The Evolution of Christmas Traditions

The first Christmas that Mike and I were married, we were living in Columbia MO, with both sets of parents in the metro St Louis area, so we went home for Christmas. First we drove to my parent’s home, in West St Louis County, to drop our bags and go to Christmas Eve service with them. Then we got in our car and drove an hour to his parent’s home in Jefferson County, for Christmas Midnight Mass. Then we drove an hour back to my parent’s home to spend the night.Christmas morning was with my family, then we drove the hour to his family’s home for Christmas Dinner, then we drove to Shrewsbury (another hour away) to spend late Christmas Afternoon with my older sister Pat, at her home. Then we drove an hour back to my parent’s to pick up our bags and start the drive back to Columbia. I swore I’d never do that again. The next Christmas we were at Malmstrom AFB, in Montana, so we didn’t have to worry about which family to visit when, instead we started to form our own traditions. A freshly cut tree with white lights on it with the ornaments I had collected at after Christmas sales as a teenager. The next year found us heading to Korea in November, so we passed through St Louis to leave our cars, dog with her puppies and a few other things for the year we would be gone. In the process, we celebrated Thanksgiving and an Early Christmas with both sets of family before heading on to California to catch our flight to Korea. Christmas in Korea was very different. Between 1910-1945, while Japan had occupied Korea the Japanese had cut down the majority of the trees in Korea (the rest being cut down for firewood) and taken the lumber back to Japan. While the Koreans had replanted their forests, by the time we got there in 1977, the trees were still in very defined rows and cutting one down was a major offense, so Christmas trees were no where to be found in country. I don’t remember if we had shipped a tiny artificial tree or my parents sent it to us, but we had a small artificial Christmas tree that year with a few Korean decorations I found at the market. At the time, we were living in the married enlisted quarters, because while Captains and above were issued a room with a kitchen that was shared by the room next to theirs (so a married couple could end up with 2 rooms and a kitchen), we were only Lieutenants and Lieutenants were housed in open bay barracks. The quarters for the married enlisted personnel consisted of 2 small 1 story buildings with 12 small bedrooms and a shared common room for a living room. The 12 couples shared a small kitchen (1 stove and refrigerator) and there were 2 shared bathrooms cut out of the common room space. One was for the men, the other for the women. We were in the “upgraded” building – we had walls around our bathrooms, the other building only had curtains. The individual bedrooms each held a bed and a dresser. Because we were both officers, we were given 2 dressers. The couples sharing our building with us, didn’t hold our ranks against us and we celebrated Christmas together with them with a Secret Santa exchange that year and our small Christmas tree. A few weeks later, we moved out of the enlisted quarters to a small walled compound in town where we had the second floor and another couple had the first floor. That year started my “tradition” of working Christmas Day, since as the Base Food Service Officer, I was responsible for the big Christmas Feast in the Dining Hall each year and if my personnel were working, I felt that I should be also. (A few weeks later, we moved out of the enlisted quarters to a small walled compound in town where we had the second floor and another couple had the first floor. In Nov 1978, we flew back to the States. We briefly visited with both sets of parents and had another Early Christmas celebration, then Mike headed to the West Coast for his next assignment, while I went to Blytheville AFB in Arkansas, where I spent the first few months living in visiting officer quarters since I was 7 months pregnant, and not eligible for family housing until the baby was born. Once more, I worked the holiday, overseeing the holiday meals at the dining facilities on base. The following year, Mike was still on the West Coast, and I was still at Blytheville, now in family housing with a 10 month old baby. Right before Christmas that year, the Services program had a “consultant” visit from one of the top Enlisted NCO’s from our headquarters. He was having trouble getting the junior enlisted to talk to him, so I ended up inviting all the personnel who worked for me and the NCO to my home to help me “decorate for Christmas”. Everyone helped me put up a tree and decorate it and in the process, the NCO got a chance to talk to the troops on a “casual, friendly” basis. I made stuffed Christmas decorations that year, so that my cat and baby Brigham, could play with them and I wouldn’t have to worry about breakage. The following Christmas found us at Hahn AB in the Hunsruck Mountains in Germany with a toddler, living on the German economy in a small town called Morz. Our German landlord and his family introduced us to many German customs including their Christmas traditions like putting shoes outside the front door when you went to bed the night before St Nicholas Day (Dec 6th). If a child was good, he would find a small toy and maybe some candy in his shoe in the morning from St Nicholas, while a naughty child would have some sticks or a lump of coal from Krampus (a half goat half man creature who accompanies St Nicholas on his rounds). The Germans spend Christmas Day visiting friends and relatives (sometimes receiving small presents during their visits) but they open their main gifts on Jan 6th when the Wise Men were said to have arrived in Bethlehem to see the Baby Jesus. In Sept 1981, we moved from