WHEN FRIDAY WASN'T BLACK

They didn’t call it “Black Friday” when I was a kid, just the Friday after Thanksgiving. It was, however, the busiest shopping day of the year. There was only one really significant place in Chicago to shop in the days before suburban malls–Downtown, and that’s where I loved to be

It started when my friend Kenny’s Aunt took us to the Loop on the Addison Street Bus one year. I didn’t go to buy things since I never had much money. I went to took at things. There were so many places to visit: Marshal Fields with it’s decorated windows, Carson, Pirie Scott, the Fair Store, Vaughan’s Seed Store. (They had pets on the second floor and toys on the third floor.) There were the lesser department stores Wieboldts and Goldblatts (but we had smaller versions of those in our neighborhood.) And there were the dime stores F. W. Woolworths and S. S. Kresge–places where a kid could actually afford to buy something. There was the amazing Kroch and Brentano’s book store. It seemed as if they had every book ever printed there, and the clerks new exactly where each book was located. There was Stop and Shop–a grocery store so expensive my family never bought anything there.

The final delight was to ride back on the Addison bus down Michigan Avenue where thousands of tiny Italian lights hung in the bare trees.

It’s almost all gone now. The main shopping area has migrated to North Michigan. All the old stores are gone. Even Marshall Field was bought out and transformed into a Macy’s. Chicagoans protested this adulteration of the Queen of State Street. I was in Chicago a few days before Thanksgiving and noticed that Macy’s has made a few very small concessions to the protesters. The brass name plates bearing the name Marshall Field are back, and the window displays featured the iconic Uncle Mistletoe, the fairy helper to Santa at the North Pole.




One evening I rode the Sheridan bus up Michigan Avenue. (The Addison bus hasn’t gone downtown in years.) They had turned on the tree lights just a couple days before. The new miniature lights made in China don’t have quite the same happy glow as the old Italian lights, but then I don’t shine the way I did 50 years ago either.



I suppose everything looks better through a veil of nostalgia, but I can’t help but think that things were better when Christmas wasn’t so blatantly commercial. Calling the day “Black Friday” to make the point that this is the day stores finish “in the black” just undermines the season. Now Black Friday has threatened to overwhelm Thanksgiving Day with Walmart starting its sales on Thursday. Besides that is the greed. I can remember crowds on the first day of Christmas shopping, but I can’t recall stampedes in which people were crushed to death.

I recall the final lines of Ogden Nash’s poem “I remember Yule.”

This year I’m going to disconnect everything electrical in the house and spend the Christmas season like Tiny Tim and Mr. Pickwick;
You make me sickwick.

Well, I’m not sickwick of Christmas, just the craziness that has overcome the celebration of the Savior’s birth. I’m going to enjoy the season in spite of what our culture has done with it. Like Scrooge I’ll treasure Christmas past, present and future, but I hope you will excuse me if Christmas past has a slightly larger place in my heart.

May the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne

MERRY CHRISTMAS

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE!

O.K. That’s it. He’s taken leave of his senses. It’s January 7 and he’s still celebrating Christmas. We’ve heard of the 12 days of Christmas, but he’s up to 13 or 14 or something. Christmas is OVER!

No it’s not. If you belong to one of the Eastern Orthodox churches still using the Julian calendar, Christmas doesn’t arrive until January 7. What an great excuse for one more cup of egg nog.

It’s a lot more than egg nog with me. (Besides, the stores are out of it now.) I have been distressed for a long time that the Winter Festival our society calls “Christmas” gets under way just after Labor Day and is done around December 24, except for Christmas Day itself which is an anticlimax to what precedes it. I am not one of those cranky Christians who makes lists of stores who say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”  In fact, I’d prefer they did say Happy Holidays, because whatever they are sell-ebrating (a new word I just coined) with holiday spirits (in 750 ml bottles), it sure isn’t The Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord.

I am not concerned so much with what the secular society does with the Winter Festival. I am concerned that so many Christians have bought (literally bought) into it. It has swamped the Christian celebration even in our churches. Of course people in liturgical churches have been griping for years about why we don’t have the Christmas tree up on December 1, and where are the Poinsettias the Sunday before Christmas, and why do we have to sing Advent hymns instead of Christmas carols. Of late I have noticed that some people are counting the twelve days of Christmas as the 12 days before Christmas Day. And there is this weird practice that has emerged of it being bad luck to have a Christmas tree up after New Years Day. All that isn’t really very important, however.

I am a bit disturbed that there are clergy of the Lutheran persuasion that have reduced Advent to three weeks so they can get three weeks of Christmas in. And I have even seen some of our churches advertize the last Sunday of Advent as Christmas Sunday.  It all adds to the destruction of Advent as a time of anticipation and awaiting that leads to a joyous celebration of the Incarnation of the Son of God. Everybody is so pooped from partying since Thanksgiving (or maybe since Halloween) that there is no energy left to contemplate the mystery of the Word made flesh.  They miss the message of the Magi: "We have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him."

