<Begin Segment 23>

FG: One of the things that I, really impressed me and it still does is that Christmas was kind of -- being Buddhist, it wasn't a real, real big thing before we went to camp -- but then when we were in camp then Christmas became a big thing 'cause then we always had the, they had these competition between the blocks. And they decorated the dining room and real ingenious with the material that there was, and they had different themes in each. And there was a contest and that's when you became real aware of Christmas. And then there would be gift giving and what impressed me was that when we were in camp then the Friends, was that the Friends Committee?

LH: The Quakers?

FG: The Quakers. They sent gifts to us so the kids would have Christmas presents. I remember that. I thought how very kind of someone to even, 'cause we kind of thought nobody ever thought. We thought we just were kind of lost, but that was... it was very impressive. I was very impressed.

LH: So did you help in sort of get into the Christmas spirit so to speak by decorating the barracks?

FG: Well, no. What it was is I don't think we decorated the barracks themselves, the decoration was the dining hall. And the older people, probably in their late teens and early twenties, I think usually worked on it. And I think more than helping, I think we watched and got in the way. I think that's what we did.

LH: So on Christmas --

FG: We watched though. We watched a lot. [Laughs]

LH: So on Christmas did Santa come and sort of distribute the presents there? Do you remember that happening?

FG: I think some blocks there was Santa Claus and I think our block, I don't remember a Santa Claus in our block. I guess Santa Claus didn't come to our block. It just kind of went every other block. [Laughs]

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.