Zooming with the Aces #12 – Holiday Traditions

Zoomers, 12/15/22

Row 1, left to right –  David Robinson, Fred Elder, Kay Ellen Consolver. Row 2, left to right – Marilyn Bellert, Lee Ayres, Calvin Ross. Row 3, left to right – Diane Zinn, Linda Soderberg McKay, Tom Tatlock. Row 4, Glenna Stearman Park. Not pictured: Dan Tontz and Skip Granger.

Fred Elder convened this session, which focused on Holiday Traditions. All participants had attended Zooming with the Aces previously, so no mini-autobiographies were needed. We all shared some memories of the holiday season in Wichita, especially traveling downtown to see the Christmas windows at Innes, Hinkels, and Buck’s; and sledding at College Hill Park.

Before we got started, Kay Ellen explained why she was Zooming in from her car (She was!) and then commented on her recent move to a condo in Litchfield, CT, “after escaping from a Senior Detention Center, an assisted living facility.” The move has worked out very well for her and her husband John, “who is well along on his Dementia Path.” Finding an appropriate facility is extremely difficult.  Tom Tatlock recommended a program like Care Patrol in Appleton, WI.  They are an independent group hired by all the nursing homes to visit facilities and talk to residents, assessing the continuum of care. Then, Care Patrol can make recommendations to match needs with facilities. They aren’t employees of any facility, so are not biased.  Kay Ellen intends to engage her network in efforts to improve information about senior care facilities and will follow up on the program Tom described.

The holiday traditions described below are written in the first person but are actually summaries. Direct quotes are indicated by quotation marks. If changes are needed to increase accuracy, please let us know.

Holiday Traditions

David Robinson:  Since childhood, I have been addicted to downtown Wichita. I have wonderful memories of driving downtown to look at the Christmas decorations in the windows at Innes, Buck’s, and Hinkels. With families crowded around the windows, the atmosphere was wonderful. My grandparents gave us each $2.50 every Christmas. On the day after Christmas, we hustled downtown on the College Hill bus to go to the sales and spend our money.

David’s most recent website story is Honor Flight.

Kay Ellen Consolver: Besides putting up a Christmas tree with plenty of icicles, I remember when I found out there was no Santa Claus. I felt my mother and father had made a fool of me.  So, I decided my tradition would be to find out where they hid all my Christmas presents.  Every Christmas, I would find them, unwrap them all, see what was inside, then very carefully wrap them up again.  After we moved to our second house, which I saw with Gene after the reunion, we had a second floor with a place I could watch from and see what they were putting under the Christmas tree.  We moved on after my brother and sister learned about Santa Claus and joined me.  That’s probably why I spent twenty years in therapy.  That’s my Christmas story.  When we lived in New York, of course, we saw the tree in Rockefeller Center.

Marilyn Tompkins Bellert:  Icicles! I remember how my mother wanted us to place each icicle individually on a branch of the balsam tree. Having trimmed the rest of the tree, we were tired by icicle time and began to fling handfuls of icicles onto the branches. We were banished and never allowed to touch an icicle again. No icicle ever appeared on any of my own Christmas trees. Last week, I encountered someone else’s holiday tradition, the Christmas market. In Vienna, Gary and I visited many of that lovely city’s Christmas markets, enjoying the festive lights, the colors, the music, and the crowds of happy families. Some markets feature “Made in China” ornaments but many offer handmade ornaments and decorations made by local artists. I brought home some lovely and inexpensive ornaments to add to our collection of tree trimmings from places we have visited. In every Viennese Christmas market, you can buy “gluvein,” a hot mulled wine drink in a ceramic mugs. Young holiday scammers love the mugs. Kids would grab a mug from a shopper, lick it, and announce that they had COVID. The shoppers fled, allowing the kids to return the mug and collect 4 or 5 euros. We assume that their parents snatched the money and sent the kids back out to work. What a holiday tradition! Our mugs did not get snatched and we loved visiting the markets. 

