Author
Jack Rogers sent this greeting to his family when he was a young soldier far from home. His story is featured in War Bonds, chapter 20, “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You.”
Thinking about Jack today and our soldiers far from home this Christmas. We owe them a debt of gratitude.
![10363967_808050315900264_1669020257946437512_n[1]](https://cindyhval.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/10363967_808050315900264_1669020257946437512_n1.jpg)
When Tevye and the cast belt out “Tradition” in “Fiddler on the Roof,’ they’re singing my song.
I, especially, love the ritual, familiarity and comfort of holiday traditions. For me, it begins on the day after Thanksgiving. While many folks shop til they drop on Black Friday, I decorate til I drop.
My sons unearth the red and green plastic tubs bulging with garlands, angels, Santas and candles, and lug them to the living room. Then I pop a Christmas CD in the stereo and spend the day awash in memories of Christmas past.
Each item from the Play-Doh nativity set, to the Homer Simpson Santa Claus, to the chipped and scratched snowman dishes has a story.
This year I’m making room for new stories by learning to hold less tightly to treasured traditions.
Actually, the process began a couple of years ago with the Christmas tree. Since our boys were tiny, Derek has taken them to Green Bluff to cut down a tree. But our sons are now 21, 19, 17 and 12. Finding a time when everyone has the day off from work to make the trek to the tree farm became impossible.
Derek eyed fake trees, but the younger boys and I rebelled. We reached a compromise: a freshly cut tree from a local tree lot. We also gave up trying to find a night that everyone would be around to trim the tree. I don’t feel too bad about that. Six people, two cats and one tree can create a lot of Christmas chaos.
Other changes have been more difficult to embrace. For 26 years I’ve celebrated a traditional Norwegian Christmas Eve with my in-laws. The feast is a smorgasbord of Norwegian foods and delicacies, but the real flavor comes from the gathering of extended family.
My father-in-law loved Christmas Eve. He was in his element at the head of the table with his wife by his side, surrounded by his four children, their spouses, and his 14 grandchildren. His booming laugh and warm bear hugs made everyone smile.
This was our first Christmas since his death. Instead of ignoring the empty space his absence has left, family members shared their favorite Papa memories. And in the light that shone from his grandchildren’s eyes – in the echoes of their laughter – Papa’s presence was felt once again.
When we got home, no one mentioned leaving cookies out for Santa. That’s OK, Santa’s trying to slim down. Besides, I’m pretty sure our kitty, Thor, would eat them before Santa got a chance.
Christmas morning is different now, too. Santa still leaves filled stockings outside each boys’ bedroom door, but our oldest has to drive over from his apartment to get his.
In years past, four little boys would clamber on our bed at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning and dump their stocking bounty out for us to see.
I don’t miss the crack of dawn part.
And Sam, 12, informed me last year, “You know we all open our stockings while you’re sleeping and then stuff everything back in and take them to your room. You do know that, don’t you?”
Yes, I know that, because my sister and I did the same thing when we were kids.
The six of us still gather around the tree and read the Christmas story from the Bible before the unwrapping begins, but now there’s less unwrapping. I’ve discovered the older the kids – the smaller the presents. Unfortunately, smaller tends to equal more expensive.
Even so, I don’t really miss hundreds of Legos strewn across the floor, or tiny GI Joe guns getting sucked up the vacuum cleaner.
Clinging to traditions no longer current, is like trying to squeeze a squirming toddler into last year’s snowsuit. It won’t fit and someone will end up in tears.
This new year, I’m going to hold on to traditions that fit our family and let go of the ones we’ve outgrown. I don’t want to cling so tightly to the past that my hands are too full to embrace the present.
This column first ran December 29, 2011
Seventy years ago today, the Germans launched the last major offensive of WWII. Known as the Battle of the Bulge, this battle lasted three weeks and resulted in a massive loss of American and civilian life.
Ray Stone was there. But his thoughts were on the wife he’d left behind and the friends he was losing.
Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 34 of War Bonds, “Fireworks.”
In a V-Mail sent from Belgium during The Battle of the Bulge, Ray wrote: “I think about you always Betty. The feeling and the love I have for you have grown into something much deeper than small talk & sayings.”
The vagaries of fate haunted him. “I’m feeling plenty lucky,” he wrote, “because some of my former friends weren’t so lucky.”
Ray Stone died June 17, 2013
First, let me be perfectly clear. I do not hate John Lennon. Just because I opined that “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” is one of the worst Christmas songs ever, does not make me a Lennon-hater – or worse a Beatles-basher.
