Like most Nepo kids back in the Dark Ages, I loved to spend Christmas Eve at the big decorated tree beside the Neponset town hall-jailhouse building. Christmas carols, general jollity, all before Santa arrived by horse-drawn wagon to distribute net stockings filled with hard candy and an orange.
The next day featured family Christmas Day dinners, served at noon around a dining table stretched to its limit, and card tables, desktops—whatever the host and hostess could put together to give everyone a steady spot to sit and enjoy their loaded plate. It was taken for granted the guests would all stay for a supper of leftovers, plus some special dessert treat the hostess would provide. Ah, the deliciousness of it!
All things change. Covid, especially, shook up the old ways. In Neponset we still have colorful decorations on the Commercial Street light poles. But the village no longer sponsors a community Christmas get-together around an outside tree. Church celebrations are smaller and quieter. Outdoor house decorations are plentiful and lively. I believe Santa still arrives at the grade school’s well-attended Christmas concert a week or so before the 25th. Big family dinners? Covid played heck with those plans. Many now have just immediate family and a few friends gathered around the Yuletide table. Gifts, though, are more numerous, elaborate, and expensive.
Speaking of gifts, I recently asked a few local residents, “What’s your most memorable Christmas gift? Who gave it to you? Is it memorable because it was so delightful, or because—it went wrong? And what family Christmas tradition means the most to you?”
Mandy Kirkhove of Neponset’s CSB branch, says a recent gift from her stepdaughter is a favorite. It’s a small printer for polaroid pictures. Mandy especially enjoys the family celebrations even though they are smaller.
Morgan Hampton is a Kewanee resident but also works at the Neponset bank. She couldn’t pick any one gift that stands out (she says she’s had so many good ones), but she does love this tradition: She and her special friend stay overnight at her mom’s house Christmas Eve. In the morning, the entire family comes for brunch. It involves about a dozen people.
A local farmer/village board member who prefers to stay anonymous says his parents gave him his most memorable gift, a one-driver, two-seater toboggan that afforded years of fun. Nowadays he, wife, and children get together for Christmas Day, and his siblings take turns having the big family party the Sunday after Christmas.
Son Grant, retired “city dude” and now a farmer, remembers when at age four or so, Santa gave him a pedal Jeep. He remembers pedaling around and around the dining room table, and in better weather, up and down the sidewalk. He drove his first vehicle until at last the steering wheel broke off. But the pedals still worked.
Not all gifts make fond memories. My daughter Barb remembers the year Santa brought her and sister Jan toy cash registers. Jan’s worked. Barb’s didn’t. That same year Barb got a toy weaving machine. It broke almost immediately. I don’t remember the crowning blow, but Barb does. We gave both girls talking dolls. Jan’s talked. Do I need to tell you the rest?
I got an easily remembered gift in 1974, a beautiful wrought iron candelabra. Wayne had just started a new job with Country Companies Insurance and we had three junior high children. We were poor as church mice—and I saw this handsome candelabra in a shop in Cambridge. I HAD to have it. I promised Wayne, who was very generous and thoughtful with gifts, (but not made of money), that if I got it for Christmas I would use it as the Christmas table centerpiece every single year thereafter. I got it. And I’ve used it as the holiday centerpiece every single year since.
December 25, 1988 I received the best gift of all–my first grandchild, Hannah Noel Safiran-Binek. Our family was having dinner at sister Flo’s home, entertained most of the day with phone calls from daughter Barb in the birthing room at a Bloomington hospital. Suddenly she announced, “This isn’t fun anymore.” Soon we had our newest family member.
Did you notice how one thing about Christmas hasn’t changed? Our loved ones, from closest to farthest-flung relatives and friends—being with them is the most important part of our Christmas experience. Do we all appreciate the tremendous gift God gave us in Jesus? No matter how we interpret Him, how can we deny the utter wisdom of his advice: Love God; love one another; love yourself?
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and love to all of you. Keep the faith!
Your friend, Carol
