Christmas has changed considerably in the Drumheller Valley. inSide Drumheller sat down with Cecil and Ida Botkin and asked if they could share their Christmas memories.
Ida: Both of our parents were really poor. Maybe we would get a pair of socks for Christmas, but nothing else.
Then one year my dad came from Oregon with his sister. She brought us each a doll. A doll is something you never forget when you’ve never had one.
He’s about the same.
Cecil: Only worse.
Ida: You never even got a doll.
Cecil: We were farmers and we had nothing for Christmas. We didn’t even celebrate it, because we were so poor. We were lucky to get clothes.
Ida: My mom and dad used to raise geese and chickens for Christmas dinner. We usually had a goose for Christmas. But, they couldn’t afford to buy a turkey. Other than that we had all the vegetables we needed.
In 1944 we each had a weekend off for Christmas, so we got married. But, he went in the army right after that.
Cecil: We got married on the 23rd. That was our Christmas present. Two weeks later I was in the army.
Ida: That’s why we did it, because he had got his call already and we wanted to get married before he left. We’ve had 67 Christmases together.
Ida: We had our first daughter on November 30. We were in Barrie, Ontario, at that time. What do you do with a baby for Christmas? They don’t care whether they get anything or not.
But we made sure that our own kids never suffered for anything.