FNF: Christmas Memories

This year I have been a little down in the dumps about Christmas. However, in the past there have been some funny moments from Christmas. I decided to write them down. So here we go…

A Wal-Mart Christmas Carol

Twas a couple days before Christmas many years ago. My friend Johnna owned a small salon in Mishawaka Indiana. Her Christmas party that she held at the shop was one of the best I ever attended. On the face it wasn’t extravagant, some holiday decorations, and food brought in. But we played board games and cards and laughed all night, and enjoyed ourselves immensely.

I came up with a collection of “Salon Carols” that I wish I saved the lyrics for. Basically I took classic Christmas songs and changed the lyrics around in my typical creative style. We sang them, horribly off key.

Johnna had a last minute gift she needed to get at Wal-Mart, so off to the store we went. We were all in a little bit of a playful mood, and oddly stone cold sober. Johnna enters the store and decides she wants a career as a greeter there, so she tells the crowd “Welcome to Wal-Mart, the carts are in the back!”.

The Christmas gift Johnna needs to buy is a Dremel brand Rotary Tool. She finds exactly what she needs and we all head to the counter so she can make her purchase.

We get to the counter, and the clerk tries to scan the tool. After several passes, she realizes that it won’t go through. She punches in the UPC, but apparently the register asks her for the name as well. It isn’t a standard keyboard on the register, and she doesn’t apparently type letter characters often. So She takes a moment to enter it…. D…. R…..E….M….E…… The cashier couldn’t find the last letter for Dremel. To which she responds. “There is No ‘L’”

Being in our giddy mood, I lead our little group in a stirring musical rendition of “No ‘L’, No ‘L’, No ‘L’, No ‘L’…”. We got some stares from shoppers that night, and sadly no tips or even any Wassail.

Male Chauvinist Child

OK, I admit it, I grew up in an old fashioned “traditional” family environment. Dad worked at Republic Steel Mill, Mom stayed home and took care of the house and cooked the food. As an impressionable youth, I had some very clear views on the roles of women and men. Since, of course, I have come to respect that the roles can be different, even entirely reversed. OK, disclaimers made.

One Christmas as a child, my Mother took me to a Christmas party of some kind. It was huge with a lot of kids in attendance. At the party they had both Santa and Mrs. Claus, and kids were lining up to visit one or the other. The line to see Santa as humongous, while the line to talk to Mrs. Claus was notably smaller.

So Mom encourages me to talk to Mrs. Claus, because the line is shorter. “You know Keith, she’ll tell Santa everything you tell her”, my Mom explains to me. It made sense to me because Mom tells Dad everything I do, especially when I do something bad.

We get in the short line and wait patiently to see Mrs. Claus. When it is my turn I get up and ask her “Hey, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at home cooking and cleaning for Santa and the Elves?” My Mom shook her head in disbelief. To this day she still likes telling this tale of her chauvinistic son.


Great Grandma Newcomb

No collection of Christmas memories would be complete for me without a mention of my Great Grandmother Martha Newcomb. She was a little, frail, bookish retired schoolteacher. In fact, I think she was one of the very first schoolteachers in her small town in Indiana.

Every year, she would come to Chicago to the home of my Grandma Gergel to visit with the family. All my cousins were there, and we would eat Grandma’s excellent turkey dinner, open gifts, and play cards. (I am starting to notice a pattern of good Christmases and card playing).

Every year, Great Grandma Newcomb would give the kids shirts with our names on it. I would get a shirt with the name “KEITH” blazoned across it, as my brother got one with “MARK” on it.

Being a kid back then, I never understood what the shirts were about, or even questioned them. My brother, cousins, and I would all wear ours and think nothing of it.

See, Great Grandma was famous for what the family called “Grandma Newcomb-itus” where she couldn’t keep people’s names straight. Especially all the kids. So the names on the shirts were a clever ruse by her to get around it. We would sit next to her, she would read the shirt, and then she would ask us by name how school was going, etc.

It’s a shame that I didn’t figure it out sooner. Would have loved to switch shirts with my cousins and had her think that my name is “DANNY” or even funnier yet “JENNY”.

Great Grandma Newcomb also had a tradition. Every Christmas she would save the ribbons off all of the presents. She would collect them all in a paper bag and take them home with her.

For years we wondered what she did with them, because from what we saw she never used one of the old ribbons in a following Christmas. I don’t think anyone even ever asked her either.

My Great Grandma Newcomb made to live to see her upper upper 90s. We were all rooting for her to hit the big 100, but that didn’t happen sadly. My Dad told me that after she passed, they opened one of the closets in her home and out fell thousands upon thousands of Christmas ribbons.

Great Grandma Newcomb used to always cook a Wick’s Sugar Cream Pie when we visited her in Indiana. Every once in awhile I get one of those pies at the store, and think of her, and the Christmas ribbons.


A Very Merry Christmas to everyone, and even those who do not celebrate the holiday (like myself this year): Being the end of the year it is only proper to reflect on the past and the good times shared with family and friends. For January brings a new year, full of promise and hope. I wish everyone luck, health, and prosperity in the coming year.

Thanks for reading.