A contributing writer for the As It Was radio series, Luana Corbin, recalls that as a child growing up in the Rogue Valley she had always wished for a white Christmas. Each year as the holiday grew near, she and her brothers scanned the sky for snowflakes. They worried how Santa would get in their house without a fireplace.
“One Christmas Eve in the 1950s, we put milk and cookies out for Santa and went to bed,” Corbin said. “Early Christmas morning our parents awakened us saying we had to see something. It had snowed during the night! We jumped out of bed and ran outside to see the snow. That’s not all we saw. Dad said after he finished the morning milking he had discovered sleigh tracks coming up our driveway. Then at the sidewalk by our front steps, huge boot prints led right up to our front door. Big bites were taken out of the cookies, and the milk was half gone. Remnants of Santa’s cotton-like beard had been left around the cookie dish.
“Santa left lots of clues, but we still marveled that he got into the house without a chimney.”
Source: Corbin, Luana. Personal recollections.