Written by Fred Brown Every year in the fall, my father, uncle, and a group of friends would go pheasant hunting. While they were gone, my mother would do something different—such as having all the rooms painted in the house or redecorate with new carpet or furniture. My father would giggle at her when he got home because she always had a surprise waiting for him.
I believe it was the summer of 1957, when I was about 11 years old, our family took our annual trip to the furniture mart in Dallas to order new inventory and buy Christmas decorations for the store. My father ordered a big mechanical Santa, dressed in red that would bend up and down when he was plugged in to an electrical outlet.
As usual, my father was going pheasant hunting that fall and my Mother had planned to do something different while he was gone. Her favorite color was pink, so she had secretly ordered a new pink suit for Santa. After my father left, she went to our upstairs storage at the store and changed Santa into his new pink outfit. She then had the Brown Furniture employees take Santa to the front window for display—where the front windows were decorated and ready for the holidays.
My dad came home to quite a surprise—a pink Santa in his store window! He giggled as usual. Pink Santa became a regular tradition from 1957 until Brown Furniture was closed in 2010.
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