With the holidays approaching I, like many other folks, think back to my childhood and all the memories of holiday traditions when I was growing up.
Thanksgiving was really the kick-off to the holiday season in our family. Not so much because of the Thanksgiving dinner itself, but what came later that evening. Every year, without fail, as soon as the food was put away and dishes were washed we would pile in the car and drive downtown. On Thanksgiving night all the Christmas lights would be turned on for the first time and the windows at the department stores would be lit up with decorations and often with animated characters. In those days, before Nicollet Ave became a “mall,” you could still drive down the street. It was bumper to bumper traffic as folks strained to see all the Christmas decorations. Every year my father would use a few cuss words about the traffic and swear that he was never doing this again, but we’d always be back there the next year at my mother’s insistence! Once in a great while, we’d park the car and get out and walk down the street to check out the window displays, but mostly we just drove down Nicollet going one way and then turned around and went back down going the other way.
Of course it wasn’t just downtown that decorated for the holidays, Northside business nodes like West Broadway all had Christmas decorations stretching across the street. Many local businesses also had special Christmas displays in their windows so you could go “window shopping” and think about what to ask Santa for. The houses didn’t have lights or decorations where I lived, so we’d have to drive to “richer” neighborhoods if we wanted to see those. And it wasn’t just Christmas decorations. Beth El Synagogue, which was on Penn Ave N just north of Plymouth Ave, had the biggest Menorah I’ve ever seen on the front of it every Hanukkah.
Every year after having worn out the pages of the Sears and Wards catalogs looking for what we wanted, my mom would take us downtown on the bus to go see Santa to tell him what to bring for Christmas. Back then, there were bell ringers dressed as Santa Claus on many street corners. When I asked my mom how there could be so many Santas, she explained that they were actually Santa’s helpers but that the real Santa was at Dayton’s!
School was also a fun time getting ready for the holidays. I went to the old John Hay School which was on Penn and Oak Park Aves and had a diverse population, including a large Jewish population. We celebrated both Christmas and Hanukkah at school. There was a Christmas tree in the main hallway of the school as well as a Hanukkah Menorah. Every day of Hanukkah, some classroom got to go light one of the “candles” (they were actually lights that were screwed in). Each of the kindergarten rooms also had a Christmas tree. As students we would make decorations for the Christmas trees out of the metal caps from milk bottles, paper chains and paper Dreidels. We would sing Christmas carols and the Dreidel song. We also learned about the foods that other people ate for their holidays. I remember learning from another student whose family was from Mexico that they put sauce with chocolate in it on their turkey (I now realize it was likely Mole sauce)! I tried to convince my mom to put chocolate on our turkey but she wasn’t having it. I also learned that one of the foods eaten for Hanukkah was jellied doughnuts, which I also thought was a great idea!
Fond memories of a different time. Whatever you celebrate, I hope it’s happy and creates fond memories.