Tag: tradition

Our Inner Child and Christmases Past

Do we as adults look for touchstones to our childhood Christmases?


My husband and I spoke about this while we were listening to Little Drummer Boy (Harry Simeone Chorale, 1959 version), the harbinger of Christmas in my childhood. I was born in 1963, but the trappings of those late 50’s still lingered in my house, as we listened to the album (33 1/3) on a 1957 Magnavox Continental console. 

This is the exact make/model of our old stereo. I wish I had it because a restoration would be lovely.



My husband grew up in a town smaller than mine that still managed to have a Christmas parade, unlike mine. Both of us remember captivating displays in local businesses. He remembers church choirs, while my childhood was more secular. 

We both remember Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer complete with the GE tie-in commercials, and we watch that and How the Grinch Stole Christmas and other children’s Christmas TV staples, and we still watch those every year. 

We remember the iconic outdoor displays of our home towns — me, the industrial pipe frame-and-lights tree on top of the Nabisco carton factory, and he the star on top of the grain elevator. I remember a whole era of my life where I could look out the dining room window and see the tree lit in green or red across the neighborhood, waiting for my father to get home from his job 30 miles away, waiting for Rudolph to come on TV, worried about my father traveling through the snow.

We’ve made our own traditions — one of those being going to Starved Rock State Park in my hometown area to visit my dad and my sister’s family every year. Starved Rock Lodge was also a piece of my childhood, a massive log construction that existed since the 1930’s. To me it’s the epitome of Christmas, which its Great Hall sporting Christmas lights and families getting together there to open their presents. Again, a part of my past. We will not go there because of COVID, and I will miss that.

This makes me wonder if other people have this sentimentalism for the past when it comes to Christmas. Are we touched by our childhood Christmases and clinging to the traditions to keep our adult selves buoyant? I wonder this especially for this year, when we can’t have those big gatherings because of the contagion, when we put our Christmas trees out early for the colorful lights of hope. 

Thanksgiving on the Plaza

It’s (American) Thanksgiving morning and I am at a Starbucks on Country Club Plaza. Given the number of people here, I have to think that not everyone spends their holiday in the oft-touted multigenerational blowout meal followed by a gender-segregated tradition where men watch football and women do all the cleanup.

If I’d gone the childbearing route, I would likely be expected to host, as expressed in the song “Over the river and through the woods/to grandmother’s house we go”. The song also mentions a sleigh, a rather outmoded form of transportation involving a semi-sentient horse that knows the way. Trust me, if I were Grandma, we’d be going out to eat.

Richard and I are those kind of adults who live far away from their relatives and who will neither host nor journey to those traditional Thanksgiving feasts, so we go someplace nearby that’s determined to have Thanksgiving dinners for people like us. This year it’s Kansas City, where we’re staying in a bed and breakfast just off the Plaza and watching the Plaza lighting from the balcony. And watching people go crazy for Black Friday.

What am I thankful for? My quirky, unconventional life.