I also loathe “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas,” but no one has accused me of being a hippo-hater. Yet.
The brouhaha began when I posted my opinion about the worst Christmas songs via various social media sites. One Facebook friend wrote, “Nothing any member of The Beatles has ever done is the worst of anything. Ever. Period. The end.”
Many agreed, but one friend remarked that Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” is pretty dreadful.
The situation worsened when I attempted to explain my disdain for “Happy Xmas.” I wrote, “Every time I hear the refrain ‘So this is Christmas and what have you done,’ I want to scream, WHAT HAVE I DONE!? I have baked, cleaned, shopped, wrapped, mailed, cooked, cleaned, baked and shopped like a madwoman. THAT’S WHAT I’VE DONE.”
To which a commenter at Huckleberries Online replied, “Um, I think John meant “What have you done FOR OUR EARTH AND MANKIND AS A WHOLE.”
I am pretty sure this commenter wasn’t trying to make me feel better.
But it wasn’t all bitter bickering in social media land. In fact, many posted Christmas songs far worse than the two I’d mentioned.
Notably, “Please Daddy (Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas),” a truly terrible twangy John Denver nightmare featuring the refrain, “Please Daddy, don’t get drunk this Christmas, I don’t wanna see my Mama cry.”
Not exactly “Joy to the World,” is it?
Others mentioned least favorites included anything by Alvin and the Chipmunks, “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” and “Dominick the Italian Christmas Donkey.”
I could swear my ears began bleeding after listening to Dominick hee haw his way through the first verse.
Some folks’ choices surprised me. For instance, a couple of people referred to “Baby It’s Cold Outside” as the holiday “date rape” song. While I love this duet, I concur that it definitely has a creepy element. Listen, if your date says she has to leave, it really doesn’t matter how cold it is outside, let her go.
But for sheer tragedy, “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” is pretty hard to beat. So many horrible issues raised for an innocent tot. Is Santa cheating on Mrs. Claus? Or worse yet is Mommy cheating on Daddy? If Mommy and Santa get married will I have to move to the North Pole?
Don’t even get me started on “Then I saw mommy tickle Santa Claus, underneath his beard so snowy white.”
Talk about inappropriate. Who knew Christmas tunes could be filled with such morally questionable messages?
Sometimes songs with even the most positive of messages are disliked. One blog commenter expressed disdain for the Band Aid classic “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” The commenter wrote, “Answer: No, because they are starving African non-Christians, you moron.”
Even sentimental contemporary ballads aren’t universally liked. “The Christmas Shoes,” for instance. This sad song tells the tale of a little boy who wants to buy a pair of shoes for his dying mother. “I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight,” he explains.
Apparently, disliking this song is almost as unpopular as not enjoying “Happy Xmas.” A blog commenter wrote, “… saying that you aren’t moved to tears by ‘The Christmas Shoes’ is like saying you and the devil operate a dog fighting ring together.”
Lesson learned: Opining on Christmas music can be as combustible as decorating a dried out tree with lighted candles. The next time I ponder posting musical opinions; perhaps I should just leave it a “Silent Night.”
I would have loved to have included the Tucker’s story in War Bonds but I just met them last week. Stories like theirs are so worth telling.
Colin Mulvany, Spokesman Review photo
During the 1940s and ’50s many lasting love stories began in a roller rink. That’s just what happened to Harold “Tom” Tucker and his bride, Shirley.
“I was a sailor stationed at Farragut,” Tom said. “I got liberty and came into Spokane to roller skate.”
It was spring 1944 and he and other sailors on leave often took a bus to Cook’s Roller Rink (now Pattison’s). Shirley, 17, was a senior at North Central High School. When she skated past, Tom noticed.
“I saw her and I though, WOW! I gotta meet that lady!” he said.
They skated together, but Shirley wasn’t swept off her feet. She shrugged. “He was alright.”
Tom laughed. “She just liked sailors,” he teased.
“Oh stop that!” his wife retorted.
A few weeks later he showed up at Cook’s again and quickly sought her out. This time he asked for her address and phone number. They skated every couples skate together and held hands. “Oh boy! That was fun!” Shirley said.
Her parents weren’t thrilled about her dating a sailor, but they figured the youthful romance would quickly blow over.
It didn’t.
After skating, Tom would walk her home from the bus stop. They’d often pause and sit on a wooden fence that surrounded a sand pit. “That’s where I kissed her for the first time,” said Tom. “The wind came up and blew my hat off. Down it went, into the sand pit. She’s a powerful kisser to blow my hat right off!”
