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My Holiday Reflections
E-mail me if you have any holiday traditions to share, and I will consider adding your traditional memories as a part of my holiday traditions section.
New Years always began with New Years' Eve at our house. Mom and Dad never went out for New Years' Eve, daddy said there were "too many drunks out" on the road. I think it was because they could not afford to hire a baby-sitter for us and pay the outrageous prices the restaurants upped the menu to for the night. Instead, we would go to Uncle Matt's house. He was 'rich' because he had a machine that made home movies AND he also had four of the first Mickey Mouse cartoons Disney had made. We watched the continuation of his Christmas movies (I used to think they were the same movies every year) with his two children opening the pile of presents and his wife, smiling as she walked around, giving everyone their presents to open. Of course, each year, she got a new nightie and robe set, complete with slippers...which she promptly put on for all to see. My uncle got his new tie, and for some reason, was always surprised to see one in the box he was given to open. After we watched the cartoons, we watched his tv (he had a BIG screen--must have been all of 26 or 29 inches) and when New York finally celebrated at the "Big Apple" we would all throw confetti, blow our noise-makers, and kiss everybody in the house. At midnight, (New York was one hour ahead of us) we would all join the neighborhood outside. It sounded like a battlezone...everyone lighting their firecrackers or fireworks; the noise-makers; and people just plain yelling "Happy New Year" to each other! We'd go inside and telephone grandma, to wake her and say "happy new year" for which I'm sure she was very proud of us.....
February brought Valentines' Day. The best day in the world for me when I was 10, as my baby brother was born! I used to think how fitting to be born on the day of love.... I was so happy when Bud was born. Mom and Dad never knew, but I can remember crying myself to sleep each night...trying to be quiet so as to not let them know I was crying...all because I was going to "die alone". I knew that Mom and Dad were 'getting old' and were going to die 'soon'--I would be all alone, since I was an only child, and the loneliness was already 'killing me' inside. When baby brother came into the world, I knew that my parents could die and I'd still have a relative to talk to! Was I happy! From that day on, Valentines' Day took on a new meaning for me! (And, I've never forgotten his birthday either.)
St. Patrick's day is celebrated in "grand style" in Chicago, Illinois. Mayor Daley (the original one), being Irish, always made that saints day a huge celebration. People did not work on that day in downtown Chicago, they were "expected" to attend a special mass at the Catholic church. Then there was the huge parade, complete with ticker-tape scraps being thrown out of high skyliner windows...AND the river was dyed green for the day! I lived in a Polish-Catholic neighborhood. They always had a celebration the evening before St. Patty's day, mass at the local church, etc. On St. Patrick's day, they all wore red in protest (of what I never knew--except I figured St. Patrick must have done 'something' to their saint) while everyone else in our school wore green (or be pinched). Of course, I wore red too. I was not Catholic and I didn't know what they wore red for, but figured that my maternal grandparents had come from Poland, so I should keep with the customs, even if I didn't understand the meaning of it.
Easter was celebrated big in our house. We all knew the real meaning of Easter, that Jesus died on the cross as an appropriation for our sins, and on Easter day, he arose from the grave to ascend into Heaven, thus breaking sin's hold on mankind....but, THE EASTER BUNNY ALWAYS CAME TO MY HOUSE!!! We would put our baskets on the table with little plastic eggs in it the night before Easter. In the morning, we would awaken (super early) to find the basket empty. Thus, the hunt for the eggs would start. The Bunny always hid the eggs in the living room/kitchen area only....but in places from tops of curtains, under chair cushions, to inside the oven or refrigerator! Our eggs had names on them, and our one rule was that you could not touch or tell the other person if you found their egg. My brother and I worked out a secret hot/cold sign to let each other know where our/their eggs were. Of course our dog helped also. Inside each egg was candy or money. We liked the candy best of all. After finding the eggs, we ate a hearty breakfast of as much candy as we could until getting sick, and it was off to church.... I can remember putting on my new dress, new socks and shoes, a hat with purse and gloves to match, and most years a brand new coat and going off to the church services. We always attended church at the Dutch Reformed Church, my dad's parents' church, on Easter morning. Then we would all go to Grandmas' house to eat...and spend the afternoon playing with cousins. In the evening, we would go to Mom's parents' house for supper and spend the rest of the evening playing with those cousins. Both mom and dad had large families, so this day was like the yearly family reunion. I can remember my maternal grandmothers' house had a huge walk-up, floored attic. This is where we kids played in rainy or cold weather. We were safe (or so my grandmother thought) and did not have to be checked on too much. We used to open the window, climb onto the snow-covered porch and from there into a neighbor's tree...until one day when grandpa went out to the chicken coup to show a prize rooster, looked up, and caught us scurrying back into the house. He nailed the window shut after that one, and Easter play-time was never the same.
