Christmas 2007 Memories

Well, Christmas has passed. We are into the football bowl season, however I still have nuts in the nut bowls and cheese in the frig to work my way through before the holiday season officially closes. I end up reflecting each year on what has transpired in recent weeks. Presents have arrived via UPS, USPS, FedEx, or personal delivery. We have accumulated empty boxes that I always end up looking at thinking that perhaps I should save some so next year we don’t grow through the frustration we always do of not having the right size box to ship something in. I thought of that today as I burned the boxes in the burn barrel, too late.

Christmas is a time for children, thank goodness the difference between men and boys is the price of their toys. I had a nice Christmas, got some nice toys to play with. I have a digital stop watch so I can measure the elapsed time of my daily walks. I have some nice sports gloves to keep my hands warm on the cool morning constitutionals. I have a new pair of binoculars to examine our feathered friends at the feeders. I have a nice long sleeve red and black plaid shirt that brings back memories from my youth when I was so enamored with the look of the deer hunters that prowled Munising in the red and black plaid hunting outfits. Yes, that was before the advent of “hunter orange.”

This was the year I rediscovered our Christmas tree. Several years ago Terry talked me into an artificial tree. Seeing that we have a small cabin with a vaulted ceiling we found a tree that is ten feet tall but only three feet in diameter at the bottom. It doesn’t take up much room but extends upward. This is its fourth year and I vowed to be the last, it was just starting to look a little tawdry to me. However this year I put it up while Terry was at work and got piddling around with it. I found that a lot of the branches had been bent from repeated storage, so I worked my way around the tree slowly straightening the branches and rearranging them into the more traditional shape. It looked so good I decided that we shall continue the use of that tree for at least another season or two.

Christmas Day brought daughters Tracy and Jessi to our home for dinner. With them came their new boyfriends. Some grandchildren showed up, and even Geoff, our son came and enjoyed the festivities. The brisket turned out well, the scalloped potatoes were nice and cheesy and good. The conversation was filled with hunting stories, kids antics, discussion of clothes styles, trying on footwear, modeling new robes, and mugging it up for the camera. A success!

I have actually grown to enjoy the day after better than Christmas Day. Everyone is gone, the house is quiet, I can explore the gifts, clean up some dishes that had to soak, and still listen to some Christmas music with the tree lights on. There was even a bowl game on in the evening with Central Michigan playing Purdue. It made me think of the trip Carol, Phyl and I took several years ago through the Lower Peninsula. We stayed in Mt. Pleasant one night and ate at a nice restaurant. After dinner we drove around the campus of Central Michigan and enjoyed the college scene. That was the trip we stopped in Kalamazoo and saw Aunt Gertrude, and spent a night in Traverse City and went out to dinner with Aunt Ann and Uncle Hollis. The trip was four days and three nights, but we piled up some memories and are grateful for the opportunity to have seen Aunt Ann even though she passed away several weeks later. At least we got to laugh at some old memories and enjoy some time together. The same is true for Aunt Gertrude, we pushed her in a wheel chair to the local ice cream place and had a treat and talked of old times.

So this Christmas memories are a mixture of old and new. But isn’t that the way it is?

Nuts In a Bowl

My parents kept a bowl of nuts around at Christmas time. So do I. I enjoy Filberts or Hazel Nuts and Almonds. My folks used to keep mixed nuts around consisting of the two I just named plus Walnuts, Pecans, and Brazil Nuts. I enjoyed them all. I can remember times when during Christmas Day my Dad would sit by the bowl located in the living room in view of the Christmas Tree and crack some nuts and enjoy a quiet moment of contemplation. Me, I made a meal of the nuts. I tried to crack them as fast as I could eat them. I couldn't keep up. So I might sit and crack half a dozen then stuff them in my mouth to enjoy the crunchy flavor for as long as I could while I furiously crack some more. Holiday nuts are as big a part of my Christmas past as the Christmas Tree is. So I keep nuts around to this day. A big bowl, only now instead of mixed nuts I have just Filberts and Almonds. Every once and a while I will buy a bag of mixed nuts just to enjoy the challenge of cracking a Walnut and extracting that sweet meat.

