Through the decades, constants of Christmas are clear
- People of all ages share Christmas memories and traditions
- Some families keep celebrations simple, others get more elaborate
- Gifts, family time dominate memories
Chuck Hubbard is 94 but still the proud owner of a little teddy bear he received in the 1920s.
Linda Crumbaugh's face glows when the 49-year-old recalls the 1970s and the luminaries that twinkled in front of homes in her Melbourne, Fla., neighborhood.
They are among individuals and families of all ages interviewed about their Christmas memories. The result: a century-spanning yuletide timeline from the '20s to today.
They've faced war. The Great Depression. Horrifying national tragedies. Yet no matter their differences, they agree: Christmas is, indeed, a healing season — one of wonder and often, badly needed hope.
More important than what was under the tree were the still-clear visions of the people gathered around it and the traditions forged over years of carols, cookies, candy and creches.
The love of folks who were there before the holiday hubbub started and remained a constant, long after the decorations, eggnog and Andy Williams tunes were shelved for another year.
Turns out, no matter where you came in on the holiday timeline, 'tis always the season for joy.
1920s: Shoe polish and a teddy bear meant a lot
The Christmas gifts Chuck Hubbard received as a young lad didn't light up, play music or require batteries.
Back in the 1920s, the presents were small and simple. Small enough, the Viera, Fla., resident, 94, managed to keep a few.
One: A 4-inch, light brown teddy bear whose once-fluffy fur is now flattened. "I'm lucky to have it," Hubbard said.
The small stuffed animal was a popular gift back in the 1920s, thanks to former President Theodore Roosevelt. Hubbard can't remember who gave him the bear, but he does remember receiving a shoe polishing set from his parents. He still has the ebony shoe horn.
Christmas gifts may not be the same these days, but Hubbard said other traditions remain. His family of five attended church Christmas Eve in their Connecticut town. On Christmas morning, Hubbard, his brother and sister would wake early to open their stockings. When their parents woke up, the children opened gifts.
Christmas evening, they attended church and sat down for a meal of traditional New England cuisine made by Mom.
"All of those traditions are still around, but the toys have changed a lot," Hubbard said.
1930s: Night-before tradition born of necessity
Forget the presents beneath the tree. It was the ceiling-tall evergreen itself that Fred Fernez remembers most from the Christmases he celebrated as a child during the Great Depression-era 1930s.
"I don't even remember the gifts under the tree," said Fernez, 83, the retired police chief who now lives in Satellite Beach, Fla. "Mostly if we got gifts, they were clothing."
But Fernez — he was no older than 10 during those years — vividly recalls going out with his father on Christmas Eve on the streets of Brooklyn to find their Christmas tree.
The two would bring the tree home, but would leave it bare. Then sometimes after Fernez and his sister went to bed, Santa would arrive to decorate it with tinsel and ornaments.
That became a family tradition when Fernez and his wife had their own children, then grandchildren and great grandchildren.
"We were able to afford a few more presents," he said. "But we loved to surprise them the way we were surprised."
Fernez also carried on the tradition of making the same bountiful meal that his father made for the holiday. He has since handed off preparation of Christmas Eve dinner to his son Stephen, but Tuesday, Fernez will once again take to the kitchen.
"They get an authentic Christmas Day dinner."
1940s: Miami yule had its own seasonal magic
There was no snow blanketing the streets of Miami, but that didn't diminish the Christmas spirit in the 1940s, said Pastor W.O. Wells.
"During that time, Christmas was everything that it was supposed to be," said Wells, 81.
"I was one of seven children in our family, and for us it meant a lot of toys and a lot of good eating. We looked forward to it all year long," said Wells, who headed one of Brevard's most prominent black churches for five decades before retiring.
Christmas gatherings centered on celebration and faith.
"My dad would always buy us a suit, a brand-new suit, for Christmas Day. I'd walk out in my suit and step around the chair. I was just a little fellow," Wells said with a chuckle.
1950s: Tree-shopping, Zorro and Mom's cooking were front and center
Christmas season began with a trip to a local grocery store to buy the family's tree.
"Some of the fun was choosing the tree that Mom wanted," said Clarence Whipple Jr., recalling Christmases in the 1950s when his age was still in single digits.
Whipple, now a Cocoa, Fla., city councilman, stayed close to the kitchen on Christmas Eve as his mother prepared the next day's meal.
Later that evening, Whipple would heed his mother's advice to go to sleep early and not wake up until morning — to the sight of presents from Santa.
Whipple remembers getting costumes of TV characters such as Zorro, The Lone Ranger and Tonto, which he would wear with his holstered cap guns.
Whipple's parents also taught him that the Christmas tradition was based on the birth of Jesus Christ. And on Christmas morning, the family attended the sunrise service at church.
"The meaning of Christmas was more important to us than anything else," Whipple said.
1960s: Shower, scriptures, then gifts under the tree
Mike Blake's laughter peals like that of an excited child when talk turns to Christmas.
"One of our family traditions was that before we could tear into the living room and into the presents, we had to take a shower. Cite our scriptures and have breakfast — the typical Southern breakfast, with eggs and grits and bacon," Blake, former mayor of Cocoa, Fla., said.
"Then we could make a beeline into the living room where the toys were."
Now, every year, Blake dresses as Santa Claus and poses for photos with local children in a celebration after the local Christmas parade.
