Louisiana: The State We're In; 267; Christmas Program

Production funding for this program was provided in part through contributions to Friends of LPB. The following program is an LPB Public Affairs production, Louisiana: The State We're In with Beth George and Ron Blome. Good evening. Welcome to this special Christmas edition of Louisiana: The State We're in. This week, we'll look at the fascination of Christmas toys for adults and children of this generation and earlier generations, visit a very special home here in Baton Rouge for some special children, and drop in on Christmas at a South Louisiana plantation. Christmas is celebrated in many

ways throughout Louisiana, but probably the biggest Christmas party takes place each year in the North Louisiana community of Natchitoches. This year some 125,000 gathered for that celebration including State We're In photographer Lyle Jackson. Christmas, of course, is a time for gift giving and if you haven't finished your shopping at this point you're

probably in trouble. Although we've been bombarded since Thanksgiving with ads for those Christmas toys, it's not always easy to pick out that special toy. And this week we offer you a look at the world of Christmas toys for adults and children. According to the Toy Manufacturers Association, the American public will spend nearly one hundred dollars per child on toys this year, and there will be nearly 150,000 toys to choose from -- everything from traditional baby dolls and teddy bears to the recently popular space toys and mock-ups of microwave ovens. Some toys are just for fun, and others give children a chance to try on adult roles. But children are as different as snowflakes, and choosing toys for them not only involves financial considerations, but psychology as well. At the FAO Schwarz store on Newbury Street, several parents explained some of the factors they consider when choosing toys. I think a parent naturally goes for something that appeals to them and then hopefully their child will like it too.

If they appeal to me, they have to appeal to me, and if I think that he's going to play with them. I don't like to buy things that aren't very colorful or that he just won't play with. That's just a waste of money, really. I mean. Will you play with them, too? Oh, yeah. I think primarily about an educational toy and something that creates, works or makes her creative or music, a musical instrument. Child psychologist Irene Clever says parents should not be overly influenced by the age categories that toys are often assigned to. She believes the individual competency and tastes of a child should form the basis of toy buying. Going in, if you're shopping for one of your friends and saying, um, I want a gift for a person, a woman, uh, 30-32, OK, uh, and we'd have to question you further than that. So you have to know who the child is. Um, what his interests are, what his what his background, what other toys he has. Clever says toys are a child's

work and, therefore, it's important for children to have almost as much input in their selection as their parents do. What does a toy have to have for you to like it? I don't know. It just has to be good. The things I look for is ,um, how long it's going to last and how easy it is to set up. If many adults buy toys that they like for children, some adults may be tempted to buy toys that are obviously designed for adults. [Computer music]. No matter how sophisticated the technology or useful this home computer may be, the appeal is to the child in all of us. With this $1,200 computer, you can commission yourself as a commander in the star system of your choice. If your aim isn't very good, you might try your luck at gambling. There are games of

chance like slot machines and blackjack. The game is to get 21 or less and to beat the dealer. If the dealer has a king showing and we don't know what card she has under that, and I have a 19 and I don't want to hit a 19, and so I say - it's asking me - Do you want to hit 19, I say no. And, well, the dealer had 20 and I lost, however, there is still hope. And when the computer has reduced you to bankruptcy, you can always relax with a little music. Toys may come in all shapes and sizes for modern adults and children, but the

toys of today are a far cry from those of yesteryear. There was a time when Christmas was so much simpler than it is today. A century ago, it was a holiday of the home and the family, and the toys then ... the toys were simple and magnificent. Because they didn't come that often, because they were made with such love, they were treasured that much more. Some of these toys were Christmas presents 150 years ago.