Anyway, having nuts around still honors the tradition that my family had when I was a young boy. Isn't Christmas about remembering? Some recall with great joy the birth of Christ. We personalize it by honoring the traditions we participated in as a child that were meaningful to us. So I keep nuts around, I'm about the only one that eats them. Still it means a great deal to me.

My Folks Made Christmas Happy

When I was young my parents got into the Christmas spirit. It was a happy time of year for them, mother enjoyed cooking and boy could she bake and cook great seasonal foods. Dad worked hard in his insurance and reals estate business and the holidays meant a time of good will, the end of the year, convivial visits with customers and good friends. With the tree decorated, shopping in full swing, music being played on the radio it was hard not to get caught up in the spirit of the time.

Where we lived we always had a white Christmas. It is funny, but the small babe in whose name we celebrate the season was born in a dry arid country yet we associate Christmas with snow. Anyway Mom and Dad joined into the festivities with a gusto. There were close family friends who dropped in to visit and share a cup of Christmas cheer. There were parties, gatherings, church bazaars and the annual Smörgåsbord at the First United Methodist Church.

I was out of school, I had friends to play with, sledding that had to be done on the snow covered city streets, skating on the ice rinks flooded by the city employees in neighborhoods throughout the community. We had to shovel walks, dig snow forts, have snowball fights, and in general spend enormous amounts of time out of doors coming home with ice encrusted cuffs on our blue jeans and most of the time soaking wet . It felt so good to sit in front of the tree wrapped in a robe with a cup of hot chocolate provided my Mom.

Our holiday season didn't end at Christmas, in fact, if anything between Christmas and New Years it picked up steam. There were always several parties held. My father was partial to Currier & Ives calendars which he dutifully delivered to clients between Christmas and New Years. An old tradition at several of the gas stations was to provide an open bar in one of the repair bays for the friends and long time customers to stop in have a bit of Christmas cheer as you went about your day.

Church, friends, snow, lights, and above all the good will expressed by the community made growing up in the little City of Munising, MI magic. Thanks for the memories.

Christmas Tree Needles

When I was a young boy living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan my father and I cut down our Christmas tree out in the surrounding forest. My Dad had a small Real Estate and Insurance business and quite often travel about the county seeing clients or making business contacts trying to sell insurance. During these meanderings he kept his eye our for a likely Christmas tree prospect and would note the location. Sometimes he found one, other times we would simply hike back into areas on snowshoes and locate a tree under the snow.

Up until 1961, we always had to get two trees, one for our home and one for my Grandma Toot who lived in our hometown as well. I can still recall driving out into the countryside, usually we found our pickings along ridges and low lying areas surrounding swamps or bogs. My Dad taught me early on that we wanted a Balsam evergreen. It was short needled similar to a Spruce, but the needles were a little longer and we flat in shape rather than round. It was my Dad's opinion that a Balsam held its needles longer than a Spruce. You see, when my Dad mounted the tree on the tree stand there was no water, so the tree simply dried out over time and the challenge then was to find a tree close enough to Christmas so it didn't dry out and shed its needles leaving a skeleton of a tree for Santa.

We strapped on snowshoes, walked fields and woods, and inspect numerous trees until we found the "right one." As I became older my Dad would let me shake the snow from the tree, which usually meant some snow down my back. We had an old "Buck Saw" that we would use, or if the snow was too deep we might use and axe and trim the tree trunk later. Usually the tree had some bare spots that Dad would fill in by drilling a hole in the trunk, taking a branch and whittling it to a taper and then jam it into the hole to fill in the bare area.

