Memories of Christmas Past

[QSO TODAY AMATEUR RADIO PODCAST - Blog]

Christmas time in Southern California, in the Sixties and Seventies, began in the retail business just after Halloween. My dad was in the department store business and Christmas was “the season”. Christmas decorations appeared even before Thanksgiving and the overhead music was Christmas music. Nat King Cole could “roast chestnuts on and open fire”, and I loved it. I still do.

As a kid, I loved the “Season” for the Christmas music on the radio, the lights on all of the houses, and the mood that captured most people. Television was filled with Christmas specials. Musical variety shows were big in the Sixties, and they all had their Christmas specials.

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Everyone had Christmas lights in those days. They were a feast for the eyes of adults and children. The more lights the better, not just around the eves, but up and down the roof line. I would imagine that with today's projection mapping, Christmas displays now could be spectacular. I think that the 1973 Oil Embargo ended the Christmas light tradition in California. Please let me know if I am mistaken.

For one year we lived on the “Avenue of the Bells”, Jumilla Street, in Woodland Hills. Our neighborhood was famous in Southern California for Christmas decorations that far exceeded the regular lights around the roof of the houses. Jumilla was the “avenue of the bells” where every house had a red bell on a stand with a light inside. The other streets between Corbin and Winnetka had theme names, like “candy cane land” and the appropriate yard accessory to emphasize the theme.

Traffic was bumper to bumper in the evenings, as folks from all over the San Fernando Valley would come to see the fancy decorations, many of the yard decorations having some simple automation and movement, as well as music piped to outdoor speakers. The traffic on the street that year lasted about two weeks, as I remember. Our neighbor across the street must have had too much yule-tide cheer at her office Christmas party and spent the evening dancing in her front yard accompanied by the music playing that complimented her decorations. I watched her for a while from the tree in our front yard until her husband came out and brought her inside.

Karen tells me that the movie tonight is White Christmas with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, and Rosemary Cloony. Watching White Christmas is our annual tradition that takes us back to a time when you could do a “mitzva”, save your commander’s farm hotel in rural Vermont, with a musical extravaganza that works perfectly in his barn the size of a Paramount sound stage. Of course the songs are great and a blessed escape from our current reality.

So, in the spirit of the season, I want to wish you, my dear readers, and listeners to the QSO Today Podcast, a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I am grateful for your support and friendship through the years, and “may all your Christmases be white”.

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