I love the celebration of Christmas, and it saddens me to see it die with a whimper by December 26 at the latest.

I’m running a one man campaign (is it all right in church circles to use the word “man” anymore? I’ve gotten the impression from the Powers-That-Be that “man” is a sexist term that simply seethes with privilege and patriarchy. Why, you can’t even sing “Hark! the Herald Angel Sings”  with out noticing “Pleased as man with man to dwell” has been corrected to “Pleased as man with us to dwell.”  And if they get to changing Jesus to Sophia as some so-called Christians are wont to do, they will be able to get rid of the first man in that line as well.” Now where was I? Oh yes,) a one man campaign to encourage the full celebration of Our Lord’s birth starting with first vespers on December 24 and not ending until the feast of the Epiphany on January 6. In fact, I may even go further and advocate for the continual celebration of Christmas until Candlemas (The Feast of the Presentation) on February 2.

To all who celebrated the whole twelve days of Christmas, a blessed new year. To those who only observed the Winter Festival from October 31 to December 24, Bah, Hum-Bug.

May the Lord born to us in Bethlehem, seen by the shepherds, visited by the Magi, bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

15246

SERENDIPITY III

Well, I stumbled into something again. (No, it wasn’t a pond. It has been six or seven years since I walked into a pond one dark night.) The library book store has put out Christmas books for purchase, and I discovered The Christmas Stories of George MacDonald. For the cost of $1.00 I couldn’t pass it up.  I wrote about MacDonald some blogs back SERENDIPITY, but this was all new stuff to me. The book is published by David C. Cook Publishing Company. That was the first happy memory for they were the publishers of the Sunday Pix, a cartoon/comic strip version of the Bible issued in weekly installments. It was one of the things that made it worthwhile going to Sunday School when I was a kid.

The MacDonald book is illustrated by Linda Hill Griffith, an author and illustrator of children’s books. The pictures are gentle, with many details to delight the eye. The picture at the head of this blog is hers. You will notice that the baby Jesus is a blond, round-faced northern European cherub, nothing at all like a middle-eastern peasant. Well, everyone in the illustrations are pleasant-looking, British people except for the mean characters who are sharp-featured, sneering folk. I do like the slightly uneasy look on the babe’s face as if Jesus is not quite sure he likes sharing his bed with a hungry donkey.

Anyway, the illustration is for MacDonald’s poem “The Angel’s Song.” As I mentioned, this was all new to me, but I only had to read the first stanza to recognize it:

      From heaven above I come to you,

      To bring a story good and new:

      Of goodly news so much I bring,

      I cannot help it, I must sing.

Goodness, that is an English translation of Martin Luther’s Christmas hymn “Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her.” (It would have been nice if Luther had gotten the credit for the original.) I know it better in the Catherine Winkworth translation.

      From Heaven above to earth I come,

      To bear good news to every home;

      Glad tidings of great joy I bring,

      Whereof I now will say and sing.

It’s really a miniature Christmas Pageant. The first verses are the Angel addressing the shepherds, then the shepherds go off to Bethlehem, and then we follow reacting with awe at the sight of the Christ Child

      Ah, dearest Jesus, holy Child,

      Make Thee a bed, soft, undefiled,

      Here in my poor heart’s inmost shrine,

      That I may evermore be Thine.

Two verses of that Luther hymn were used by J. S. Bach in his Christmas Oratorio. Ah, that brought back (or brought Bach) happy memories of singing the six cantatas that make up the Christmas Oratorio in college. I sang the last three Cantatas in January of 1970 or 1971. Usually the Roosevelt University Choral Concert was just before Christmas, but I think that year it was delayed to January, so we sang the cantatas for New Years’ Day, the Sunday after New Years, and Epiphany. Bach, as a good Lutheran, knew that Christmas ran from December 25 to January 6.  In December of 1971 I was still hanging around the university even though I had graduated. My future seminary in its great wisdom had refused to admit me as a student because I had taken too many music courses, and they wanted me to take a bunch of liberal arts courses to prove I wasn’t stupid. I don’t think non-musicians have any idea how difficult courses in music theory and analysis are, but that’s the way things were. So I was taking courses, and the Concert Choir was going to sing the first three cantatas, so I volunteered to sing with them.

I still have my vocal score for the Christmas Oratorio complete with many notations on diction, intonation, notes to watch out for, and an occasional indication of when to help the tenors sing an entrance.

The director of all choral activities was Dr. David Larson. I consider it a great privilege to have studied with Dr. Larson and wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. Now the curious thing is that Dr. Larson spent much of his professional life teaching in Japan. Readers of my blog SERENDIPITY II might recall that Pastor Marvin Tack, who also had a great influence on me, spent much of his life in Japan.  No, they didn’t know each other, BUT they both did know somebody else, Pastor Norman Nuding who also had a role in my eventual pursuit of the Lutheran ministry.WHEN YOU GROW UP PT. 3

This is a wonderful time of year for memories, especially Christmas memories. I know the Scrooges out there are grumpling about rushing the season, but I love it. I love the dark nights as fall slides into winter. I love the coming season of Advent. I love the dozens of books of Christmas stories and poems that I read each year.  I love the wonder of the Word made flesh, our Lord Jesus.