Now they are part of this year's Christmas decorations at Magnolia Mound, a Baton Rouge home that's almost 200 years old. It's a fitting place to be on this eve of Christmas, a place where the simple holiday joys are more than just a memory. Christmas is not only a time for gift giving, it is time for families and togetherness, a time of happiness and anticipation for children. But for some children the holidays will be celebrated in a different home. On a quiet, tree-lined street in downtown Baton Rouge,

there is a home where children who have suffered neglect and abuse find a warm and comforting shelter. Marion McIntyre is the director of the Volunteers of America emergency receiving home. And at this special time of the year she says a community opens its arms to the children who need its love. A lot of people are wanting to do special things at this special time of year and they want to share with, with our kids. How do your children feel about being away from home at Christmas? Some of our children are sad. Some of our children are not old enough to realize that number of days, in X number of days, it will be Christmas. They are homesick. Uh, they're excited about Santa Claus and they get to go to the mall and sit in his lap and we take pictures and we do a lot of the normal type things so perhaps they don't, they don't get as home sick as they ultimately will. Right now, all of our children - we have five at the moment - three of these will be home or they will be away from here for Christmas.

Do you find the children here cut across all backgrounds? All economic and racial backgrounds? Our children range in age from two through ten. And they're, they're all kinds of children. There are children that have never been in Louisiana maybe before they, they were dumped here. If the case might have been that way. They might have been kidnapped. They might have been brought from another state. They are types of children... they are black, they are white. We've had [inaudible] They are just all types. Is there a special need for this kind of facility? Have you been open since - this is your second Christmas? This is our second. Why this special need? What does this center fulfill that was not being met before? The case workers from the Office of Family Services and the case workers in the Child Protection Center, who are the people who refer children to us.

In their offices with children, in their offices with them because they had no place for them to be. They had to be taken out of the situation. They had to be put into another situation. And they were in danger where they were. So consequently there was, they didn't to evaluate situations of a particular family unit and a situation that a child was going to be cared for, that his needs were going to be met. For a period of time. In our case, 30 days. A 30-day period. And they needed this, because they had to have time to reassess, and to see what was going on, and they had to get them of potential danger.

Do you find that it's very emotionally draining to work with these children? Do you sometimes find it difficult to let them go once they are leaving the home? At times it is. Ah, there are, are children that, ah, really get to you, that, that really are and they are so responsive. And you see them grow. This is the part of this work that has been a revelation to me is that a child can come in the front door. And clothing can be, uh, not so good. Uh, physical looks can or whatever. These things can, you see those and they come in the door, and then in 30 days, when they leave, theoretically whether it's 20 or 30 days, we see the change. We see the - and a lot of times when they leave it is something that brings, um, it brings tears, but they're tears of of gratefulness

really, for the growth that they've had. You know, many of us, I know we should feel compassion for the parents who are abusing a child. But I know I read an article about a father who burned a son or someone who broke a bone of a child. You get angry, too. Do you get angry? I have been angry. Yes. I have that reaction. But with our responsibilities here and what our job really is, and that is not to emote about what other people have done, not to be angry at mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles or grandmothers [of a] particular child. And to say okay. He's our responsibility for 30 days. What are we going to do for him? And there are

positions and because of the procedures that operate. Those procedures are going to, going to take place and the people are going to be doing the things with, with those that did whatever they did. That's not really our responsibility. And if we - a particular child, then the child's going to be gone. It's going to be about somebody who did not handle a situation and we have not handled ours. It's not so much the physical damage they must repair at the emergency shelter. It's the emotional healing that must take place. We can't show you the faces of the children. The little boy whose back was severely burned. The girl whose 15-year-old mother had no home for herself or her child. But the faces we saw were happy ones. Children who had found a resting place, however temporary. And for those who only count their

blessings at Christmas time, this story should be remembered all of the year. It seems at this time of year that many of us grow nostalgic for an old-fashioned Christmas. So, if you're tired of fake Christmas trees and canned Christmas carols at the shopping malls, you'll probably enjoy this visit to a south Louisiana plantation where Christmas is celebrated the old-fashioned way. Madewood Plantation in Napoleonville has been festooned with all sorts of greenery and traditional Christmas paraphernalia and its owners invited the public to come see and soak in some of the culture. As part of a celebration called Heritage Christmas on the Bayou, the house was host not only to visitors from around the state, but to singers, dancers, artisans, culinary artists, puppeteers, an old-fashioned preacher and even a Cajun Santa Claus. Madewood is now in a fine state of preservation after some years of physical decline. It was once the home of Thomas Pugh and his family. It was built in 1846 when Louisiana was at

its richest. There used to be a joke in the Napoleonville area: Why is Bayou Lafourche like the aisles of a church? The answer invariably was because there are Pughs on both side of it. One would have to find another answer today, for the Pugh plantations have passed out of the family. For years, in fact, the now resplendent Madewood was empty and deteriorating. But the Marshall Family of New Orleans bought the house in 1964 and immediately began preservation and restoration work. Although the big cultural event at Madewood is the arts festival every April, the Christmas Heritage Festival already has in its second year all the feeling of a tradition. Christmas at Madewood Plantation is no simple affair these days.

