"We didn't have a lot, but we had a lot of love."-Becky Ann 'Boo' Saylor

BUTLER TWP — If there’s any doubt about the magic of Christmas, just watch how quickly holiday memories transform Georgia Walker into a wide-eyed giggling school girl.

“I just love Christmas,” says the 70-year-old Hilliards woman.

Reminiscing about angel-topped trees and the anticipation of opening presents, Walker was one of three residents of Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center who recently sat down to chat about Christmas past.

Combined, the women have 193 years of Christmas experience, and each enjoyed a healthy serving of traditional holiday happenings.

For Walker, that included heading into the woods to pick a tree, late-night visits from Santa and ham on the table.

“Or deer ... or squirrel even,” said Walker, who noted that sometimes her family meal included whatever offerings her two brothers hunted. “But it was almost always turkey for Thanksgiving, ham for Christmas.”

The anticipation of family visits was a holiday highlight for 67-year old Suzanne Cunningham of Butler.

“My mother was a school teacher, so she really knew how to make it special,” Cunningham said, noting that just covering the tree with ornaments — followed by a round of storytelling — was an exciting time while growing up in her house. “It was the little things that made it special.”

And in some years, the holidays brought only little things when it came to material gifts for the women. It wasn’t unusual for stockings to be stuffed with just an orange or a handful of change.

“I was spoiled,” Becky Ann “Boo” Saylor, 56, of Butler says in noting that sometimes there’d be but one small gift each for her and her four brothers under the tree.

Those were the years her father, a steelworker, was out of work and the family struggled to get by. Yet still she said, “Christmas was always special.”

The tree would be decorated with ornaments her grandfather had brought over from Europe. And because her family lived on a 7½-acre farm, they never went without a holiday feast that included “the whole nine yards” of ham and trimmings as well as a cake and candles for Jesus. After singing “Happy birthday” each child in the family blew out a candle and opened a gift.

“We incorporated into our dinner the love of God to bring Jesus into the world,” she says.

“My momma never let us forget what Christmas was really about,” Saylor says, recalling getting a sled one year and a purse when she was 12. “We didn’t have a lot, but we had a lot of love.”