Last verse, in the Winkworth translation.

Glory to God in highest Heaven,

Who unto man His Son hath given,

While angels sing, with pious mirth,

A glad New Year to all the earth.

May the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival. And may your pilgrimage be accompanied by the singing of angels.

Wayne

12177

It's Still Christmas

The Eighth Day of Christmas

I was talking with someone the day after Christmas. He person asked if I was glad Christmas was over. I was shocked. First of all, in my calendar Christmas wasn't over. It runs for twelve days until the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6. But technicalities aside, I was shocked because I love Christmas. I don't want it to be over. There isn't a time of year I like better.

I suppose I obsess about Christmas. Ever since I've been living on my own I've tried to reproduce the wonderful Christmases I remember from my childhood. That's a rather precarious thing to do, because memory plays tricks on us. It can take the good bits from a dozen Christmases and string them together making you think they were all the same Christmas.

I suppose my experience of Christmas was partly enhanced because there was never a disappointment. I don't recall my parents ever asking me what I wanted for Christmas. They just gave me things. Everything was a surprise and therefore never a disappointment. Well, there were scratchy wool sweaters and sometimes underwear, but that was always a gift from one of my more practical grandmothers.

My attempts to reproduce the Christmases of memory have always failed. It was the people who made Christmas, but so many of them are gone now and the rest of us are scattered. The picture at the top of this blog is from Christmas 1951–my gosh, more than half a century ago. That's me, my mother and father. I figure my dad must have used a timer to click the shutter on the camera. He's almost never in Christmas pictures because he was always taking them. My father would have been 29 and my mother 25 and me a few months shy of three.

Now here comes a good one from 1955 where we're all gathered in my grandparents' home.

We all seem to be enjoying ourselves, but are Mom and Grandma showing off new pairs of bloomers they got for Christmas?


A few years after this my parents and grandparents changed apartments. That meant my mother inherited the Christmas dinner. I don't know the date for the next pictures, but there are probably the early 70s. My father's mother doesn't appear in the pictures, but my mother's parents do.



First are pictures from Christmas morning. I'm dressed up in a sweater and tie, so I have been to St. Luke's church with my aunt and uncle and cousins. I'm back home and the immediate family are opening presents. The were very understanding about my desire to go to church on Christmas Day. That's my sister Karen on the left and a much thinner version of me.


Ah, Mom got a present. If these were motion pictures, you'd see her carefully unwrap the paper so it could be used again next year.


Now it's Christmas night, drinks before dinner. From the right my cousins Adele, Darlene and Darlene's husband-to-be Jim.


And from the left me, Granpa Szlavik and Grandma Szlavik. Grandpa appears to be watch television. He never joined in conversations being a very quiet person. Grandma did all the talking. She seems to be inspecting her drink which is probably my father's infamous punch. Now at the table having finished Christmas Dinner.


Aunt Martha and Uncle Herb.


Grandma and Grandpa, Jim and Darlene's head.


Mom and Dad. I must have taken this picture because Dad is leaning way in not trusting me to have framed the picture properly to include him. In one aspect I still try to duplicate my memories–the Christmas Tree, I still purchase a real tree every year and decorate it. Here's my parent's tree in the 70s.



And my tree in 2007.

Most of the ornaments I have purchased one at a time fro my tree from places like Bloomingdales and Macy's. All of the ones I buy are made in Europe–Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia. The top of my tree always has a spire rather than a star or angel. The tree my parents had when I was very little was also a spire. It broke one Christmas and was replaced with the lighted star.



Next come the pink, plastic cherubs by mother bought for my parents first Christmas tree. She always hung them herself near the top of the tree, and so do I.



Then some angel musicians she bought years later at Hoffings Department Store, six angels for 77 cents.


And some blown glass angels I bought. There were eight in all, but I gave four away as gifts to friends. I wonder if any of them still have them?

Now my pride and joy are my birds. My Grandma Kofink always had birds on her trees, and my mother, and so do I.




I like the red humming bird. There's a blue one also. Then comes every kind of ornament that strikes my fancy. Two of the oldest ones are a pink fish and a church that I bought in a set from the Smithsonian Institute 31 years ago.




And two of the newest, A Harry Potter ornament that was a gift from Tyler.




And a flamingo (I think he looks drunk) from my sister this year straight from the Lincoln Park Zoo.




A Happy Christmas to you.

May the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne





3393

A LATE CHRISTMAS GIFT

I ought to explain to my six or so faithful readers, that the blogs I write are not like a diary. They are written at various times and not necessarily posted in order. This one is being written January 11, for example, but I know it won't be posted until the end of January. As a result, the subject matter can seem somewhat out of date.

