March 29, 2024

TIMES TO REMEMBER... HOLIDAY TALES

Dec. 19, 2007
When I was eight years old, my parents had cooked up a plan to make our Christmas really special. I had no inkling what was up until Santa Claus arrived at the front door.
I knew immediately that this “Santa” was, in fact, Dickie, our rotund friend, who worked at Williams Gun Sight next door to our house. For the sake of my younger brothers and sister, Kevin, Steven and Laura, I didn’t let on. Dickie came in to the living room and sat on our green vinyl couch, with all of us eight kids milling around, eying him suspiciously.
My mom turned to Laura, the youngest who was four, and said, “Oh, it’s Santa! Go sit on his lap and tell him what you want for Christmas.”
She dutifully climbed on and started reeling off her list. Then Mom turned to Kevin and Steven. “Your turn next!” she said, a little too brightly. Kevin, seven, brayed, “It’s not Santa! It’s Dickie. You think we’re stupid!!” He backed away and tried to shrink into the floor. Then he started crying and Steven joined in. Dickie sat there, perplexed, while Laura, the happy child, picked off his fake beard. I wish I could say we all started laughing, but we didn’t. It was my first taste of the contradictions of Christmas. There’s great intention for joy. But joy and humor usually fall in the moments in between—if your eyes are open enough to see it.
My grandma used to always say, “Christmas is for kids,” and I really did not like hearing that as a kid. (Of course, what she didn’t say was, Christmas parties are for adults.) But I know now that holidays bring on a full range of emotions at full throttle. You have money (or you don’t), you have religion (or you don’t), and you most definitely have advertising overload. But you also have memories of the sweet, pure joy of tearing into your presents. That’s what Grandma was talking about.
I have a million Christmas stories and remember them like they were yesterday. Here’s another of my stories, along with some from area writers, friends and readers. Some stories were personal enough that the authors asked for anonymity.

SHAG AND ICICLES
Christmas was a challenging time for my folks, who had only so much money to spend on us eight kids. One year, they pulled in a tree that looked suspiciously like they had cut it down from the side of the road. It was just that ugly. Short and wide, it spanned nearly half the living room with needles about a foot long.
I rolled my eyes and knew better than to ask questions. We decorated the tree with popcorn and icicles, and the gifts trickled in underneath. All was well, until one sunny Saturday afternoon. I was reading the paper, when I glanced down and saw our white Labrador, Rusty, eating a box of gift-wrapped chocolates.
So I yelled, “Rusty, noooo!” and he yelped and began running; but a string of lights had snagged around his neck. He dragged that ugly tree clear across the room until I blocked his path and untangled him. The millions and millions of foot-long needles jabbed deep into our tri-colored shag carpeting (black, gray and white), and tree water made the mix even more special.
It took an entire afternoon for three of us kids to pick out the needles and icicles out of the carpet. I thought, good riddance to shag and icicles, and I forgave Rusty who was probably scarred from the wild Christmas tree assault.
~ Anne Stanton

MEAN OL’ SANTA
Every Christmas my dad used to climb up on the roof and make reindeer tracks. I think he used the hooves of a reindeer mannequin. On Christmas morning, he’d say, “Wow! Look at these fresh reindeer tracks!” One morning, when I was six years old, I was still in bed near the roof, and heard him yell and then a big thud. I ran outside to see what happened and he was lying in the snow and still yelling. I asked him what happened. He said, “Santa pushed me.”
~ Mathew Smith,
NMC College student

SUCH CONSIDERATE CHILDREN
When our two oldest girls were eight and four (I was pregnant with our third; now we have four), they decided that they would get up on Christmas morning and unwrap all their presents on their own – very quietly. Needless to say, we were not happy when we woke up in the morning. Their reasoning? “We didn’t want you to wake up... It was our Christmas present to you... we were letting you sleep in.” It was not a happy morning that day, but now that I look back, it was pretty funny. Kids … you have to love their excuses.
~ Aimee Bissonette, nuclear medicine technologist, Traverse City

