Christmas Memories

What's your fondest memories of the season? My memories are all great ones, but my most treasured have to be growing on Maxwell Street in Chicago. Now of course I have written about my family's experiences in that fabled Chicago neighborhood before, so I don't want to rehash old ground here. But basically it's good to remember that my mom and dad were poor working musicians, just barely making a living and providing for their young family.

We did without most of the year; old clothes, simple meals, cold, drafty apartments (lots of colds and flu), no extras and no luxuries, such as medical care. My parents definitely qualified for government programs, food stamps and the like, but they were too proud to accept handouts - and never did.

What they did do was scrimp and save all year long, to make sure that my sister and I always always had a good Christmas, and that the family had bountiful (for us) food on the table during the holiday season. I don't know where they found the money, but we always had roast turkey, ham and plenty of sides at Thanksgiving and Christmas; there was always a tree (remember those old aluminum trees?) and plenty of presents.

Santa always came and left us new toys and dolls which my sister and I cherished, and played with the rest of the year. In one case at least, we have preserved our oldest gifts. I wrote about our stuffed dolls Bun Bun and Tisa last year. They have been through wars, but they still survive, even after 50 years!


But it's not about the gifts and toys, which we all shared gratefully, that still warms my heart. It's about the love and companionship shared by our small, insular family against the ravages of weather and the environment of the neighborhood in which we had live because of our low income status. Inside our homes we had books, music, conversation and family meals together almost every night. During the holidays these meals were feasts. Outside, in the dreadful winters of Chicago, there was cold, snow and slush, sub-zero temps, and mayhem in the streets every night. Even in the 1960's, when I grew up, there were drugs, prostitution, murder and maiming going on every day. But not in our home!

It wasn't idyllic by any means. But as a young child I never really knew what was going on outside our doors until I was in my teens. It was only then that I began to appreciate what my parents had done to protect us from the harm that was surely present in those neighborhoods. We had not been totally protected though; I did witness a man die violently from a stabbing through his neck on a shoe shine stand over a few pennies one summer. I still dream about it today.

In 1969, when I was thirteen, our grandfather passed and left us a little money. My parents and my dad's sister pooled their inheritance and purchased a two-flat fixer-upper in Pilsen, a couple miles north of of Maxwell street. It was a marginally better neighborhood and the home was much better, even in it's run down state, than the rat and roach infested apartment that we had moved from. My parents got right to work fixing up the place, making it a real home. My mom lived there till she died in 1981, and my dad and my aunt stayed on in their flats into the 90's when she died and my dad could no longer keep the place up by himself.

But every holiday we had there together was just as great; and as teens we were able capture so many of those memories on our color cameras! I feel so blessed to have had such experiences such as these. Kids always seem to want to get away from parents as soon as possible; while that was true for me, there was always something welcoming going home from school. It was simply called home.

So what tradition do I still keep to remember the old times at Christmas? Well it starts with the ornaments. Our tree has lots of old ornaments, given to me by students over the years, made by my son, or carrying inscriptions remembering our parents. Putting up that tree is a time to recall all those warm feelings and memories, and to remember our roots.

And I still do one thing eve today that I did as a kid - before the presents are put down; I get under the tree and look up at all the bright lights and tinsel. I have my wife eagerly doing the same thing now - a new, old tradition still alive today!