May Day had me playing at the local Catholic school. They had a "may pole" -- a huge pole with a metal circle at the top to which ribbon-type streamers flowed down from. You would hold on tightly to a ribbon, running in a circle as fast as you could go. One-by-one, the momentum would pick us up off of the ground and we would be 'flying' -- all the while pretending we were angels. While I was not Catholic, the nuns at the school were very sweet to me, and I was always welcome to be there... and, I was there, every chance I got.
Fourth of July was celebrated in Illinois with a BANG! We always held a BBQ in our backyard. Daddy 'found' bricks somewhere and cemented them into a u-shape... Mommy brought out the metal shelves from her oven and placed them on top of this -- and we had a BBQ grill! It was very important to have one of these grills, I know, because all the neighborhood came to our house to picnic. Daddy and Uncle Herb (my next door neighbor) made a patio out of screw drivers and string. They carefully measured out (using a plumb-line) a huge space...where we would have had a patio, had we the money for one...and put screw driver's in the corners. Then they strung the string around the screw drivers to define the patio area. We all had to carefully step over onto the patio--and of course, all the adults in the neighborhood brought their chairs over and set them up in the patio area. After the BBQ, we would pack up, and taking our blankets, all head out to the neighborhood park to await the fireworks display. We spread the blankets on the ground, to mark "family areas" and we kids went to play on the swings, etc., until dark... at which time we were expected to be ON YOUR BLANKET... no questions asked. Of course we were on our blankets at dusk... the fireworks could not start unless we were there you know...:-) We would all lie down, watching the stars until the fireworks burst the stillness of the night. From then on the whole world "oohed and aahed" the display. The last firework of the night was HUGE and LOUD. I figured they HAD to see it over there in China, it was SOOO large. We all packed up our blankets, and went back home to go to bed...another Fourth of July was over.
Labor day brought more picnics, but I never cared for labor day celebrations. It signified the end of summer, and the knowledge of 'next week school starts' was enough to dampen my enjoyment of this holiday. I do not know why, because I really loved school...once it started I couldn't wait to go...and really hated Saturday and Sundays because there was no school. But, some things in life are unexplainable. Labor day was one of these moments. We got together. We picnicked. Big deal.
October brought Halloween to the neighborhood. Mom always went out to the farm stand and bought the largest pumpkin I had ever seen! She brought it home, spread newspapers on the kitchen table, and Daddy had to carve it with us. Mom would wash the seeds and bake them for us to eat. Daddy would put a candle in the pumpkin when done, and it would become our table centerpiece for the month. Each day, the candle would be lit, and the smell of burnt pumpkin would permeate the house--a wonderful aroma. Halloween eve, we would dress up in costumes (I was always "beautiful"--a princess, or something like that; my brother would (gasp) sometimes be a devil, skeleton, etc.) and go 'trick-or-treating' in the neighborhood....collecting candy from people. Back then, people were very generous, and I always came home with two or three brown grocery bags full of candy. Dad had the job of sorting through the candy, looking for bad candies, etc., before we ate any. It took me until well into high school to realize that Mounds Bars, etc. were bad candies!! :-)
November brought Thanksgiving. Turkey day. Our table was always so full of food that it took us two weeks to eat it all up, and then we had turkey soup! We celebrated Thanksgiving in school by all making costumes and dressing up as either Indians or settlers. We always had a "play" in our rooms about the first Thanksgiving. Turkeys were made and colored...the room and windows were amply decorated, and we took home decorations for the house too. The teachers were very adamant on us knowing the meaning of Thanksgiving...but we kids knew what Thanksgiving REALLY meant....that CHRISTMAS WAS ONLY A MONTH AWAY!!!