CELEBRATING SIMPLY
December, 1972 – I was 22 years old and living and working on a communal agricultural kibbutz in Israel’s Galilee, driving a tractor in the cotton fields and picking grapefruit. It was the first night of Chanukah, and the world of Christmas was a thousand miles away and nowhere in sight. As the entire kibbutz gathered for our nightly dinner together, there was a feeling of release as everyone shook off a long day in the fields. Quiet descended on the room as the candles of the menorah were lit, followed by the warm clamor of fellowship while a traditional Chanukah meal of latkes – potato pancakes – was heartily enjoyed by the entire community. Celebrating Chanukah in the land where the festival of lights and liberation originated over 2,000 years ago, and celebrating it simply and out of the overwhelming shadow of Christmas, was a moving experience that still brings a cascade of sweet memories after all these years.
~ Gary Appel,
educator, Traverse City

CHILLY NO MORE
It was the first winter after coming out of the fog of my divorce. The girls and I had since moved to a much smaller place, and we began making friends with other divorced moms with similar aged children. Our new group decided that, having left our old lives behind, we needed to create some “new” traditions, so one of my friends suggested that we have our holiday dinner together at her parents’ summer home – a spacious log home on the shores of Lake Michigan. Wow! We were all thrilled knowing it would be a true “over the river and through the woods” experience. It was lots of fun planning our winter wonderland getaway.
When the time finally came, one by one, our little fractured families arrived to the property, trudged and crawled to the welcoming log manor through the hip-deep snow with our contributions to the meal and festivities. Cherry wood smoke teased our frozen nostrils and promised comfort inside. A wonderful fire crackled in the large stone fireplace, as we began to unwind ourselves from scarves and shake snow from our boots and pant legs.
My friend then confessed that it might be a cold weekend. She had only noticed that the propane tank was empty the day before when she went to warm up the cottage and put fresh linens in the bedrooms and baths. But the cabin did warm up - enough - with the heat of fire and friendship.
Heading back home and finally thawing out in the car, my cell phone rang. It was Wendy.
“Well, we survived our first Christmas …” she exhaled, “and we all had a great time!”
“We did, too!” We both started laughing. “I’ll choose Christmas with a warm group of friends in a cold house over a cold man in a warm house any day!”
~ Sharon Neumann,
paralegal, Traverse City

FROM THE MOUTHS OF TRUCKERS
I must have been 16 or so when it happened. The new PA system of my father’s church intercepted some truckers’ CB communications at one point during the Christmas Eve worship. We didn’t catch all the words, but it sounded like the two truckers had cheer on their mind, and it wasn’t the Christmas kind. I remember one saying “Jingle Balls” loud and clear. The church sound-guy shot out of his seat, trying to figure out how to shut the whole thing down. It was, you may say, ahem, memorable.
~ Corey Sanderson,
minister of The Potter’s House

SAYING GOODBYE
He had a nasty scar under one eye, and as a kid, I imagined that the original cut may have happened accidentally as he scratched an itch with the hook substituting for his severed right arm.
He spoke a bizarre and limited vocabulary, randomly spewing such comments as, “Enemy planes, hit the dirt!”
His brown vinyl boots didn’t have much tread on the bottoms, and I wondered how he’d manage in an ice storm, especially with the weather we had predicted for this Christmas.
But you know what? He was the toughest son-of-a-gun I’d ever seen, so I really didn’t worry much… he’d pull through anything.
He wasn’t a guy you’d want to mess with. In a fight, he’d use his hooked arm like a flying machete; the other guy had better duck or lose his head.
Christmas came. I was now 11 and noticed he was sporting something besides his army khakis. My mother’s elderly friend, Beulah, had seen him wandering around town and decided to crochet him a thick brown sweater. My mother told me Beulah was going to make that sweater, but I never believed he’d wear it. Come Christmas, he did. He cleaned up surprisingly nice.
Five days after that Christmas, my brother returned from Vietnam. He’d changed in ways even a child’s imagination couldn’t project. He was no longer the young man ready to take on the world, but now a battered vet with the deepest wounds forever hidden
from view.
And I put away forever my GI Joe with one missing arm and the newly crocheted sweater.
~ Dave Murphy,
writer, Traverse City

