As I watch the Christmas shoppers rushing around the super shopping centers like Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and all the other big stores in Sedalia this year; I can’t help but think back to those cold crisp December days of my youth, and the much smaller stores we shopped in back then.
The big stores in Sedalia at that time were Woolworth, TG&Y, Crown Drug, Penny’s, Lockets, and well you know the rest of them if you were there. Those stores that seemed so large back then had merchandise that would fit in one isle of the super stores of today.
They had something this time of the year that the larger ones don’t have however, at least not to some of us with a few years behind us. There was a feeling hard to define, but I remember it as Christmassy. It may be because I was young, but I don’t think so; the bustling stores downtown seemed like they were little extensions of Santa’s workshop the way they were decorated, something the larger stores can’t quite seem to pull off.
Even Reed’s Grocery the little store that sat on 4th and Emmitt where my family did most of their shopping when I was a kid had that feeling. Mr. Reed always had Christmas songs playing when the season came along. He also had a big display case at the front of his store full of Christmas toys and Christmas candy. My favorite Christmas candy was that hard candy that looked like a ribbon; I don’t see that candy in stores anymore. Mr. Reed always had it prominently displayed in that glass case just as you entered the store when the season came around, along with all the other Christmas favorites like candy canes and chocolates.
He also displayed a few of the popular toys of the day in that case, for us kids to wish for too. I doubt that kids today would be very excited over the type of toys that made my friends and I press our noses up to Mr. Reed’s display case. Today most toys have to be battery operated, or something with a screen. For kids I grew up with however, our imaginations supplied all the power we needed. I do admit however that I loved wind up toys, and also my electric train I received one Christmas, but when the spring broke on those toys I was perfectly content to push them around manually. Today we just return it for a new one.
I have written several stories about Christmas, and I have written about downtown Sedalia before, but I believe some of my clearest memories as a small child come when those two subjects are combined. I would guess that is true for many people around my age, who still remember the crowded streets and busy stores of downtown Sedalia during the holiday shopping season. I guess that is why when the ground is white from a slow falling snow, and I walk into a store, with a Christmas Carol playing; just for a moment I’m back there on Ohio Street, shopping with mom, dad and sis.
