The weekend before Labor Day, we were in one of those warehouse clubs and they were putting out Christmas trees and decorations. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen it, but it’s still rushing the season.
The holiday season used to start on Thanksgiving. Kids would see a new episode of Mr. Jingeling every day on WEWS in a thinly veiled commercial based on some new toy.
Oh, and don’t forget to stop in at Halle’s seventh floor downtown to see the “Keeper of the Keys” himself and get a paper souvenir key (that now commands huge prices on eBay.)
A few years later, WUAB joined stations around the country in showing the original “King Kong” on Thanksgiving night. That went on for several years; what it had to do with the holiday season is anyone’s guess, but hey… it was tradition. Christmas music now starts on the radio in October. What is this? Radio Free Frankenmuth?
And Then There’s Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving was one of only three edible meals to come out of my mother’s kitchen every year. She was a terrible cook. Meat was boiled and served gray and flavorless. We called breakfast morning sickness.
Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter were three holidays where mom was banned from cooking. It didn’t make any sense because her mother was a great cook and so was my father. He would conspire with my grandmother to keep her daughter out of the kitchen.
Another Christmas tradition was to head downtown for a photo with one of a dozen or so Santas and then visit Higbee’s “Twigbee” shop, a kids-only section where we shopped for mom and dad. The door was just four feet high and there were dozens of tables with overpriced trinkets.
Twigbee’s didn’t sell cartons of Lucky Strikes so the old man would settle for what I got him. My wife Janice and I kept up that tradition with our nephews and Godchildren, but we would send in each kid with cash and a note that said, “No soaps or coffee mugs.” If you were lucky, you also got lunch at Higbee’s Silver Grill where they served kids’ meals in little wooden stoves.
Ho. Ho. Ho.
Holiday decorations stay up in my neighborhood until it’s warm enough to take them down, so the season runs from September to April, but not in the stores. We walked into a drugstore on Christmas and saw Valentine’s Day cards. I’ll admit I get tired of winter early and look forward to seeing bathing suits on store racks in January for kids heading to spring break, but that doesn’t appear likely in the next few months. At least the holiday food I’m eating these days is food I can identify.
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Boomer Trivia: Desi Arnaz was the only main cast member from “I Love Lucy” that did not appear on “The Lucy Show.” Vivian Vance co-starred on “The Lucy Show” and after Vance left, William Frawley made a brief guest appearance as a horse trainer. Lucy says in the episode, “‘You know, he reminds me of somebody I used to know.” Vance and Frawley hated each other and turned down an “I Love Lucy” spin-off because they couldn’t work together. Richard Keith, who played Little Ricky, also did a brief walk-on but was almost edited out.
For next time, name the pioneering Northeast Ohio rock trio that simulcast a live TV concert in stereo years before MTV.
Mike Olszewski is a veteran award-winning radio, TV and print journalist and college instructor. Contact him at [email protected].
