long enough to get to the level of Life, as it were, back in the day when “levels” did not refer to electronic games.

That Papa would spearhead this mistletoe action, was what made it so intriguing. We knew that he was not going to get squat out of the deal, comparatively speaking, and yet he put his time and energy into the venture so that we kids would have the pecuniary funds necessary to defray the cost of the Yule Season. 

We would have loot to spend on Christmas presents!

How much loot? Mama (with help) would package a nice sprig of mistletoe with a red ribbon attached [for easy installation] in a small plastic baggie, and charge $0.15 per. Toss a big pinecone into the baggie, or a couple of smaller ones, and the price rocketed to a quarter.

Of course, we are talking circa 1960, so it works both ways. Not much money was needed to make us happy campers. My memory says that one year we amassed around thirty dollars for our efforts, the majority of the $0.15 variety. Times were not necessarily booming in La Puente, where Papa pulled in an annual salary of $7,000, and he a specialist in his field.

Papa and Mama calculated each contributing member’s share of the venture, we were all uniformly stoked, and we took the money and used it to buy Christmas presents. It was a family affair because Christmas in a big family is serious business. Everyone gets into it like a meditation.

Even if I were thrilled with my (Let’s call it $4.00) share, exactly how much damage could I do if I were trying to buy presents for each of my (at that time) seven sibs, not to mention the folks? “Not much,” they all said in unison.

However, if we pooled our shares together, we siblings could do some serious damage in accomplishing the same goals. The logic was simple: Which was better, a bunch of nickel candy bars and fifteen-cent kites/ rubber-band-propelled wooden airplanes, or one carefully selected gift by the combined efforts of ALL my siblings? Duh. 

As a family we went up into the San Gabriel Mountains, maybe a 45-minute drive, spent the day enjoying the [mostly] West Fork of the San Gabriel River, and returned laden with what was essentially deemed worthless commodities. 

There was not a tremendous demand for either mistletoe or pinecones gathered from the ground. And should Papa find a particularly beautiful  manzanita tree, he might take a bowsaw and cut a limb off to use as the base for a lamp.

manzanita wood

He was quite innovative in this mode.

Meanwhile, we worked as a family unit to distribute the goods, including always pairing up so that no one worked alone. The little kids would be assigned to an older pair of sibs, and would therefore be able to learn the ropes early. 

Those who sat out in front of Sav-on Drugs Store, invariably got positive feedback, regardless of whether a sale was made. We were polite, had attractively packaged goods, and most importantly, were not competing with Sav-on Drugs, which did not happen to sell mistletoe.

More than likely, we went to this same strip mall to shop, once again as unit. It was fun to band together with all of your siblings, sans the one for whom you were hunting for just the perfect gift. With input from all of us, it was a slugfest of pure entertainment.

Finally, after cleaning the house from top to bottom as a unit, we awoke to Christmas morning and all the fanfare that accompanied it.

A family that works together in order to earn money to buy presents for one another, to better rock Christmas, is a family with its act together. The mistletoe gig was light and breezy, unified us in a single purpose, and allowed us to celebrate the victory in the end. 

A family that works and plays together, stays together.