December • 2010 • NEWSLETTER

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Dear ##firstname[Friend]##,

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A Christmas tree is a wondrous thing. In a darkened room, it’s a dream-like vision of color and light, illuminating bright wrapping paper that conceals intriguing packages. The tree can represent religious and family traditions and the anticipation of a holiday season filled with sentiment and happy times.

Anyone who remembers cutting their own tree as a child will relate to one of the featured pictures this month showing a family after their successful tree hunt in 1926, a tradition that continues for many a family today.

As always, feel free to forward our newsletter on to a friend or family member. If this newsletter was forwarded to you and you’d like a copy of your own each month, just clink this link to sign up yourself.

—John Burlingham at Reminisce

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In this issue:

• An Italian Christmas
• Picture from the Past
• Stirring Up Memories
• Over the Back Fence
• Time Capsule Trivia
• A Thought to Remember

West Virginia’s Mountain Railroads

All aboard! Rail fans will love this trip through the mountains of West Virginia on five historic railroads: Cass Scenic Railroad, Durbin Rocket, Cheat Mountain Salamander, Potomac Eagle Scenic Railroad and Western Maryland Scenic Railroad. Get an up-close look at mining at the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine and learn about horse-drawn vehicles at the Thrasher Carriage Museum. Revel in the scenic beauty of the area and marvel at the spectacular New River Gorge Bridge. Relax at the luxurious Stonewall Resort in Stonewall Jackson Lake State Park. Come join us for a relaxing and fascinating rail adventure!

Click here for more information .

An Italian Christmas

By Rita Piro
Hollis Hills, New York

A popular question during the holiday season is, “What was your favorite Christmas present ever?”

Most people will say a bicycle, a car or maybe a pet, but the best Christmas present I ever received was an illness that kept me home in 1967.

I was 7 years old and in the second grade at Saints Joachim and Anne Catholic School in Queens Village, New York, and I came down with a serious viral infection just after Thanksgiving.

For several days, a high fever raged through my body, rendering me practically paralyzed. Later, as mysteriously as it had come, the virus subsided about a week later and I actually started to feel better.

With Christmas only three weeks away, my parents decided not to risk my health and that of my classmates by having me go back to school too soon, keeping me home until the new year.

This was all a blessing in disguise for my mother, who was consumed with nursing her own mother, my grandmother, who lived with us while in the final stages of cancer. I helped my mother provide the extra care my grandmother needed.

My maternal grandmother, Annunziata Molinari, known as Grandma Nancy, was born in southern Italy and had come to New York City’s Lower East Side in 1916.

My grandmother and I became each other’s constant companions that December. We ate breakfast together and watched TV’s Today show with Hugh Downs and a weather girl named Barbara Walters.

After breakfast, Grandma Nancy would take me into her room, and we’d sit on the edge of the bed in front of the shrine to her favorite saints that she’d put on top of her bureau. Grandma had learned to read and write English, but at this point in her life, it was much easier for her to speak in Italian. She taught me her favorite prayers and the rosary in her native tongue.

I could already speak a somewhat broken Italian, but after a week, I was able to fully converse with her in the language.

During lunch, I would turn on my favorite cartoons, carefully explaining each character to my grandmother, who became particularly fond of Jerry the Mouse from the Tom and Jerry cartoons. Every day, at just the right time, she would point to the TV and say in Italian, “Prende il topo pazo,” which meant, “Put on that crazy mouse.”

In the late afternoon, we would lie together on the living room sofa, with the lights from the Christmas tree casting soft shadows over us.

My grandmother helped me connect the dots and color pictures in my Christmas activity books while telling me about her mother and father in Italy, of marrying my grandfather and of my mother’s childhood during the Depression and World War II. She also told me how she remembered every moment of the day I was born.

After I returned to school, my grandmother’s condition deteriorated rapidly, and she was called home to God before January was through.

In the years that followed, I obtained university degrees in Romance Languages and Theology, and I am today a teacher of foreign languages and religious studies.

I used to wonder if perhaps my grandmother had planted the seeds for my future during that Christmas of illness. Now, after more than 20 years of teaching Spanish, Italian and Religious Studies to high school girls at The Mary Louis Academy in New York, I know she did.

Click here to see more Nostalgic Stories

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Pictures from the Past

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My mother, Iona Cooks Byers (far left in picture), and her sister Rosemary Cook Bushorn are standing with their father, Frank Cook, on either side of a freshly cut cedar tree for Christmas in December of 1926. Kneeling in front, from left, are siblings Wallace, Marcine and Leon. They are in the side yard of their farmhouse in Ripley County, Indiana, just outside of what is now Versailles State Park.

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Cedar trees grow in abundance on the hillsides and along country roads in southern Indiana and were cut by many rural families for Christmas trees in the early 1900s. Frank spoke with a thick German accent, the family name originally being spelled Koch from his German descent.

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—Jerry Byers
Cincinnati, Ohio

Click here to see more Pictures From the Past.

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Stirring Up Memories

Santa Bread

Want to impress your party guests during the holiday season? Here’s a fun, fancy-looking Santa that will have people talking—and nibbling, of course.

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Over the Back Fence

Amusing morsels and bits of wisdom overheard and read here and there.

Teacher: Donald, what is the chemical formula for water?
Donald: H I J K L M N O
Teacher: What are you talking about?
Donald: Yesterday you said it’s H to O.

Teacher: Glen, why do you always get so dirty?
Glen: Well, I’m closer to the ground than you are.

Teacher: Now, Simon, tell me frankly, do you say prayers before eating?
Simon: No, sir, I don’t have to. My mom is a good cook.

Teacher: Clyde, you composition on “My Dog” is exactly the same as your brother’s. Did you copy his?
Clyde: No, sir, it’s the same dog.

—Bob Gouveia
Burlington, Massachusetts

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Time Capsule Trivia

See how well you know these facts about the Christmas season.

1. Name Santa’s eight original reindeer before the addition of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

2. The song Twelve Days of Christmas was originally written to help Catholic children in England remember different articles of faith during the persecution by Protestant monarchs. For example, the 11 pipers piping represented the 11 faithful apostles. What did the partridge in a pear tree represent?

3. There were four ghosts in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol: the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, Christmas Yet to Come and _____.

4. Originally titled A Visit From Saint Nicholas, this verse was sent anonymously to a New York newspaper for publication by guests who heard it read to children at the author’s party.

Click here for the answer to Time Capsule Trivia.

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A Thought to Remember

Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas. —Calvin Coolidge

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