Maybe you can tell from these blogs that I really love Christmas. I usually look forward to taking several days off following the Christmas eve celebration to recover from the preparation and enjoy the season. This year with Christmas falling on Sunday, Advent was shortened by a week, and I couldn't get things ready for the days following. Hence, I only got one day off following Christmas, December 26 St. Stephen's Day, or Boxing Day as it is called in England, which is usually observed as a holiday there.

Deprived of my extra days off, I tried to extend by holiday season a little past Epiphany (January 6) even though I had packed up all the decorations and, worse yet, had again started on the low-fat, low-carb diet my physician insists on for me. I decided I deserved a special treat as compensation, so I ordered two DVDs I have been wanting for several years, "Carols from Kings" and "Anthems for Kings." The "Kings" in both cases refer to King's College, Cambridge. Endowed by King Henry VI there have been boy choristers singing there since the fifteenth century joined by adult male choral scholars. The most famous service of the choir is the service of Nine Lessons and Carols held every Christmas Eve and broadcast throughout the world.

I have listened to recordings of the choir for forty years now and some years catch the BBC broadcast in the U.S. which starts in the morning of Christmas Eve. Although I have attended Carol Services in this country many times, I never had the opportunity to see the televised version from Cambridge. With my new DVD I now have the opportunity to see the 2000 version of the service with the choir under the direction of Stephen Cleobury.

On a cold (for Florida) January evening I settled down to watch sipping a mug of steaming no-fat, no sugar added hot cocoa. It's a magnificent program. This is the first recording in surround sound which gives some impression of wonderful acoustics. It's visually wonderful, also. There are tremendous shots of the fan-vaulted ceiling of the chapel as well as of the choir.

The first Carol is always "Once in Royal David's City" sung unaccompanied by one of the boys. I have learned that it is the practice that four boys are prepared to sing the solo, but only at the last minute the director indicates who will sing. The youngster does a great job on this recording, without flaw. As I watch the video, I wondered why the choir was standing in the front of the chapel, before the altar with it's glorious altar piece, "The Adoration of the Magi" by Rubens. From everything I had read, the choir processed from the ante-chapel behind the organ screen and into the chapel. They were at the wrong end! And then when the first lesson was read, I was even more astounded. It was the wrong lesson. Had some one fooled with tradition and changed things? It was only later listening to an interview of the past three directors of the choir that I learned that in addition to the official service, the choir performs another one with different music for a televised version. My goodness! There are 25 carols in this recording. The boys have to learn a tremendous amount of music in addition to what they sign for the daily services in the chapel and special concerts.

An added feature of this DVD is the inclusion of a film of part of the festival of lessons and carols done in 1954 when Boris Ord was director. It’s black and white, of course, and the sound is below par, but it is a nice bonus. Ord directed the choir from 1928 to 1957 so this was near the end of his tenure. He directed, as was the custom then, with one finger tapping on the choir stall. The performance of “One in David’s Royal City” was almost painful to watch as his directing had almost nothing to do with what the boy was singing and I learned from an interview with David Wilcocks that Ord would hum the pitch for the singer in a rather indefinite tone, so the singer had to pull the pitch out of the air and ignore the directing which would have been no help at all. Well, the real work in a performance in the rehearsing, and Ord must have worked the singers hard to achieve the quality they did produce.

I suppose if I were more “blog literate” I would know how to include some recorded samples of the music, but I haven’t a clue how to do that. The best I can do is the pictures of the chapel, the choir, and the boys in their extraordinary top hats.

How wonderful it is to hear youngsters doing such professional work. Today fewer and fewer people are actually learning to perform music. Schools cut the music programs as economy measures depriving the students of the opportunity for learning about music and performing. And churches are no better. The day when a large church had three or four children’s choirs is gone. Even a small church like the one I grew up in had a choir for children and another one for teens. I loved singing and still consider my short time directing both an adult and a children’s choir one of the high points in my life. I’ll never forget the Christmas I had the children playing assorted instruments–piano, chimes, triangle, finger cymbals, and tambourine–to accompany the adults. The congregation had never heard anything like it. Someone even started to applaud. What joy there is in making music. I can't imagine being without it.

"Be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 5:18-20).

May you travel your journey with music in your ears and on your lips and in your heart.
And may the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne

CHRISTMAS SERMONS

The old yeare now away is fled,
The new year it is entered.

--Traditional English carol

The old year is over. Christmas is over, also. We're in what the new church calendar calls "ordinary time." Still, my mind is on Christmas, in particular my Christmas sermon. I don't know how many of my dozen or so faithful readers are members of our church, so I should explain a little. Each Christmas Eve I deliver a sermon in the form of some character. This year is was a shepherd. I use minimal props (a staff and my toy lamb Baa-Baa) and costume (a headdress) to just suggest the character, then tell the Christmas story and comment on it from the perspective of that character. I usually know what I am going to do by mid-November, but this year it was couple of weeks before Christmas and I still hadn't got a picture in mind of what to do. (I have been having some trouble with depression lately which makes my creative juices dry up.) Fortunately, an idea came to me. Miss A (God bless) her agreed to portray the old shepherd's granddaughter which set up a scene for an old man remembering what happened many years before when he was a boy in Bethlehem.