WHAT, NO TIRES?
As a new member of the Traverse City Rotary Club, I was assigned to the Christmas Committee and given the task of delivering a holiday care package to a family in need. So, I contacted the family, and they were incredibly appreciative. I asked if there were any toys I could buy for their kids, but the wife told me what they really needed was food. I was touched, and thought it would be a good experience for my three young children to be involved and learn the true spirit of giving. We all went out and shopped, then delivered the boxes of food to a matchbox-size bungalow in a TC neighborhood. The husband and wife were so grateful they were in tears, and we all left feeling an overwhelming sense of goodwill toward men. I was so moved that I decided to volunteer for the program the following year.
A year later, when I contacted the assigned “family in need,” they seemed puzzled by the call. I was told that gosh, they really didn’t need much, but a new set of tires for the car would do the trick. They also were hoping for a new TV. I passed this information along to the Christmas Committee chair, but was instructed to stay the course – only no tires or TV. I called the family back and explained the situation, and they reluctantly agreed to accept the donation of food. When I pulled up to the house to deliver the goods, there were late model cars in the driveway and the place was bigger than my own home. The folks inside were having a good old time, and hardly noticed my presence. They offered a meager nod of thanks and I left with... well, a different sort of holiday wonder.
~ Chuck Lombardo,
marketing executive, Traverse City

THE YEAR I GOT RELIGION
We had five kids and we all lived in a bungalow. It was tight - seven people sharing one bathroom. My dad had to work a lot to make things go. But he grew up living in apartments, and he was from the South; anything manual did not play to his strength. And every year he went through this thing with Christmas lights.
My older brother was assigned to hold the ladder, while my father put up the lights and periodically swore. So I was learning to be a man, and I’m supposed to be watching and learning. I’m sitting on the porch with a second hammer, and I discovered it was fun to hit the edge of the porch, and I did it over and over, chipping away the cement. My dad notices I’m gouging the porch and blows up and tells me I’m going to get a whipping and to go to my room and wait for him. So I do and my mom’s in there cleaning, and I’m upset, and tell her, “Oh boy, I’m going to get it now.” She tells me that maybe if I pray, things will work out. So my dad gets done and he comes into my room to let me have it, and I’m in there praying on my knees. But of course, you can’t beat a praying child.
That was my first experience with divine intervention.
~ Mike Sullivan, family therapist and musician, Traverse City


Carter Clause
Every time Carter, my 2-year-old son, passes the downtown Santa house with his daycare group, he yells out what he wants for Christmas. “Robot! Monster truck! Train!”
~ Jamie Kauffold,
events editor, Interlochen

The authors of the following stories wish to remain anonymous.

NON-PERISHABLE FRIENDSHIP
About the time I am sick and dead tired of the dank darkness of late November, early December arrives, and... there is a gray-green box from Texas labeled “Perishable: Protect from Freezing.” These are from my schoolmate, his grapefruit Christmas gift and homage to our friendship. How could these grapefruits persist for 25 years? Will these succulent but anomalous grapefruits ever end? I ask myself. My friend lives in Winnetka, comfortably outside Chicago; we meet and dine together every so many years in an expensive restaurant in a big city, then slacken our connection again. Grapefruits?
We - me and the grapefruits, that is - are a tradition. I have come to understand that: certain gifts of a certain kind made in a certain chronological order.
You may joke about the hand-me-down fruitcakes (and I don’t mean Aunt Eunice’s weird son; I mean her handmade fruitcake).
You may joke about the breath of Uncle Tim as he sings the obligatory carol.
You may joke about neighbor Herb nodding off in the front pew during the Christmas Eve church service after a slightly alcoholic dinner.
You may joke about the small things that happen each Christmas-time.
But I know this: when those grapefruits arrive, I know it is Christmas. There is warmth that comes from certainty, like these grapefruits provide, and I appreciate it greatly. Tradition is itself a gift and the sight of this gray-green cardboard box - someday it may be empty but that will not be Frank’s fault - warms me.

