Some of My Favorite Christmas Traditions

I’ve been feeling rather nostalgic with the onset of this holiday season.  Whether it be due to Christmas carols  on the radio stations, or all those Hallmark moment movies on two cable stations plus the traditional favorites on TCM and local stations, I find myself taking a journey back in time to when I was a little one.  We used to watch the Thanksgiving Day parade on television.  And during the course of the season, Mom would take me downtown to Marshall Field’s.  These became trips of wonder and delight as each year the store would have a different theme for its animated windows on State, Randolph, Wabash, and Washington streets.  I loved going around the block, would stand there watching all the figures moving within each of them, and have to be dragged off by my mother.  Of course, this was long before the days of camcorders and cellphones that record video snippets!  So one had to concentrate on memorizing all the action of each window.  But this was just one part of our holiday tradition.

WINDOW AT MARSHALL FIELD

We used to love helping Mom and Dad decorate the house for the holidays.  Dad would make sure the outside lights went up.  I don’t recall a lot of decorations being put up inside the house.  I recall that the bay window in our home was off limits and reserved only to the Christmas tree.  

GLASS WAX CAN

STENCIL PACK

Instead, Mom would let us use a product called GLASS WAX with their special STENCILS on the other windows.  

We did Santa faces, sleigh with reindeer, Christmas trees, and wreaths.  In later years I used vinyl decals on the windows of my own home which were also in color.

WINDOWS WITH GLASS WAX STENCILS

Much of our holiday preparation was devoted to baking Christmas cookies.  We did several different types but Mom got a cookie press and we had lots of fun with that!  There was a pattern that looked like a flower – she would have me cutting candied cherries in half and we’d place one in the middle of the cookie.

She would take some of her butter cookie dough, use a bit of green food coloring and make Christmas trees.  She’d also take a bit of red that turned the dough pink for trees too.    

CRESCENT COOKIES

We also made what some folks call Russian Tea Cakes, but ours were known as Christmas Crescents because we shaped them like crescent moons.

  

Another tradition involved the star of the decorations – the beloved Christmas tree!  As Desi Arnaz would say, this photo needs some 'splainin’. My father was a lover of Scotch pine Christmas trees - back in the day when we only had real trees. He proved to be quite creative! The tree remained in the garage while Dad brought Mom's canister vacuum out there. He filled a container with water and added something called Sno-Flok to it. 

He would then turn on the vacuum and spray the tree with this flocking. Most of the trees had the appearance of real snow - some landed on parts, but not all of the branches. The tree would then be left there for a couple of days  so the flocking would stick.  Meanwhile, Mom would rearrange the living room furniture to accommodate the tree in our bay window. This tree became Dad's pride and joy! The tree was positioned carefully in the middle of our bay window. Mom would hang her red or green glass ball ornaments on the branches.  Dad arranged two floodlights on the floor of the side panels of that bay window to illuminate the tree. I wish we had photos from back then, as our trees were some of the most beautiful I'd ever seen!  Mom enjoyed it - despite the fact that a trail of the sno-flok was left from where the tree entered the house to its current place of honor. But this meant we didn’t have tinsel falling on the floor and getting caught in the vacuum!

One year, for whatever reason, Dad was a bit late in going to get his traditional Sno-Flok kit.  This proved to be one of those "Oh, no!" moments because the store was sold out of all the white kits!  But my father, the ever-determined Capricorn was not about to be defeated.  He found a substitute and brought it home.  This year's tree, however, was a true shock to all of us.  First, the Sno-Flok was so thick in adhering to each branch that it almost made each needle look petrified.  And second, this was the year we had a very bright PINK Christmas tree!!  We still had those same spotlights resting on the floor, but anyone passing by would have assuredly gotten quite a hearty laugh over this one!  Perhaps it was that pink tree that determined what sort of tree would be allowed in the bay window for the future.  And so ended our days with Sno-Flok!

The next trend was to go artificial.  Just so you understand, artificial trees of yesteryear were NOT like getting something from Balsam Hill!  A company in Chicago, Modern Coatings, Inc. came up with a unique invention - the ALUMINUM Christmas tree!  These trees were always shiny and bright, thus eliminating the need for those strings of colored lights.  We could use our regular ball ornaments which could be stunning against the silver of the branches.  All sides of the tree had to be symmetrical with ornaments evenly distributed because we had a revolving tree stand that played "Silent Night".

When our same floodlights practically blinded us, Dad purchased a rotating color wheel.  While the tree turned, the wheel alternated between blue yellow, green and red.  For its time, this was technology at its best!  But some branches would get scrunched up from year to year.  They also had sharp edges and cuts from them were worse than paper.  And so the days of our aluminum wonder came to an end!

ROTATING COLOR WHEEL

Eventually we returned to an artificial version of green trees.  The first models didn't come with lights so we had to apply lights once more, but they had smaller bulbs and had a more "twinkling" effect on the branches.  Years later, with technology more advanced, we ended up with prelit trees.  Never was I so glad to not have to worry about buying lights again!

As my parents got older and we all moved out of the house, Mom and Dad used one of those ceramic table top trees.  They let us go through the work of putting up our own trees.

CERAMIC TABLETOP TREE

Feel free to share some of your Christmas traditions!

May you all have a very Merry Christmas!