I suspect there are people who think I have taken leave of my senses (if I ever had any) to do something like this. It is probably not what visitors expect when they come to a church for Christmas services. I know a colleague years ago who once explained to a person at another church that he was going to tell the Christmas story from the point of view of an alien from another world. He was met with the comment, "We have religious services at our church for Christmas." I suppose some wonder about my approach as well. My choice to do this kind of a sermon once (and only once) a year lies in some things from early in my years of ministry.

I started off doing very normal sermons in my early years. Then one year, I did a little bit of characterization in the first part of the sermon, and then switch to something more appropriately sermonic. After the service Matt said that he liked the first part of the sermon, but didn't follow the second part. Now Matt was not a member of the congregation. His wife and children were members, but he was Jewish. I pondered Matt's comment and when he said something similar the next Christmas, I began to realize the power of storytelling to communicate the message. I never preached a "normal" sermon on Christmas Ever after that.

Storytelling is an amazing way to communicate. Where purely didactic or exhortatory preaching tends to go in one ear and out the other, stories grab people's attention. I think people are able to find themselves in a good story. They can imagine themselves in the situation described. I know that when I drop into a sermon a short story about something that happened to me growing up, people will often say that it was just like something that happened to them. Each time I have done a version of the shepherd, someone has commented on how the presentation helped them understand the story better. My favorite comment was that little Baa-Baa and I made the story come alive.

Over the years, I have done several different characters besides a shepherd: an inn keeper, an angel, a wiseman, a jewel merchant, a tax collector. The most emotional characterization has been a Roman soldier participating in the census who later turns out to be the centurion at the crucifixion of Jesus. The one that has been the most fun for me is telling the Christmas story from the Devil's point of view. I have also done a children's Christmas sermon in which I pretended to translate a mouse's story about the nativity, and I also wrote a short skit where I had a non-speaking role as a waiter and the story was told by two ladies in a café (teenagers in my church) about what had been going on in Bethlehem the last few days. I also have a skit about two angels, but I will never be able to do it because I don't have the ability to remember lines, even when I write them myself.

Although I work myself into a frenzy at Christmas time, I enjoy doing the Christmas sermon–once it is done. Maybe that's what's adding to my depression this year because I realize I have perhaps six more such sermons before I retire. It's a strange feeling. I certainly won't miss the hassle of church life: the long hours and complaints from people who don't get their way about everything, but there are things I'll miss: the young people starting out in life, presiding at the Eucharist, preaching the sermon. Ah, but that is some time in the future, some time when I am farther along in my pilgrimage. No sense thinking about that now. After all, it is the journey that counts, and I'm still on my way.

A blessed New Year to everyone.
May the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.
Wayne

GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS PAST, PART 3

At long last the day of Christmas Eve arrived. The Christmas marathon began with dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Szlavik. This was my mother's family gathering. By some happy twist of fate Mom's family had their major festivities on Christmas Eve while Dad's family observed Christmas Day. There was never the debate that plagued some families over where one should go for Christmas.

Christmas Eve was always full of surprises. Grandma and Grandpa always had a tree decorated with an assortment of old ornaments and several figures from a nativity set. I never did know why there wasn’t a whole set. One year when we arrived, I was shocked to see the tree decorated with all blue lights instead of the usual multicolored variety. Instead of shining with a festive light, the tree glimmered with an ominously mysterious sheen. It was a very strange effect which put a damper on the evening’s activities. Mom explained that Grandpa had always liked the tree decorated with blue lights. It says something about our grandparents, however, that in all the Christmas Eves we spent there, only once did the blue-lighted tree appear. Grandpa didn't have too much to say about how the household was run. As a matter of fact, Grandpa didn’t have too much to say about anything. I don’t ever recall Grandpa ever saying more than three sentences in a row. I don't think Grandma would have allowed it. Maybe that's what led to the thermostat war. Grandma was always too hot. She would come out of the kitchen mopping her face with a towel, sometimes fanning herself with her apron. Grandpa was always too cold. Even on the fourth of July, sitting in the direct sun, he would wear a sweater. At some time during the Christmas party, Grandpa would start turning up the heat. When the temperature matched Grandma's blood pressure, she’d come tearing out of the kitchen hollering, "Pa, leave that thing alone! You always make it too hot! What’s the matter with you? Don’t you have any blood?" That would pretty much set the tone for the evening.

