The Christmas Box

Earlier this year, Jenn of Coffee on the Porch with Me wrote a blog post about boxes and storage containers (click here to read). In it, she said --

When I was little, there were no such things as the big plastic storage containers, or clear ones (which are even better!) that exist in abundance today. Items were stored in cardboard boxes. A good solid cardboard box was a coveted thing.

In my comment on her post, I wrote --

I still have (and use) the good solid cardboard box that was our "Christmas box" when I was a kid. That friggin' box is about 60 years old now. It was sent to us full of chocolate and gifts from relatives in Switzerland. I even still use the original twine that my mother tied the box up with every year when she put it away. I should do a blog post next December about my vintage Christmas Box and taking traditions to extremes, LOL!

And now today's the day for that promised blog post! 

The Christmas Box arrived as an unexpected surprise package from Switzerland in the early 1960s. I still remember the intense excitement of that day! You couldn't buy Swiss chocolate in Canada then, so we thought we'd died and gone to heaven. We didn't even want to eat the chocolate because it was so beautifully presented in its little gift boxes. In fact, we never did eat one large, cute, foil-wrapped ladybug chocolate. We put it in the china cabinet and just looked at it for years.

We had no idea what "Maggi" referred to on the side of the box. Maggi Meat Seasonings and Sauces were not well known in North America (then or now) but are apparently staggeringly popular in Germany, India, the Middle East and parts of Africa. Maggi bouillon was invented in the late 1800s by a Swiss food production pioneer named Julius Maggi. Who knew?

On the top of the box you can see the faded, cramped, spidery handwriting which was our relatives' return address and our address in Canada (or Kanada as written in German).

And here's a bonus close-up of that now ratty twine!

For the entirety of my childhood, virtually all our Christmas ornaments and decorations were stored in this "good solid cardboard box" between celebrations. When it outlived that purpose at my parents' place, I volunteered to take it off my Mom's hands. I keep it purely for sentimental reasons, of course. This box means CHRISTMAS to me and always will.

You know,  I still use it for storing some of my larger Christmas ornaments (which actually don't get displayed all that often anymore). But they receive the honour of being kept in The Christmas Box.

And no matter how old I grow, I am always five years old again when I take this box out of storage, untie its twine and open it to reveal its seasonal treasures within.

[Photos © Debra She Who Seeks, 2022]