Despite the title of this week’s column, the “goodies” referred to are Christmas foodstuffs, not beverages purchased from stores run by the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

This year, as in others, it seemed that the “ghost of Christmas present” was out and about well before the jack o’ lantern’s face began its morphing into a visage of moldy horror from a Poe terror tale ( I let mine “season”).

Just following Halloween, I passed a display of Christmas CDs, tripping some sort of electronic booby trap. Nothing scary from the old Viet Cong appeared, but instead, Bing Crosby (or rather, his voice).

Christmas candies were already on display, too. There’s always something more special about Hershey’s Kisses and M&M’S when either of them is marketed inside a hollow, plastic, ribbon-striped cane instead of just a bag.

I thought back to my childhood, especially those days “When a child’s fancy lightly turns to candy”  (Tennyson paraphrase). I recalled some edible Christmas gifts, given in old-style, brown paper grocery bags, the kind of bag whose posture is straight, not like the flimsy, plastic tote which slouches, slumps, and spills.

The Nativity Play is, of course, a regular production at Christmastime. My childhood experiences as Nativity “theater-goer” took place solely at Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church. The annual tradition of the church Nativity production seems almost as ancient as that of the medieval miracle play.

I saw the first production of the Nativity ever held in Saint Paul’s, then new, fellowship hall.

As a child, and before that building was completed, I stepped just inside its unfinished, dark interior. There, I saw some stacked construction materials illuminated by the narrow shaft of sunlight entering with me. Hearing my mother’s call to come out, I quickly stepped back into the sun’s full glory.

Some apprehension possessed me in that mostly shadowy, unfinished hall, but it was replaced by later memories of fellowship and the annual Nativity play production.

Always, at play’s end (at which time, the night clothes departments of Belk, Sears, etc. should have been properly thanked) the children of the church received their nice-sized, ribbon tied, brown paper grocery sacks. These bags were filled with oranges, tangerines, apples, a variety of nuts, little boxes of Sun Maid raisins, Bazooka Bubble Gum, candy bars, and of course, peppermint candy canes.

I had already seen those bags lined up against the wall upon my entry. In an application of “reciprocal” anthropomorphism, those bags could be said to have been “waiting there” for us, just as we were most certainly waiting for them. I can’t recall just how much their presence distracted my attention from the play, but there was probably a lot of hopping back and forth between the contents of the “front” and  “back burner” of my mind.

I can still picture myself afterwards, opening the goodie gift bag in the back seat of our 1950s Studebaker, my mother admonishing me to wait until I got home.

What began as a fresh, smooth sack, through my constant re-opening and retrieval of treats, quickly assumed a prematurely aged, ancient, wrinkled look, like some artificially aged, faux paper “artifact”sometimes seen for sale now on the internet.

Although my childhood was after World War II, I only recall nuts and citrus being present at Christmas, like the memories of those wartime children. Apples and bananas, however, were present year-round. Nowadays, when passing though Food Lion’s fruit section, the smells experienced there resurrect those memories of my annual Christmas bag.

Since it came from the church, that gift could be described as more “sacred” than “secular.”

Instead of the presents of gold, frankincense and myrrh, I can think of another present which would have been more kid-appropriate for the Christ Child.

Despite His being totally toothless and unable to partake, just the sight of my old Christmas Eve, church goodie gift bag might have brought a smile.