The first activity of the evening was drinking. This was grandpa's domain. He always had bottles of peculiar brandies made out of fruits you didn't think could be made into alcohol. I don't know where he got this stuff, but I bet it was about 190 proof and could have eaten a hole through the linoleum flooring. Maybe that's why the drinks were always poured and consumed in the kitchen; you couldn't risk getting any on the furniture or carpets. After several drinks and the opening salvos of the thermostat war, dinner was ready. This, too, was always a surprise. Grandma changed the menu from year to year. It could be turkey. It could be lamb and pork roasted together. It could be homemade sausages and potato salad. Whatever it was, there would be plenty with an enormous assortment of vegetables and side dishes. On the table would be candles, special Christmas candles, that were never lighted. One year Dad lit the candles and Grandma almost had a fit. And there would be wine. Grandpa would concoct his own blend usually by mixing a red and a white. Round and round the decanter would go. Fueled by the wine and the brandy, conversation got lively, an almost unbearable experience for Grandpa who didn't think there should be any talking during meals. Usually a food fight would begin. I don't mean people throwing food; I mean a lot of fussing about eating between our cousins and their parents. Uncle Herb believed children should eat a little of everything that was served. It got dumped on their plates whether they liked it or not. They would whine about it and would get hollered at for not eating. It was a contest of wills that gave everyone else acid stomach. We just weren't used to this sort of thing. At our house food was put on the table and you either ate it or went hungry. No one fussed about it. By now things were moving along pretty much on schedule. Someone would pick on Aunt Marge for eating so slowly, Dad would call Grandma a Gypsy, Grandpa would turn up the heat, and the kids would look for some way to escape the rising tempers.

"O.K. lets open the presents," someone would suggest "Pa, you pass out the presents." Grandpa would go hunting for his glasses, not that they would help much. He consistently misread names. He mixed up the "to" with the "from." He passed out wrong presents until Grandma hollered at him and someone else took over. Gifts were opened one at a time so everyone could see what you got. You pretty much knew what was going to happen. Grandparents gave you clothes. Toys or games or records or books came from your aunt and uncle. Uncle Herb sometimes had an eye for giving bigger presents than any of us were accustomed to receiving. One year he gave me a telescope. Aunt Marge always taped the boxes shut so you had to borrow a knife to get into them. We accused her of having stock in 3M. "Don't loose the cards," someone would warn. It was beyond us kids why adults set such importance on the cards. No kid cared much about the cards unless there was money in them. As you got older, you learned to look as if you were reading the card carefully before you opened the package. That was a sure sign of maturity. With the present phase over, everyone made the rounds of saying thank you to everyone else.

Then it was time to eat again. Out came the cakes and cookies and coffee and milk in huge quantities. You'd think no one had eaten in a week. This repast provided and opportunity to revive the controversies of dinner all over again. Fortunately, there was a time limit to these exercises because we had to get to church for the candlelight service at midnight.

As we come to the end of our days of preparation, may the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne

GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS PAST, PART 2

The Sunday School Christmas program consisted of classes singing appropriate Christmas songs and endless line of children standing before a microphone reciting memorized “pieces.” By late November my Dad would be inquiring if I had gotten my piece yet so he could make sure I had it memorized. There was no way for a shy person like me to escape this agony of public performance; Dad’s brother was the Sunday School superintendent. It was going to happen no matter what. Kid after kid came up to recite. Usually the girls got through with out a fault, but the boys had serious problems, mostly because none of them bothered to look at their pieces until Saturday night before the Sunday performance.

There were a variety of recitation techniques. Some ran through the piece so fast that no one could understand what they had said. This usually brought a smile or a giggle from the other kids, but that was quickly squelched by a frosty glare from my aunt Martha, who supervised the programs. Some started, got half way through, stopped, and started over a few time before finally reaching the end. Others got part-way through and stopped dead until given the next word by my aunt. And then there were the hapless few who got through the first line and stopped, were given a clue, said a few words and stopped again, and finally reached the point where they had to be told each word before they could utter it. You could always spot that kid’s parents by the agonized look on their face. With the rehearsals by my Dad I usually managed fairly well, but I was always intrigued by the peculiar sound of my voice over the p. a. system. Sometimes I became so enamored of my own voice that I lost track of what I was supposed to be saying. I couldn’t tell my Dad that, so when I asked what happened, I just used the all purpose. “I dunno. I guess I forgot.” “You’ve got the memory of an elephant,” Dad would say, “a dead one.”

The program always ended in the passing out of little boxes of hard candy. These were small cardboard boxes that my aunt and uncle and cousins had to fill before the performance. Uncle Herb turned his house into a production line so that the boxes could be filled in an efficient manner as befits a job done by a family of German-Americans. All the efficiency in the world, however, couldn’t overcome a design flaw in the boxes. They had little handles made of cord. Inevitably, a cord pulled out of somebody’s box sending several dozen pieces of hard candy rattling to the floor and rolling under the pews while the Pastor said the closing prayer. Some religions ring bells, some shake tambourines. We rolled candy on the floor.