Placing the tree was always a task. My Mother would direct Dad or myself to rotate the tree until the best side was facing the living room. Then it was Dad's job to place the lights. No one was allowed to help in that task. It is odd, but in later years when I had my own family that tradition became part of our household, I placed the lights on the tree. My wife would direct certain lights to insure we had the lights evenly spaced, but the task of attaching the lights to the tree was mine.

After the lights were on then came the ornaments, the tinsel and the other hanging decorations. This part of the tree trimming was left to the family. Our home/apartment took on a festive note. Christmas music became very meaningful, and often I would wake in the morning and come out in the living room to sit on the couch gazing at that beautiful tree with the lights on and ornaments sparkling. Of course I would be out of school so this was a special time for me. I would sit planning my day of skiing, sledding, walking in the snow, making a snow fort, or some other outdoor activity. In the meantime there was peace in the household and the strains of Christmas carols came from the local radio station.

Christmas is a special time of year. It always was and always will be, for me.

Yes, There is a Santa Claus

I was born and raised in Munising, MI. Munising is a small town on the southern shores of Lake Superior and I'm proud to call it my hometown. The first residence of remembrance for me was a home at 805 W. Superior Street. My folks rented this home which was an old two story home. It had three bedrooms upstairs, one bath, an old fashioned stairway that came down into the living room which extended pretty much the length of the house. To one side was a dining room that opened into the kitchen through an access door. The house was heated by hot water radiators and the furnace was coal fired. It was the kind of middle class home you seen in old movies and read about in books about the period.

I lived in this house until I was 8 years old then my Mother, Dad and I moved to an apartment two houses West of this home. I have several warm remembrances of the first residence. My Dad always went out into the surrounding forests and cut the Christmas tree for our home. Dad was in the insurance business and had to be out and about the county so during the fall of the year as he traveled the northern backwoods he kept his eye peeled for a likely Christmas tree candidate.

In later years I accompanied him and we usually would get two trees, one for my Grandmother Toot, and one for us. In my very young years my sister Carol was home. My other sister Phylis was away at nursing school, and my brother Dean was in WWII and then on to college at Albion, MI. So we were essentially a family of four until Phyl would come home from college.

Carol has always been a light in my life. She was fun loving, a good wit, and still is even though she is now in her 76th year. My dad always brought some pine boughs home to be used by my mother and sister in other decorations about the house. One of the things Carol would do is to use Ivory Soap flakes, sugar and a beater and make our version of artificial snow. She would line the stairwell with pine boughs intertwined between the stair railing cylinders, run a string of lights through the pine boughs and then spread this artificial snow mixture on the boughs. My recollections are of pure beauty. At night with house lights off, the tree lights on, the stairwell softly lit with lights and the pine boughs covered with snow made for one of those soft vibrant evenings that are easily imprinted on a young boys mind and embedded forever in his heart. Especially when your sisters can play the piano and play Christmas music for the occasions.

So, what about Santa Claus. Well amidst all this finery, and music Santa was the prime player in my fantasies. I dutifully wrote my letters each year, or dictated them to my mother when I was very young and could write legibly. My dad mailed them off to the North Pole and I felt sure my requests had been heard and honored. One Christmas Eve when the excitement of the time was on me in full force, and we were enjoying the sensations of the season, watching the neighborhood start to fall silent as the evening descended a knock came at our front door. My Dad answered the door and a man announced that he was from Western Union down at the train depot and had a telegram for Tommie Floria. My Dad called me over and the man handed me this telegram. I couldn't believe it, who would be sending me a telegram. I'd heard about them but never had seen one. I tore open the envelope and pulled the sheet of paper from the enclosure. The telegram had the ticker tape cut and pasted to the telegram sheet which announced the telegram to be a real authentic Western Union telegram. I can still remember the words even though some 55 or 56 years have passed. It read,
"Dear Tom stop, I am on my way and will visit your home later tonight stop. Have a very Merry Christmas stop. Signed Santa Claus.

A telegram from Santa, you bet there is a Santa Claus, Western Union wouldn't lie to a little kid.

Merry Christmas to all and God Bless us everyone.