As this description by curator Inge O'Quin makes clear. We had the trumpeters greeting the guests on arrival. There were torch, there were torch bearers on each side of the door. The guests arrived. They all had a vassal drink, and uh the singers were singing on the gallery. And the big fire in the old kitchen and candlelight. It was just a very heart-warming and beautiful sight. You know a lot of people now have things like artificial Christmas trees and tinsel they use every year over and over again. A very commercial Christmas. Do you think a lot of people have a nostalgia for doing it the way you used to? First of all, we gathered greens to have the house decked out in fresh greens, holly and pine. And the preparation before was that we, um, started to make little Christmas ornaments. The caretaker's granddaughter -

the caretaker is the 4th generation born on this place - and his granddaughter and some of the children. The two [inaudible] daughters. I mean young and [inaudible] they came over and we had clothes pins. We had to look for little holes and put matches in and painted them as little soldiers, as you can see it. And the Christmas tree, I don't know. And we made the old people, we strung them up on the tree. And, uh, we cut out from little Christmas trees and sewed those up. So it, it was basically made here. Of course we had a few wooden pieces. We also did make ourselves. These trees are in the ballroom, the dining room. This one is kept more in yellow and gold but, of course, the ballroom is in that color scheme. And here we have it more colorful. I'm sure that visitors to Madewood remained in a marvelous mood. The festival folks provided

lots of good conversation in an old-fashioned setting, jambalaya and pecan pie, and a puppet show in which Santa's saved, not by Rudolph, but by Gaston, the green-nosed alligator. Owner Keith Marshall gives a mandatory nod to this past, but concentrates on his family's busy 13 years in the house. Well, the house was, uh, purchased by my parents in June of 1964. And although there had been a family living in part of the house, anything in this part of the country as you know that the moisture of the long winters with the cold damp weather can wreak havoc on a house, and this had happened in a lot of the rooms. The room we're standing in, for instance, had lost a good bit of its ceiling. And a

lot of the plaster work had to be done because the roof had deteriorated over the years. So we found that the house was in stable condition, but, of course. everything had to be redecorated. We had to have the carpenters come in to patch a bit here and there, do the plaster work, and so forth. You did a lot of it yourself, too. There was a lot of do it yourself work. Oh, yes, we really did. It was a long time before we could dress up for occasions. We'd come out during the summer and, um, just don bathing suits and grab our mops and cleaning brushes and start scraping down walls and then prepare for, for painting which we did a good bit ourselves. Christmas, of course, wouldn't be Christmas without memories. We all revel a bit in the way we were, remembering faces, phrases, music. But Mrs. [inaudible] remembers more than that. For Christmas on the bayou, the way she knew it, is a celebration that is no more. When you were young, Ms. [inaudible] what was Christmas like down here on Bayou LaFourche? Well, it was just a family day. It was a big get together of

family. Usually the family lived not very, you know, was concentrated in a certain settlement. So we gathered together usually at the grandmother's house and it was a big celebration of all of them. There was always a lot to eat but it wasn't, um, as decorated as it is today. We decorated with the natural things. What was, you were telling me, the first time you saw a Christmas tree and what was the tradition of a Christmas tree down here? Well, it was an adaptation from the American custom. It was symbolic of Christmas, but it was something that we borrowed from the Americans. You know, it was strictly not from our heritage. Our heritage was much simpler. It was just an observance of that particular day,

but a family group. [Music] That's our show for this week. We'll be back two weeks from tonight with another edition of Louisiana: The State We're In. I'm Beth George for Ron Blome, wishing you a very Merry Christmas. The preceding was an LPB production.

Production funding for this program was provided in part through contribution to Friends of LPB.