Hahn down to Ramstein AB in Kaiserslautern Germany (at one point in time, the Kaiserslautern American Community in Germany had more American citizens residing in it than any other location outside of the Continental United States (ie, there were more Americans in Kaiserslautern, then in either Hawaii or in Alaska). We moved RIGHT after the Red Army Faction Terrorists bombed USAFE headquarters at Ramstein on Aug 31, 1981. We lived in a small town next to the base called Mackenbach. It was from the Mackenbach Forest between the town we lived in and the base, that the bombers had watched the bomb detonate. Here we lived in a small house where our heat came from a tiled stove in the middle of the house, with a section protruding into the living room, the dining room and hallway. During the day, we’d close the dampers and keep the heat downstairs and at night we would open them to heat the upstairs before we went to bed. The tiled stove got so hot that a fabric Santa decoration I sat on it got scorched and turned black from the heat. We didn’t realize when we put up our Christmas tree that it had a dual trunk, causing it to be much heavier on one side then the other. That resulted in the tree falling over, breaking many of the glass ornaments I’d put on it. We put it back up, tying it to heavy curtain rod to keep it upright. That year, I switched from white tree lights to colored. I still worked all the holidays, while Mike and Brigham would join me for Christmas Dinner in the Dining Hall. Later I would fix a second big dinner at home for all of us. 2 years later, in 1983, with another baby in tow, we went back to the State, or so we thought. We moved to Homestead AFB in Miami, Florida, where we lived in an area known as “Saga Bay”. In many ways, we felt like we had moved to another country, rather than back to the States, as the culture was often very Cuban and Spanish. Here live trees were extremely expensive and tended to look very much like “Charley Brown’s Christmas tree. The first year, we bought a cut tree, the second we used a small Norfolk Island Pine in a pot and then planted it in the yard afterward. The next year we gave up and bought an artificial tree. While the Santas at the mall spoke Spanish rather than English, we had the fun of having an English speaking Santa and Mrs Claus arrive in an F4, at the Squadron’s family Christmas parties. With inquisitive children and a small house, we finally had to ask our neighbor (who was in Mike’s squadron if we could hide Brigham’s Christmas bicycle in his garage. He politely refused his garage, and offered us his living room instead. Seemed his garage was full between his pontoon boat, car and other “big boy toys”, but he had no furniture in his living room. A few years later, Mike transferred back to Ramstein, while the boys and I remained in Miami for another year. I had gotten out of the service by then, and was working at Dade County Public Schools in their Food Service Dept while I finished my Masters. That Christmas, the boys and I joined one of my colleagues for Christmas Dinner at her home with her sons and mother. When the boys and I rejoined Mike, we moved to a small village called Rothselberg. Here our German landlady, her sister, their boyfriends and our German neighbors and friends made sure we participated in the German customs, which the boys were now old enough to understand and enjoy. Rothselberg, essentially means village at the bottom of the Red mountain. One of the local customs was for the volunteer fire department to “host” a Christmas event on St Nicholas Day on the mountain. We would all walk up the mountain carrying burning torches and flashlights, then St Nicholas would hand out small presents to the children (that the parents had given the volunteers earlier in the week). Afterward, we would eat hot fresh super large pretzels and drink hot beverages as we mingled with the other families from the village and walked back home. The night before the boys would have put their shoes outside the door for St Nicholas or Krampus to fill as well. Since I was no longer in the Service, I would fix a big Christmas dinner with all the trimmings each year. One of my favorite German customs is a New Year’s Eve custom, where everyone steps outside at Midnight and wishes their neighbors well for the upcoming year. (And if you see a chimney sweep on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, it’s an especially good omen for the coming year!) As the boys got older, we would travel over the Christmas Holiday, often going on skiing trips with the Ramstein Ski Club. While we wouldn’t be able to bring all the gifts with us, we would normally bring the filled stockings and several small presents (often things that could be used on the trip) with us for the boys to unwrap on Christmas morning. Typically, the ski resorts we would stay at would have a special Christmas meal (sometimes their adaptation of what they had been told the American’s expected at that meal were very different from what we actually expected) and activities while we were there. We would also visit the Christmas markets and village festivals that were going on around the holidays. For our home, we would cut down a tree and decorate it with colored lights and decorations from the States, Germany and Korea as well as other countries we had visited (Mike would often joke that I had enough ornaments for 5 or 6 trees and probably didn’t need all of them, much less to buy more). I had started collecting a special ornament each year for each of the boys, so they would put their ornaments on the tree along with the ornaments they made at school. Because of the cat, I tended to avoid tinsel, and instead used crystal icicles I bought at the Kathe Wohlfhart Christmas market - bringing home pyramids and small wooden ornaments and all sorts of treasures. I