Marilyn remembered Christmas 1949 in Christmas at Grandpa’s Farm.

Lee Ayres: As I reflected on this, we’ve lived several places, and location really determined how we celebrated after growing up in Wichita with the wind Calvin talked about.  We lived in Florida for five years, and that’s where our first two children were born.  We got a thrill out of having the AC on during Christmas Day.  They had a Christmas parade which was great; such fun to be outdoors and enjoying the weather.  I do remember sledding at College Hill Park in Wichita.  Otherwise, we’ve evolved.  We don’t  have a Christmas tree any more, but we have made balls with the names of each of our grandchildren to decorate a small tree in our house. We used to go to great pains to put colored lights on the roof. Now, we wrap the trunks of 12 trees with white lights. Less is definitely more. Half of our neighbors have given up doing anything. 

Lee noted places he has lived over the past 60 years in his stories about traveling the borders of the United States. Border Tour, Part 1 and Border Tour, Part 2

Calvin Ross:  One of my family’s holiday traditions has a backstory. During World War II, when my dad was on leave, he would ski in Austria. At that time, there were no chairlifts, but there was a train that went up the mountain. At different stops along the way,  skiers could board or leave the train. My  dad really enjoyed these trips. Probably his greatest achievement during World War II was learning to ski. When I was growing up, starting at age 14, our family would go to Winter Park, Colorado to ski. We met the Moore family, who became good friends. The Moores raised turkeys. They packed turkeys in coolers and took them to Colorado, where they traded turkeys for lodging in Idlewild. In the evenings, I went out with the Moore brothers. We thought we were hot stuff. Liftlines were much shorter then. We did some good skiing, especially on New Years Day when everyone else stayed in with hangovers.

Nancy and I have been working on downsizing and divesting our house of this, that, and the other. Several years ago, instead of putting up a tree with many decorations, we used Nancy’s three-foot pine tree, a year-round houseplant. We put a string of lights on it and sing “O Tannenbaum.” One Christmas, some of grandchildren were here. I asked, what did you think of our tree? Grandson Charlie responded, “That’s not a tree, it’s a bush.” Our new tradition is celebrating Advent. During each Sunday evening of Advent, we invite our family, light candles, read scripture, and share a meal. This has proved to be a nice tradition. Charlie complained one year, “Don’t put away the Christ candle; leave that up all year.” We have shifted from secular to a more spiritual tradition for this holiday.

Calvin told a Christmas tale in It Happened with Myrna and Me.

Diane Rusch Zinn: For Kay Ellen, I have a friend who looked for hidden presents, too.  One year she found a gift to her in her closet, unwrapped it to find a pair of beautiful boots, wore them to our annual gals’ Christmas party, then carefully rewrapped and replaced them. Her husband never noticed.  When I was a child, my parents and I always opened presents on Christmas Eve. Then on Christmas morning, we went to my grandmother’s house at 238 S. Grove.  My uncles, aunts, and cousins would gather there for a little celebration.  The exciting part was that our uncle, who we thought was rich, would always give us a tiny box filled with shiny new nickels or dimes.  The rest of the day we would go to my other grandmother’s house for Christmas dinner.  She lived on a suburban area and raised some farm animals and  would prepare roast duck and cornbread dressing, which I loved.  As our kids grew up, we always went to Dick’s parents’ home in Wichita.  Now, we travel to our kids’ places in the Boston area and stay a few days.  One tradition that remains for us is making frosted, decorated sugar cookies.  They’re not my favorite, because I love rich, gooey cookies, but Dick loves the sugar cookies.  The first year I made them, when Dick was in law school, I remember sitting at the kitchen table making them and thinking  if I have to do this every year, I’m not sure our marriage will last.  But now, 60 years later, I’m still baking frosted, decorated sugar cookies, but only for Dick.