Now, the real Christmas festivities were done in the home. The most important preparatory rites had to do with the Christmas Tree. An evening was designated as tree buying night. By a great mystery still not fully understood by meteorological science, our family always picked the coldest day in December to do our tree shopping. We bundled up in an assortment of sweaters, coats, hats, mufflers, and gloves: the latter often presented me with a problem since I frequently managed to lose one glove by this time–a fact I could keep hidden in most circumstances by keeping my hands in my pockets, but which would become obvious in the tree picking process which required two hands. Suitably dressed, we headed out in the car to the Wiebolts parking lot where most people in the neighborhood purchased Christmas Trees

In my mind the rule of bigger is better applied to trees as well as gifts, but I soon discovered there was an unanticipated restriction on tree size. The problem wasn’t the height of the room. Our living room had ten-foot ceilings. No, the restriction had to do with the depth of the pocket-book. Trees cost by the foot. There was a splash of paint on the bottom of the trunk that indicated both the height and the price. Fortunately we didn’t have to buy one of the white-marked table top trees. We got a full sized tree, but always one in the blue-marked, moderate-sized price range and never the red-marked, giant-sized range.

When the ideal tree was found, it was tied up with string and lashed to the top of the car. It was at this point that my Dad would discover I was only using one hand to help secure the tree. “Use both hands,” he’d shout. Reluctantly I’d take my ungloved hand from my pocket. “Where’s your other glove” he’d ask? “I dunno,” I’d reply. “I guess I forgot it in school.” “You’d forget your head if it weren’t screwed on.”

Unlike some families that would have immediately installed the tree in the living room, we exiled the tree to the basement under the back porch. It was a kind of cold storage to keep the tree fresh until the appropriate Saturday arrived for decorating. My sister Karen took a more personal approach to Christmas trees than I did. She always named the tree Timothy. Not me. I knew that a tree would eventually wind up in the trash. It was best not to get emotionally involved.

At last decorating day arrived. It began with moving enough furniture out of the living room so that the tree would fit. With much sawing and slashing and trimming, Dad got the tree fixed in the large, green tree stand. Opinions were offered about which side was the best and should be placed facing the room and whether or not the tree was really straight. Now the boxes of ornaments and lights were brought up from the basement. First, the lights were put on. This was principally Dad’s job as it required some technical knowledge to check the various strings of lights. Inevitably some lights had burned out and needed to be replaced. How this occurred was another Christmas mystery. Every string had been checked before being packed away the preceding January, and all were determined to be in working order. In the old days when Christmas lights were strung in series circuits, the light checking could take a half hour since one burned-out bulb caused the entire string to go out. Each bulb had to be removed and tested until the guilty culprit found. The new parallel strings seemed miraculous.

While the electrical work was being completed, Mom unpacked the ornaments and laid them out on the sofa. First, the chains were unwrapped. These were strings of glass beads, actually more like tiny ornaments. These were draped carefully on the branches. Then the rest of the ornaments were unpacked. It was a fascinating assortment. A star with a white light in it topped the tree. Five pink plastic cherubs were placed by Mom on the ends of the highest branches. Then there were colored glass balls, little horns that really worked, wonderful ornaments made of beads wired together in geometric patterns. I have never seen anything like them since. There were plastic lanterns with little turbines in them which spun furiously if they were hung over a light bulb. And there were the birds, wonderful birds with feathery tales. Some of these birds had belonged to my grandparents. They had short springs for legs, and occasionally these springs came loose from the stand that clipped them to the tree. The old ones had the legs reconnected with some mysterious substance that my sister still claims is chewing gum (black-jack gum chewed by Grandma especially for the occasion). There were also a few Styrofoam balls with pipe-cleaner hangers that we decorated ourselves. I noticed as the years went on that the ornament I had decorated tended to get hung in the back of the tree.

Finally the tinsel was put on. Some families threw tinsel at the tree. I always wanted to do this ever since I had seen Two-Ton Baker, a local TV entertainer, decorate a tree sitting in a chair and tossing tinsel on the tree. Mom would not allow such a thing. She didn’t care what any disreputable TV personality did. Tinsel had to be hung piece by piece to achieve the right effect. In the good old days, tinsel was made out of shiny, lead-based foil. It was great stuff for rolling into hard little balls and throwing at people. Eventually, the fire department grinches struck again and outlawed metal tinsel because it caused shorts in electrical devices. Only plastic tinsel was allowed to be sold. For several years we carefully removed as much of the tinsel as we could from the tree once Christmas was over and saved it for next year. But this early form of recycling had a diminishing return, and one year we, too, had to buy the new plastic tinsel. Disgusting stuff, but what could you do?

When everything was done, Grandma and Grandpa Kofink joined us. Everybody got a glass of eggnog, the living room lights were turned off, and we admired the handiwork of the gleaming tree. We had to enjoy it then because the lights would only be turned on for brief periods of time until Christmas Day for fear that they would dry out the tree. Grandma or Grandpa would inevitably tell the story of the miraculous tree they had back in the 30s that stayed alive until February, its trunk imbedded in a bucket of sand. Grandma and Grandpa usually had their own table-top tree that they decorated with absolutely ancient ornaments. After Grandpa died, the ritual changed. Grandma no longer decorated a tree of her own. Instead, she was given a small plastic tree that was permanently decorated and kept in a plastic bag between Christmases. So she joined the rest of us in decorating our tree. I have concluded it is a sign that you are over the hill when you are no longer allowed to decorate your own Christmas Tree.