In August, Tom asked her father for Shirley’s hand in marriage. “I was madly in love by then,” she said.
Her father’s response? “Absolutely not! You are both too young.”
Shirley was heartbroken, knowing Tom would soon be sent overseas.
“I cried and cried,” she said. But when Tom shipped out for the South Pacific, she still didn’t have a ring on her finger.
A flurry of letters ensued and when Tom got a 10-day leave he bought her a ring and mailed it to her.
“My folks didn’t say anything that time,” Shirley said. “They could see it was serious.”
Also serious was the trauma that Tom was about to endure. The 19-year-old hospital corpsman was stationed aboard the USS LaGrange and anchored at Buckner Bay near Okinawa.
One night, 13 Japanese twin-engine bombers attacked.
“They hit every ship around us, but didn’t hit us,” said Tom. “We were young. We stood on the fantail and cheered the anti-aircraft fire. We hollered every time they shot down a plane.”
Then on Aug. 13, 1945, two days before the war ended, the LaGrange was attacked by two kamikaze pilots. One plane struck the ship and damaged it before crashing into the water. The other, carrying a bomb, plunged through the ship and the bomb detonated.
“I was in the dental office trying to write a letter to Shirley,” Tom said. “I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I went to the mess hall to watch a movie. Five minutes later, the bomb went right through the dental office. The next morning I found my belongings floating in the water.”
In the following hours, Tom did his best to care for the wounded and dying.
“There was fire on the deck – so many men were badly burned. One guy asked for water. I gave him a sip and held his head while he drank. The back of his head came off in my hand. He died 30 minutes later,” said Tom.
“People really don’t know what these guys went through at 18 and 19,” Shirley said.
The LaGrange suffered the war’s last casualties about a U.S. ship.
The event so shook Tom that he wrote Shirley a letter saying, “Forget about the wedding. We’re not getting married.”
Stunned, Shirley wept bitterly. Her father cautioned her to wait before replying, and she did.
Not long after, another letter arrived apologizing for the earlier missive and asking her to make wedding plans.
On Nov. 11, 1945, while on a 30-day leave, Tom and Shirley were married at Pilgrim Lutheran in Spokane. When his leave was up, Tom returned to duty and the couple spent the first six months of married life apart.
After his discharge in spring 1946, they lived for a time in Spokane before Tom said, “I want to go home.”
Home was Illinois. Initially, Tom had a hard time adjusting to the Pacific Northwest. “I thought I was in prison,” he said. “I couldn’t see because of the big trees and mountains!”
But after a few months in Illinois, he turned to Shirley and said, “Honey, I want to go home.” This time home meant Spokane.
In 1950, Tom joined the Spokane Police Department and was assigned to the motorcycle unit. Shirley gave birth to three children; Douglas in 1947, Ronald in 1949 and Pattie in 1951. She worked for many years at a neighborhood pharmacy.
After 25 years on the force, Tom retired and then took a job as an investigator for the state Department of Revenue. He was also very active in the Masonic Lodge, and in his 60s became an ordained minister, serving for a time as interim pastor of the United Church of Christ in north Spokane.
For 69 years, Tuckers have supported and encouraged each other. “We talk about everything and make all our decisions together,” said Shirley. “He has always been there for me – always.”
Tom looked across the room at the girl he first saw at the roller rink so many years ago and said, “She’s the other half of me.”
Cindy Hval, Spokesman Review, December 11, 2014
The first printed advance review copies of War Bonds! You can preorder your own copy here!
Today, Betty dropped a lei at the new Pearl Harbor Survivors Memorial in Spokane, Washington. Warren passed away in March. They’d been married 76 years when he died.
Went to return some photos to Charlie and Mable Mitson this week. Their story is told in chapter 31 of War Bonds.
Charlie, pictured here in France, 1945, served as a paratrooper during WWII. After the war he entered the newly formed Air Force and became a pilot. He flew combat missions during the Korean and Vietnam War.
When I arrived Mable gave me a hug. I asked where her husband was. She said,”Oh, he’s installing a hot water heater at our grandson’s house.”
Charlie is 90.
There’s a reason we call these folks the Greatest Generation.
In the annals of Hval holiday lore, one story is guaranteed to get trotted out each Christmas. My children call it, “Mom’s Christmas Tree Meltdown.” I call it, “Too Many Children, Not Enough Tree,” but whatever its title, the tale marks an embarrassingly Grinch-like episode in my holiday history. My family finds the story hilarious. I do not.
