Christmas stories
John E. Peterson
Originally published 02:40 p.m., December 13, 2007
Updated 02:40 p.m., December 13, 2007
As the holiday season approaches, I have memories of some of the marvelous Christmas experiences I have had. All of my 86 holiday seasons were fine.
They were mostly traditional seasonal affairs — home with family, etc. Those few which pop into my head, however, are not traditional. They are different. I decided I would tell you about some of those, if I had my way. It also will be my way of saying Happy Holidays to all of you who read my trivial columns.
My first non-traditional experience was back in 1943 and 1944. That, of course, was World War II time. I was a naval officer involved in landing craft, those boats we used to take soldiers and marines from a ship and put them ashore. My boat pool, as such groups were called, was taken to the Pacific in the early summer of 1943.
We spent time in the jungles on islands. We were on various ships handling the landing craft and going here and there, we landed Seabees and their equipment on an island so they could build an airfield. Christmas of 1943 was just a rather ordinary day during all this moving about.
Christmas of 1944 was much different, though. My boat pool had been put on Manus Island in the Admiralty Islands early in 1944. Late in 1944, those of us who had been out in the Pacific for more than a year began to be given leaves. Late in December, Ensigns John Peterson, Marty Cohen and Jack Cavender were given orders to take a 10-day leave in Sydney, Australia.
As it turned out, we saw a good bit of the eastern coast of Australia. We met lots of people, had lots of conversation, good food and drinks there in Sydney. Most of that 1944 Christmas Day was spent on the beach. Christmas in Australia is in the summer, of course. In the evening, we had a lovely dinner with a very nice lady and her daughter. That, then, was my 1944 Christmas holiday period. Certainly not the usual routine-type affair.
Now to my second memory of a somewhat different Christmas season experience. After getting out of the navy and after getting married, I began teaching and coaching at Jackson Junior College in Jackson, Mich. That was from 1946 to 1950. Our son and daughter were born, 15 months apart, during those years.
From 1950 to 1953, we were in East Lansing, Michigan where I pursued my master’s and doctorate degrees. In the fall of 1953, we went to Columbia, Mo., where I became a faculty member at the University of Missouri.
During those nine years, we lived in various apartments and university housings. None were the sort of places attractive for traditional Christmas celebrations. So, each year we went back to northern Illinois to our families.
Christmas with Merle’s folks was always on Christmas Eve. They even had a friend fond of playing Santa Claus, who was there each year. With my folks, however, festivities were on Christmas morning. That meant that we took off rather early on Christmas day and drove 65 miles out to DeKalb. That worked satisfactorily while the kids were very young.
As they got to be five and six years old, it became clear that the procedure was not to their liking. They got lots of presents on Christmas Eve, went to bed, got up the next morning and went to DeKalb. No time to play with the presents of Christmas Eve until we went back to Chicago two or three days later.
The kids did not really fuss about it, but it became clear that they no longer enjoyed the pattern. So, after our first year in Columbia, we announced to both sets of parents that we were no longer coming to northern Illinois for the holidays. They were welcome to come to us, if they wished, but we felt we had to start our own holiday season. The next year we bought a lovely, big, old house and did just that. That is the way things go, we learned.
Now to my third memory of an exceptionally different holiday season. I was on sabbatical leave from the University of Missouri during the fall semester of 1965. It was to be at the University of Lund in Sweden so that I could traipse the Scandinavian countries, gather some soil samples and examine them for myxobacteria.
We went to Sweden in the summer and returned home about the end of January 1966. Consequently, the holiday season of 1965 was spent there.
Though different, it was a wonderful holiday season. Our Swedish friends included us in some of their festivities. One, for example, was an arrangement to have two young women come into our apartment early on Christmas morning. This was a big surprise to us. They were dressed like angels and sang Swedish Christmas songs to us. Such, we found out later, was a regular part of the Swedish tradition. They included us in.
Perhaps an even bigger memory of that 1965 holiday season was this. A couple of days after Christmas, we took the ferry across to Copenhagen. There we got on a plane and flew to Paris. Paris as a part of Christmas? Wow! A few years later, we went to Paris in the spring, but that visit in the winter has never been forgotten.
There, then, I have shared some of the memories which always seem to pop into my old head as the holiday season approaches. Nothing really great about them. But they do give me an opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas. I hope you have a happy, happy holiday. You will, if I have my way.