In the days of waiting, may the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.
Wayne

GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS PAST, PART 1

I wrote a longer version of this years ago for my family. I thought I would serialize parts of it for this blog.

Dickens declared that the reformed Scrooge “knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.” Dickens should have met our family. We knew how to celebrate Christmas. For Mom, Dad, my sister and me, Christmas day was a 30-hour marathon (24 hours would have been too short) with a short respite for sleeping. More than a day, Christmas was a season.

First were the school events. There was often a Christmas program of sorts in the school gym. This rarely amounted to more than singing songs. It was a fair balance of religious and Santa songs in those days. Separation of Church and State had nothing to do with school in most people’s minds. Once in a while one of the grades would do a skit–a staged version of A Christmas Carol was popular. In any case it was an escape from the class room for a half-day. They can’t make you recite multiplication tables while you’re singing “Jolly Old St. Nicholas.” The only program firmly fixed in my mind was the one in third grade when we sang “We Three Kings,” and I got to dress up as a king. I don’t know how I was chosen for the part. Mrs. S disliked me, and I wasn’t too fond of her. I usually didn’t have personality clashes with teachers. (O.K. I didn’t like Mrs. B or Miss C either. Why do they put the meanest teachers in the lower grades?) Somehow Mrs. S and I just didn’t hit it off.

The kings were supposed to plan their own costumes. I went home and told my parents about the occasion. Mom quickly figured out how to turn an old sheet, a frayed shirt collar, and a box of purple dye into a costume. Dad took on responsibility of making a crown. That was a mistake. Dad could turn any simple task into a major project. Left to myself, I would have hacked a piece of cardboard into a circle with points on it and called it quits. Dad designed a crown modeled on the imperial state crown of the British monarchy. First he made a miniature crown to serve as a test piece. The miniature was brought to school to show the other two kings. All three of us were suppose to have identical costumes. Dad laid out the full sized crown on his old drafting board. He used rulers and protractors and French curves and compasses and every other kind of technical instrument to make this crown absolutely perfect. It was carefully cut out of cardboard with an exacto knife and covered with gold paper. Of course neither of the other guys could duplicate this crown, so they made their own design, and Mrs. S had a fit because they didn’t look the same. Being a king is not what it’s cracked up to be. It is much better to melt away into the crowd of loyal subjects than to stand out as a king where the teacher can see you.

Besides the Christmas program there was the class Christmas party. First came decorations. Early in my school career there were real Christmas trees in the class rooms, but the fire department put a stop to that. It only takes one old school burning down to give adults the heebie-geebies about flammable items being kept in classrooms. We often made a project of decorating the tree–making paper chains and ornaments, for example. I noticed that my ornaments always got hung at the back of the tree. This was the first indicator of my lack of artistic ability which culminated in the eighth grade when my teacher declared it was a waste of paint to let me do anything and agreed to give me a passing grade in art if I kept the art table clean and the supplies in order. (I wonder what would have happened to Rembrandt if his eighth grade teacher decided all his colors looked like mud and had him clean the art studio instead of painting?) The party itself was generally on the last day of school before Christmas vacation–another great day without those little time wasters like spelling tests. Party to us kids meant primarily eating cookies and talking. Teachers wanted you to play silly games like “Mother May I?”and “Seven Up, Seven Down.” We did indeed play these games, but only to humor the teacher, not because anyone enjoyed it. Teachers have a lot of strange ideas about what kids should enjoy.

The high point of the party was supposed to be the grab bag. I have never liked grab bags. You start off early in your school years bringing pretty good stuff only to discover the stuff most other people bring is not nearly as good, so next time you bring something a little less desirable than last year, but so does everybody else. The quality of grab bags really hits the pits by about fifth grade and so dies a well-deserved death. The basic problem with grab bags is timing. The first kids to choose grab the biggest presents they can find. The general rule is that bigger is better. This business about good things coming in small packages is nonsense invented by grownups to get by with giving cheap presents. Anyway, the first people up get the good stuff, and the chumps at the end get the junk–usually stuff that somebody else got stuck with at the previous year’s grab bag. For some reason I usually ended up close to last in the grabbing, hence I quickly developed some practical smarts. I bought gifts that I liked, but were of unimpressive size. Nobody would pick them, and, when my turn came, I took the gift I had brought. This was a very satisfactory solution to the problem. I picked up a nice model plane kit and a little metal car using this almost foolproof technique. Then I told Mom about it. She could not understand why I would do such a thing and told me not to do it again. I learned my lesson. In the future I didn’t tell my mom what I was doing.

More next week.

In this blessed Advent Season, May the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne