If you have any doubt about which is our favorite holiday all you have to do is look around our house.

There are many shelves of decorations in our basement but each year we seem to put up less and less and still it seems to be well decorated. We are attempting to downsize.

Christmas has always been my favorite holiday and some decorations I have resorted to leaving up year around. It is much easier than taking them down and putting them up again. I just make them part of my decor.

This year seems to be a year of reminiscing about the past. If you have been reading this column all year you know that it has focused on the 1950s with positive memories of the past. But today this is what I miss the most about those years.

Many of you may remember walking down Michigan Street in South Bend to view the Christmas windows in Robertson’s Department Store. There were always Christmas scenes in the store windows. Some were even mechanical with moving characters. Most of the time they featured toys to attract the interest of the children. The costumes, colors and mannequins seemed  life-like.

They were so popular that many people even drove to Chicago to see the windows of Marshall Fields and Carson Pierre Scott. It was always a special Christmas treat to make that trip to the windy city. The mall displays don’t quite seem the same.

I miss the Salvation Army bell ringers that stood on the street corner and you could hear their music up and down the street.  It was special when the Salvation Army Band played Christmas carols on those street corners.

I miss the hustle and bustle of shoppers going up and down the sidewalks with packages and store shopping bags in their arms. Store shopping bags were always a badge of your shopping success.

Looking in the windows of the bakery and smelling the odor of baking bread and cookies was another one of the sights and sounds of the holidays. The beautifully decorated cakes and sumptuous pies were an enticing sight.

There were Santas everywhere. Walking down the street, in the stores, at parties, in cars. Christmas was and is a joyous time of the year.

Every child wanted to visit Santa Claus and the best place to find an authentic looking Claus was in one of the toy departments of stores like Robertson’s, Ziesels, Drakes or Wymans. Most of you have never heard of these stores and have no idea where they were located. But if you do remember them you are older than dirt like me.

These Christmas holiday memories were part of my growing up  days  and I am so glad that I have them. I miss those days. I hope you too have fond Christmas holiday memories.

If not, make some this Christmas.

 

Jo-Ann Boepple works at the Edwardsburg Area History Museum.