THE TINSEL RULE
There were rules about decorating the Christmas tree, same as other things, in our house. My dad wore a three-piece suit with a flared white handkerchief in his breast pocket and a slide rule stuck in his inner pocket.
You got a certain number of strands of tinsel to hang, and you couldn’t throw them - you throw them, and you get stopped by one of the Big Fry. The Big Fry were the three older kids—they were 14, 12, and 10. The Little Fry were the followers—5, 3, and 2.
The tinsel rule was simple: the Big Fry handed out tinsel strands one by one, and us Little Fry hung each strand over our forearm, which we held out straight as a scarecrow’s, or like wash on a line. Then we took turns hanging a strand on a bough. “A” strand. No throwing. You hung one, waited for the other Frys’ turns, waited ‘til your next turn, and spied out the most prominent branch left uncovered.
It was all going orderly this Christmas, 1957, when we were called to dinner. My Dad, at one end of the table, said grace with some occasion, this being the night we were putting up the Christmas tree, and my Mom at the other end dished up the food, and we ate quickly as we could, almost skittering in our seats. Across the family table from us the Big Fry sat importantly.
With order such as that, it is a strange but true phenomenon that you would not miss someone who left his seat and crawled into the living room where the Christmas tree stood. That is why it took a blood curdling yell to get us all moving suddenly, shockingly, my mother first because she realized it was David who was missing, and it was he to whom the worst, if were to befall, would be befalled. At threee he was dangerous. He would later ride his trike off Jim Hall’s 15 foot high flagstone wall; he would fall 20 feet from Ms. Morgan’s chestnut tree; he would water ski into peril at the Coal Dock; he would sing opera. When he curdled blood, it stayed curdled.
There David was, sitting beneath the tree, with one of our best tree lights—the long, thin, lighted flutes with bubbling water and the bell shaped base—and he’d just bitten the end off it. He was munching the glass, and he held up the remnant of the ornament and said, “Awwwwg!” with colored liquid of some chemical mix or another dribbling down his chin.
In those days, if you swallowed a fish bone or a glass ornament, you were to eat a piece of buttered bread. He was just fine, of course, because the buttered bread coated his throat or whatever. I recall this event because, illogically, the tinsel rule was waived for the remainder of that tree decorating night. My mother sat and held David and, for some reason, seemed so happy she had tears in her eyes.

LIGHT AND SPARKLE
We put up our tree about December 15 or so, roughly two weeks after Emmy’s birthday, most years. In 1991, the year my oldest brother was dying of AIDS, we had it up a little earlier, maybe December 10. Then we spent some time picking up people at the airport and shuttling them continuously back and forth to and from Munson. He died December 20. If you recollect or look back at old weather records, that December was lousy with overcast and premature nights. It was the sort of season that was in direct opposition to a Christmas tree’s light and sparkle.
That December 20 I remember we came home and were simply sitting, waiting for what had already happened and with nothing to look forward to but more of the same. When the telephone calls started, I’d had enough. Emmy was 4, Margaret 1 1/2, so I lit the tree lights but they seemed faint and failing, and I could not interest the children or myself.
There’s a moment Christmas hits you, or desperation, or whatever. I bundled them up—Emmy in a deal that looked like cranberries splattered on blue, and Margaret swathed simply in a thick dark blanket contrasted with her blond curls—and took some leftover fireworks outside into the gloom. We stood alone together in the driveway and I set off some bottle rockets, then some Black Cats, and then some smallish Roman candles against the dark sky. Our neighbor Dan walked down and had some, too, and he started setting his off. Then another neighbor, Ken, came out and didn’t ask what we were doing but stood looking up with us. And then miraculously the first clean white snow of the year started falling out of the black sky, slowly, then bigger flakes, and we were looking up and I remember my face very wet and Emmy said, “Did we do this?” You could see the light and the sparkle of the stars above the flakes, quite unusual, that December 20, 1991. Every year we light at least a sparkler, even when we were in Paris on December 20, 2005. Even in the most foreign place, if you light a firework sometimes and look up into the sky near Christmas, you have to wonder at the light and sparkle and what caused it all.


I’m Dreaming of a White Russian
I shudder when I think back to that Christmas Eve. Our three sons, 7, 5 and 2 were over the top excited about Christmas and the arrival of Santa. We decided not to travel to Detroit to celebrate the holidays with our families but to stay in Traverse City and start our own traditions. Good friends and neighbors invited us to spend Christmas Eve with their family and a few other neighbors. We had a wonderful time, the food was delicious, the company delightful and the drinks…well those White Russians were just too good.
Always the last to leave, it was after midnight when we headed for home. The older boys were still wound tight with anticipation but managed to fall asleep anyway.
I knew I had to get right to the business at hand - but decided to lie down on the couch for just a minute, and of course I fell sound asleep.
I awoke at 4:30 in the morning in a fog. The tree was lit, music was playing softly and it dawned on me what day it was. Holy Toledo! I ran upstairs shook my husband awake and we managed to assemble the toys and fill the stockings within minutes of the kids getting up.
I have never had another White Russian and thank the powers above for intervening that night!



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