See Diane’s story, Christmas Memories.

Linda Soderberg McKay: My Christmas memories in Wichita revolve around the drugstore that my stepfather owned. The store was open seven days a week, and I worked Christmas Eve, the biggest day of the year for this family business. Nearby, Boeing operated 24 hours day, and employees came to do their Christmas shopping on the way home. So did the officers and staff from the police station across the street. It seemed as if everyone from those three businesses did their shopping on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day, we went to church as we did every Sunday. I was in the choir. Being in a choir brings back wonderful memories. The first year that Mike and I were married, we had no fireplace. I found a cardboard fireplace kit that would allow us to hang stockings. Our marriage made it through putting the cardboard fireplace together, which gave hope for the future. For Christmas dinner, my mother served homemade Christmas chicken and noodles with tiny thin noodles. I prefer making (and eating) noodles to sugar cookies. So do my daughters, who are carrying this tradition forward.

Linda’s most recent website story is A Step Toward Equality.

Tom Tatlock: I’m on the side of making sugar cookies.  My family had a tradition of taking them to aunts, great-aunts, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and school teachers. As the eldest of six, I learned early on that if I distracted my mother just enough, the sugar cookies would get too brown to take to anybody else.  I learned to really like those and thought that other sugar cookies are under-cooked.  I remember the 80-90 degree Christmas days in the Hillcrest Apartments.  When our children who were living in Japan came home with their families, I remember going to Target and buying one of those large, disposable tablecloths.  We put that on the table for the kids to make decorate sugar cookies and at the end, just folded up the tablecloth and threw it out. The other tradition we had was with our mother’s mother, who helped us make taffy.  We pulled the taffy.  Our cousin Chuck always got the darkest taffy award because he didn’t like pulling taffy at all.  My grandmother was trying to show him how to pull it. He pulled it and pulled it, and flipped it up onto the ceiling.  That happened only once.  It was a great experience to be there at the time.

Glenna Stearman Park:  I don’t have a lot of traditions, partly because we also have moved many times. You don’t celebrate Christmas in Korea the way we did in Wichita or do now. Childhood Christmas for me always included music. My family were musical – flute, clarinet, guitar, and piano. They made music and sang all afternoon. I lay on the floor and watched the lights on the Christmas tree, especially the bubble lights, my favorite. I was quite annoyed when my mom as Santa Claus gave me a boy doll. I named him Squeejer. I saved Squeejer’s clothes until I got married. Every time I delivered a baby boy, I blamed my mother.  My sons wore Squeejer’s clothes and had their pictures taken in them. Nowadays, we spend Christmas with our eldest son. Their family repeats Halloween on Christmas Eve, dressing up in costumes and taking a family portrait. This year is Star Trek. My favorite was when my son bought sheets and they all dressed up to portray The Last Supper. They look for something in art history for something might do as a Christmas photo. During COVID, they all wore white medical jackets and medieval bird beak masks as physicians during the Plague.

I really enjoy giving gifts to my grandchildren. Last year, they all received banned books. If they had read the book, they could trade. I bought 15 banned books for them and another 15 or 20 regular books. I told them that this is an Irish tradition we should adopt; we will exchange books at Christmas and spend all day reading. Interesting to me, the children discussed their banned books. Christmas was not as much about me/me/me and what I got, as it was about the political implications of banning library books. When the kids were younger, we donated to Heifer International. Each child selected the animals – cows, sheep, goats, chicken, ducks and so forth. If an animal was too expensive, they went together. My son said that the kids talked about their animals a great deal and were impressed with being part of the solution. I think it’s important to make sure that kids don’t think that Christmas is just about them and their presents.

One of our most prolific and most frequently read authors, Glenna’s latest is A Whole Lot of Shakin’ Goin’ On.