"So many kids had never seen a black Santa when I started doing this — there were little kids who'd come up and rub my arm and say, 'Santa, you have a tan now,'" said Blake, who is a middle school social studies teacher. "And I'd say, 'Ho, ho, ho. Yes, I do.'"
1970s: Long lines of luminaries brightened their season
It was 1976. Stretch Armstrong dolls, Foosball games and "Frampton Comes Alive" albums were popular Christmas gifts.
Linda Crumbaugh can't detail the presents she received that year. But she can recall in glowing terms the lights that brightened her world starting that year, when she was 13 and her family moved from upstate New York to Palm Bay.
"That whole neighborhood was lit up with luminarias in bags, every Christmas. Everyone would set them out in front of their houses ... if a neighbor was out of town, someone would take care of their lights for them."
After Christmas Eve dinner or midnight service, she said, residents walked the neighborhood, relishing block after block of flickering beauty.
Now, Crumbaugh, her husband, Jay, and their son Dylan, 15, have their own traditions. They decorate the tree with familiar items, and watch Jim Carrey's version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
And tying every season and the years together: time-tested, twinkling lights. Crumbaugh and her family, accompanied by good friends, pile in her husband's truck and head to a local park for the annual Lightfest.
"It's the closest thing to walking through the neighborhood and it brings back such good memories."
1980s: Pop-music anthem set tone for holidays to come
Shirley Mattingly kept MTV on for background music, but it was a song she heard leading up to Christmas in 1984 that changed how she celebrates the holiday.
Mattingly, then 24 and a mother of two young boys, was visiting her sister in Seattle while the boys' father was transferred to a new base.
"We were completely broke and I didn't really know what to do about Christmas," she said.
Then she heard "Do They Know It's Christmas? (Feed the World)."
Some of the 1980's most popular musicians, such as Phil Collins, Sting and U2, joined to become charity supergroup Band Aid and performed the song to raise money for famine victims in Ethiopia.
The words, which Mattingly still knows by heart and bring tears to her eyes, moved her to donate $25 even though she barely had that much herself.
"It really brought home the Christmas message that no matter how low our funds were at the time, there were a lot of people that had circumstances much worse than ours," said Mattingly, now 52. "As long as we had each other, our health, a roof over our heads, we always had food in our tummies. We had a lot to be grateful for."
And from then on, no matter where she was, Mattingly opened her home to anyone who didn't have anywhere else to go on Christmas.
1990s: Family takes time to enjoy the day
The perfectly wrapped presents under a finely decorated tree looked too good to spoil on Christmas Day.
So Sarah Stoeckel's family didn't open presents until that night or even the day after.
"We were never the ones that got to open presents on Christmas Eve," said Stoeckel, 27. "We never did the early morning thing at all, never."
"We would have our Christmas dinner in the evening and then open the gifts afterward. But if everyone was tired, we would wait for the next day."
In the morning, stockings at the fireplace were filled with things to keep children busy on Christmas Day.
One year there was a Giga Pet, a keychain-size virtual pet simulation game where the object was to care for the digital pet.
"It probably survived about a month," Stoeckel said.
2000s:A simpler holiday harkens back to a simple birth
For Jackson Salmon, the celebration of Christmas changed forever when he was 8.
The year was 2005. There were no great miracles nor any epiphanies, but it was then the Merritt Island, Fla., now 15, and his family chose to reboot Christmas. To scale back on the decorations and make time to be with each other to deepen the meaning of the season marking the birth of Jesus Christ.
"The main thing is that Christmas isn't about getting gifts, but giving gifts and the coming of Jesus," said Jackson, an only child, recalling how his family decided to embrace the concept of keeping a "simple Christmas" promoted by Georgianna Methodist Church.
Christmas morning starts with the aroma of hot chocolate and that fresh-tree smell.
"In the morning we all sit around the tree and sip the hot chocolate, opening gifts. Then we go in the other room and we watch How The Grinch Stole Christmas, the cartoon. I've watched it so many times. It's great," Jackson said. "My mom bakes the pie and my dad will cook steaks. That's our tradition."
2010s: Couple's lasting gift to each other: A daughter
Every year, Jennifer Puranen would send out a Christmas card with her picture on it.
In 2011, Jennifer and her now husband, Kari, once again posed for their Christmas card. Just the two of them on their boat.
But when you opened the card, they were holding a tiny life vest between them. The words below read: "Looks like we're going to need a bigger boat."
"It was our cute way of letting friends and family know that after years of trying, we were finally going to have a baby," Jennifer Puranen said.
The 2012 Puranen Christmas cards were sent out at the beginning of the month. The photo this year — a smiling 6-month-old Olivia Marie with her mom's sparkling blue eyes and a gigantic, pink bow covering sparse strands of blonde hair.
The words on the right read: "First Christmas 2012 with love, The Puranens."
"It will, of course, be a very special Christmas this year," Jennifer said. "We have a lot to celebrate and be thankful for."
They'll do their typical routine — family dinner Christmas Eve, attend church service and open gifts Christmas morning. But this year, they'll have an extra stocking to hang and a few more gifts under the tree.
Contributing: Florida Today reporters Susanne Cervenka, Scott Gunnerson, J.D. Gallop, Britt Kennerly and Michelle Spitzer