spent a lot of money at Kathe Wohlfhart’s. We would fill the stockings with oranges, nuts, toothbrushes and small gifts, and pile the wrapped presents around the base of the tree along with a wooden nativity set we had gotten in the Philippines. Christmas morning, one of the boys would be selected to wear the Santa Hat and hand out the presents. The rule was one present at a time. Everyone would watch the person receiving the gift as they opened it, then we’d OHHH and AHHH as appropriate (and I would write down what came from family and friends for the Thank You letters that the everyone was required to write before they got to play with that gift. One year, Nathan decorated the tree with his GI Joes in little vignettes (mainly battle scenes). When I tried to rearrange them to make the tree “more balanced”, he knew I had moved them and they ended up getting put back the way he had arranged them. The Christmas after we returned to the States, we spent in California, visiting my older sister, Pat in Oakland for Christmas, then going skiing at Lake Tahoe. After Nathan died, it was many years before I wanted to do anything for Christmas. The first year, with Brigham coming home from his Freshman year at college, Mike insisted we put up a tree and have his parents over, I remember throwing a few decorations at the tree and walking out of the room because it was so painful. Later things got better, but it was still difficult to do a tree. We often received boxes of oranges and grapefruit from Florida and typically the box would contain a small pink flamingo toy. One year, not wanting to put up a tree, I threw the flamingos onto a large potted ficus tree that we’d been given when Nathan died. When Brigham got home and saw it, he said “Tiki Bar Christmas, I like it!” So that became the staple Christmas tree for several years. After Brigham moved to Germany and wasn’t home for Christmas, we started putting the gifts around a poinsettia rather than setting up a Christmas tree. The year Brigham came home briefly before going to Afghanistan for a year, I put up the Christmas tree and put all the decorations on it. As a family, we made an Apfel Strudel and enjoyed being together. It was the first year I had wanted to really celebrate Christmas since Nathan had died. I grew up shopping the after Christmas sales as a teenager. As an adult, I would often buy decorations and small gifts that could be used for future stocking stuffers and gift exchanges, or those last minute presents when you need something small and funny. I keep an eye out for the animated singing and dancing toys, as those work well at White Elephant gift exchanges. These days, I sometimes decorate the house with the animated toys and some of the decorations until I need to gift them. Mike enjoys them and often sets them off as he walks through the house. For several years, while we were taking care of Mike’s Mom, the focus would be on her. We would have a nice breakfast (often with Mike making his famous Overnight French Toast), then go join her, first at the farm house Mike had grown up in, then later at the dementia facility she was moved to, for Christmas Dinner. Often, I would put up more decorations in her room, then I put up at home. Dinner when we were taking it to her at the farm, would be picked up from a grocery store, then reheated at dinner time, rather than my trying to fix dinner and get out to see her early enough in the day. Now, with Brigham grown, we are starting a new tradition – going somewhere with Brigham for the holiday when his schedule allows. The first year, we went to New Orleans, renting a condo a block from Bourbon Street and a block from the streetcar stop so we could park our car and walk everywhere or take the streetcar. We visited with Mike’s cousins briefly, then spent the rest of our time exploring New Orleans (The WWII museum is fabulous). I still take our stockings with us, along with the Santa Hats and a few presents, but being in each other’s company is really all the presents we need. When we can’t get together with Brigham, Mike and I spend a quiet day at home. I grew up shopping the after Christmas sales as a teenager. As an adult, I would often buy decorations and small gifts that could be used for future stocking stuffers and gift exchanges, or those last minute presents when you need something small. I keep an eye out for the animated singing and dancing toys, as those work well at White Elephant gift exchanges. These days, I sometimes decorate the house with the animated toys and some of the decorations until I need to gift them. Mike enjoys them and often sets them off as he walks through the house. In fact, these days, some supposedly Christmas Decorations stay out year round – the brass angels from Korea, some of the German pyramids in the curio cabinet, the many Rodney and Rhonda Reindeer toys that use to be given out in the children’s meals at Burger King when we lived in Florida, and now cost a fortune at Hallmark build a pyramid of their own on top of the Grandmother Clock from Taiwan. A 3 ft tall elf that I got at Schnuck’s at an after Christmas sale (marked down even more because the seam in his shoe was coming undone) sits on a speaker year round in the family room, while another smaller elf is perched on the floor lamp. In my china cabinet, I have both a Lladro Nativity set that Mike brought me from Spain and the Hummel Nativity set that my father brought my mother from Germany when I was a girl. Other things, like the large Christmas rug that I bought at the church rummage sale, get brought out in December, along with a snowman themed fireplace screen I found at Schnucks one year, Christmas pillows from I received in past Christmas gift exchanges and some stuffed Santas and snowmen. Traditions evolve. Never stagnant. Ready to be adapted to whatever life hands us.