I have always held a special place in my heart for Christmas. I have always loved Christmas and all the "commercialism" that goes with it. We used to put our tree up Thanksgiving evening. Dad was in charge of decorating the outside of the house, Mom, the inside. We had lights on our gutters...and sometimes in the shrubs too. Inside the house, all windows were outlined with lights...the bedroom windows had fake "candles" in them. The tree was always centered in the picture window. Mom used the large lights on the tree, and it looked like the tree was all lights, she had so many on it. (I know we had a real tree at one time, because of a family story of the burning tree that dad threw out the front door, but I only remember "fake" trees). We would put a white sheet under the tree to signify snow and my brother's train would also be set up there. Dad would play nightly with us and that train, while mom sat in her chair crocheting. The week before Christmas, everyone 'rode the neighborhoods', looking at whose house was decorated and how they did it. Everyone left their lights on from sun-down to sun-up, so no matter how late you went out you could see the lights. It seemed that everyone lit up their homes also. We all centered the tree in the living room window and left it burning at night. The house windows were lit and had candles too. Sometimes, the outside had lights all on the roof lines. It was really beautiful to see the icicles hanging on the homes, reflecting the red, yellow, blue and green of the Christmas lights glowing in the dark. Even the snow families (we ALL made snow men, snow women, and snow children--dressing them in our clothing whenever there was enough snow to make large ones) looked beautiful at night, reflecting in the shadows. Some neighborhoods had "gifts" given out to those who decorated the homes the most. It was fun to see the wonder of Christmas... Christmas was so wonderful in our house, that I have kept (and passed on) most of the traditions I had as a child. Our tree also goes up Thanksgiving eve. Of course, I now have a tree skirt instead of a sheet...but years ago, I talked mom out of her ornaments, and they are now displayed proudly on my tree each year. I have one ornament that was daddy's horn when he was little...it used to blow...but he "blew it away" many years ago. I hang it on the top-most branch each year. My other old ornament is a special one given to me when I was VERY little--it sits on the branch next to daddy's. I have the old tea-pots, ornaments I remember so special, as well as the round globes, which have lost much of their luster due to age and usage. I also have a set of "Mickey Mouse" ornaments that were used in the windows of a huge Chicago department store one Christmas thirty years or so ago. My girls do not have any of these as of yet for their trees. I cannot bear to have them broken, and I cannot bear to part with them. When I die, they will have time enough to fight over them. Until then, I NEED to see and touch them, remembering... My most tender memories in adulthood, revolve around a scene I always play back in my mind each Christmas. My girls were very young then...we would go to church Christmas eve for the midnight service. It started at 11P.M., so the girls had to be kept "awake" until then...hard job for ones waiting for Santa Claus, wasn't it? We would turn off the church lights and hold services by candle-light, by the time the service was over at midnight, the girls were fast asleep on the pews. My husband would carry the largest one to the car, and I carried the smallest...both of whom NEVER woke up when moved around. Coming out of the church was always a scene out of a Christmas card...it always snowed HUGE, lazy flakes, very few coming down, but beautiful. There were no sounds of cars, etc., to be heard. Only the bells ringing from distant churches--pealing out Christmas tunes--to be met with the chimes answering from our church. It was so peaceful, truly "Joy to the World", a moment I really loved to steal and keep for myself. Things have sure changed at Christmas time through the years. The children "multiplied"...and we ended up raising six. They grew up and went off on their own. Half are married, half are still single, but they do not all come home for Christmas. Two daughters live here in the same town as we do, the rest of the children live in Texas, Florida, and Nevada. Whoever can tries to make it here for Christmas...but I am no longer "allowed" to have Christmas in the house. My daughter wants it held at her house so that the grandchildren can play with their new toys....so we all go down to her house to watch the children unwrap their gifts, and eat a meal prepared by all the girls. And, of course, the men must watch the parades and then the games on the television. I no longer have the cooking to worry over, nor the mess to clean up afterwards, nice? Yes...but it makes me feel 'old' to see the traditions being passed on from one generation to another...such is life. Life is like a quilt; little patches of memories sewn together with the threads of traditions and embellished with love...passed on from one generation to the next. I hope you enjoyed my walk down "memory lane". If you would 'care to share', please e-mail me me with your family's holiday traditions. I would love to hear of them, and post them on this page for others to see...this would truly make my page into a "HOLIDAY PAGE". |
Holidays have always been a part of my life. I will list below some of my favorite holidays and what I best
remember about them.