The exact year of this event is unclear, but I think our sons were 4, 6 and 8 because they all remember it. Thankfully, Sam was not yet born, so he didn’t witness the debacle.
When our boys were little, our tree-trimming tradition was that they decorated the bottom and backside of the tree. In my opinion this strategy was sheer genius. It allowed the boys to participate and hang their nonbreakable ornaments, while I got to create my imagined Martha Stewart-like perfection on top.
I’m not sure what happened that fateful year. Boys on a sugar-fueled high induced by candy canes, frosted Christmas cookies and marshmallow-topped cocoa may have had something to do with it. I’m sure belated bedtimes because of winter break contributed. And it’s possible that I might have taken on a little too much in order to create the Best Christmas Ever for my children.
In fact, it may well be that this Mama was running on too little sleep, not enough caffeine and disastrously high self-expectations. Whatever the cause, the meltdown occurred (though I quibble with the term “meltdown,” it was more of a momentary lapse of sanity).
The boys and I had lugged boxes of ornaments upstairs and each son was poring over his collection of paper snowflakes, toilet paper tube angels and crookedly cut candles. Derek, having untangled the lights and garland, was supposed to photograph this festive holiday tradition. Thankfully, in the chaos that ensued, he forgot, so there is no photographic record of me shrieking red-faced at my startled offspring.
As the boys rushed to find prime spots for their handmade creations, some shoving ensued. Allegations flew.
“Hey! He moved my angel!”
“I did not! It fell down by itself!”
“Don’t touch my snowflake! MOM! HE TOUCHED MY SNOWFLAKE AND NOW IT’S TORN!”
I tried to stay on top of the escalating situation by assigning ornament stations. “Ethan, you decorate the top backside of the tree. Alex you do the middle. Zack you can hang your ornaments of the front bottom branches.”
This didn’t go over well.
“Hey! How come Zack gets to put his in the front?” Alex yelled.
“Yeah,” Ethan said. “Why do ours get stuck in the back?”
“Mine are the beautifulist,” Zack opined.
A barrage of “are not’s” and “are too’s” evolved into more shoving, which morphed into wrestling. The tree tottered and began to sway. Someone yelled, “DOG PILE!”
And that’s when I lost it.
“Stop it! Just stop it!” I screeched. “BACK AWAY FROM THE TREE, NOW!”
At this point the narrative gets muddied. Some say I canceled Christmas and told the children Santa wasn’t coming. Others say I threatened to take every toy in the house and donate them all to the Goodwill. Another version has me informing my offspring that I brought them into to this world, and by golly, I can take them out.
All I know is at the end of my rather impassioned speech a silence fell.
“Um, boys why don’t you go play in your rooms for a bit,” Derek suggested. Three pajama-clad boys shuffled quietly from the room.
“Honey,” began Derek. I glared at him. He too, shuffled silently from the room.
I finished hanging my Victorian ornaments, but the Christmas spirit had left the room along with my family.
Mortified, I hoped we all could forget this episode ever happened. That hope vanished that Sunday as I checked kids into the church nursery. One of my husband’s friends dropped off his daughter. “Hey Cindy,” he said. “Heard you had quite the Christmas meltdown the other night.”
That’s right; my husband had shared the story with a few “close” friends. It couldn’t have spread any faster if I’d written a column about it.
Now, the tale of “Mom’s Christmas Tree Meltdown” has achieved legendary status. I guess I should be thankful “meltdown” is used in the singular tense.
Much has changed in the intervening years. Sam’s arrival meant four boys trimming the tree. The addition of two cats added to the excitement. But now, there are only two boys left at home to decorate the tree.
This year, I surprised them. “Why don’t you guys do the whole tree,” I said.
“Really?” Sam asked. “Even your ornaments?”
“Yep,” I said.
“Are you sure?” Zack asked.
I nodded and they set to work. They didn’t group the angels at the top like I do. And the dated ornaments aren’t in sequence, but you know what? I wasn’t even tempted to rearrange a thing. In fact, I think it just might be the beautifulist tree we’ve ever had.
It’s taken me awhile, but I’ve finally learned a perfect Christmas isn’t about the synchronicity and symmetry of the ornaments on the tree and it certainly isn’t about the gifts beneath it.
For me, the Best Christmas Ever is about treasuring each moment with the hands that made the ornaments, the arms that wrap me in warm embraces and the hearts that still love me – Christmas Tree Meltdown and all.
This column first appeared in the Spokesman Review, December 26, 2013
Cindy Hval 