Grace Johansen’s homespun holidays

Walnut shells, painted pinecones and popcorn strings

By SANDY LONG

NARROWSBURG, NY — Simple, sweet and meaningful. Centered around the church and local community. At 77 years of age, that’s how Grace Johansen, president of the Tusten Historical Society, remembers Christmas holidays. Johansen’s family owned and operated the popular Peggy Runway Lodge, which was located in Atco, PA, just across the Delaware River from Narrowsburg, NY.

One of four daughters (Ruth, Alma and Betsy), Johansen arrived on the scene in 1929, the same year the lodge opened. It was the beginning of the Great Depression, so holidays were conservative and financially restrained. Gifts were focused on needs, such as clothing, and most were handmade by knitting or sewing. One year a toothbrush was the only new thing purchased.

Meeting the challenge of a particularly strained year, Johansen’s mother drew upon her resourcefulness by gathering up her daughters’ dolls, scrubbing them clean, washing and starching their clothing and reapplying makeup to their faces. She lined the “new” dolls along a shelf and when the four girls entered the room, they found a glowing Christmas tree surrounded by shiny dolls. “It was one Christmas we never forgot,” said Johansen. “It was a lovely memory.”

Christmas ornaments were homemade and handcrafted—walnut shells painted silver and gold, spiced lebkuchen cookies cut into holiday shapes and baked crispy for hanging, painted pinecones and popcorn strings.

Holiday decorations were simple and natural, with few outdoor embellishments on area homes. A single Christmas tree strung with large glass bulbs in basic blue, green or red, lit the lodge’s back room.

The girls wore red stockings held up by rubber bands, but at Christmas, the stockings were filled with treats—always a tangerine in the toe, an assortment of nuts and the prized once-a-year candy called “Peach Blossoms.” A couple of small wrapped gifts were tucked in as well.

The lodge was perched atop a sloping lawn, which provided the perfect sleigh-riding spot. Serving trays were discovered to be wonderful sleds.

One year, Johansen was convinced that she had seen Santa Claus creeping around the tree. The filmy curtains covering the French doors leading to the room helped to heighten her imagination that the form she glimpsed near the tree was indeed old Kris Kringle, come to bestow gifts.

For the Behling family, holidays revolved around the church. Johansen’s mother played the pump organ and the girls were always in the holiday pageant. Johansen recalls participating in the annual Christmas play prepared in the one-room school she attended in Atco, PA and performed in the town’s Grange Hall.

A holiday tradition that the whole family shared in was the preparation of the lodge’s annual greeting card. “We would have the cards printed, then set up an assembly line,” said Johansen. “One of us would fold, another would stuff, someone else would write out the addresses and another would put the stamps on.”

Although it burned down in 1979, Peggy Runway Lodge has joined those long-ago images of homespun Christmas moments in the realm of memory. Johansen cherishes every one.