Dan Tontz: Our longest standing tradition is for my daughter and me to decorate the tree together. We did this even when my wife was alive.  She would be out in the kitchen cooking and doing other things while Amy and I decorated the tree. This year we did it particularly well.  We used old lights and old ornaments. Lots of memories there.  My daughter has one from her second grade teacher that she particularly likes.  Now, all of a sudden, the pandemic has changed our traditions and the old ones have gone by the wayside.  I guess the first one was location.  We used to fly to Birmingham to be with my sister and her family, but we’re not flying anymore.  We are having Christmas here and dinner on Christmas Eve with my girlfriend, her son, my daughter and myself.  For Christmas Day we’ve been invited to a friend’s house for a party there.  So, we still have some of the old traditions, but we are establishing some new ones.

Fred Elder: Decorating cookies has been a favorite traditions. Currently, I spend most Christmases in Colorado with my son and two grandkids. The eldest, an eight-year old girl, loves to make Christmas cookies. One year, there was frosting on every wall. An old tradition for me, the strongest, was when I was younger. Thanksgiving Day was very important and we spent it with my uncles. After eating too much, the men, which included us young boys, went out quail hunting. I did not get to do this very much and it was wonderful to have someone helping me. I also remember how much I enjoyed seeing the Christmas windows in Wichita. They were well worth the trip.

Fred shared a story about a Christmas Eve tragedy for his family, Uncle John Jackson, KIA, Christmas Eve 1944.

General Discussion

Kay Ellen remembered making divinity with her mother.  She has given all of her mother’s ornaments to nieces and nephews; they really enjoyed her mother’s company.

Fred wondered how many of us have tried to make divinity.  He’s tried and has spent a million hours, but never got it like his mother did. Linda and Diane sympathized and added that making  good peanut brittle is also difficult.

In response to Lee’s tree ornaments with grandchildren’s names, Diane described the tiny ornaments she made of school pictures from kindergarten through high school for their four children.  Mounted in small red frames, these hold so many good family memories.  They are the last ornaments that she and Dick place on the tree every year. A suggestion heard on the news was for families to include a camouflage stocking along with their regular ones to remember those in the service.

Linda told us that she always bought Advent calendars for her kids and grandkids. When the grandkids went to college, they called their mothers to ask for Advent calendars. She stepped in and sent the calendars. She now sends out more than 40 Advent calendars every year to kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids. Every year, she hears back how much fun they have with them. 

Glenna’s most non-traditional Christmas was their first year in South Korea. No way they could have any of the traditional American Christmas foods. You could not buy them. Shopping in Korean markets in the ’90s was daring anyway. She invited all the young Americans who were teaching English and invited them for a Mexican Christmas. The black market sold a wide variety of Mexican foods. It was a wild party. For Christmas cards, Glenna strung lights around a statue of Buddha. That was great fun.

Tom recalled a tradition you can’t do anymore. As children, he and his siblings saved money and put it toward adopting a family. They personally delivered gifts and dinners to the family. Tom found this a really valuable personal experience. It was a gift to be able to do that. 

Diane has led activities at her church to deliver Christmas to needy families. They adopt four to six families. She confirmed that personal visits to families “adopted” are no longer part of this tradition. Families come to the Salvation Army to pick up food and gifts.

Tom also recalled a New Year’s. Long before televised football games, his mother threw a party for all the kids and their families. She made a special punch for the adults, including two retired teachers who lived down the block. She got distracted one year and added three kinds of liquor to the punch. Year after year, the teachers would comment for years after that the punch was good, but not as good as the year with rum, vodka, and bourbon.

Calvin and Nancy have made a tradition of giving their grandchildren each an envelope with six $5.00 bills. The kids were encouraged to keep five bills and give one away. One enterprising grandkid offered to give a bill to a cousin in exchange for giving him one back. 

Linda thanked Fred, Marilyn, and Diane for the website and the Zooms, which have been a happy part of life for the past 2 1/2 years.  Others chimed in with their appreciation. 

On that note, we all wished each other a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.