The Hunt for Christmas 1978

I’m sitting by the fireside, the Yule log burning brightly and typing this on my phone. I usually use my laptop, but leaving the fire unattended might be asking for a disaster.

The smell of the pinion logs is fragrant and heavenly, although there was quite a bit of trash in the bottom of my chimnea, so I’m probably inhaling plastic fumes as well. Ah well. The scent takes me back in time, 1978, or so, when my parents and I spent Christmas in Santa Fe. This particular road trip is a post unto itself so I’ll tell that story some other time.

This story is about my dad. He purchased from Dowling’s, one of the first boom boxes ever made. He probably paid a lot of money for it. It had Dolby sound and the ability to record cassette tapes. One of the first things he did was to slip a 30 minute TDK blank cassette into the recorder on Christmas morning

He recorded the now infamous tape, labeled Christmas 1978. All it was, was a collection of Christmas music from KKNG King Stereo 92. KKNG at that time was a classical station. Every Christmas, they did a 72 hour program of classical or close to classical Christmas music.

For years, I listened to this tape, as it was my go to Christmas music. Dad recorded a couple more through the years, before KKNG changed it’s format. But, I have every part of it mostly memorized, even if I did not know the names of the artists. I can even remember a station break that the announcer made. He said, “Merry Christmas from King Stereo 92. It’s 36 degrees at 8:30.” That was 8:30 am by the way.

When we moved across the country, I thought I brought the tape with me, but it disappeared. My husband managed to locate Christmas 86 but the music on it was more modern as it was the last Christmas KKNG did a Christmas program. So, I was sad. My dad died in 97, the year I got married. It was a memory of my dad, wrapped in jazz guitar and orchestral music.

However, on occasion, I would hear one of those songs somewhere. I can remember the guitar one played up at a cafe in Winter Park. I tried to find out the artist then with little success.

Jump to the present and the magic of YouTube content creators who took their old LP’s and uploaded the audio to their platform. Thanks to them, the version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town played by a finger picking jazz artist is none other than Tony Mottola, who recorded it in 1975.

This success led me to search for other songs I knew were on the tape. One such discovery led to a medley by the Hollywood Pops Orchestra who played Up on the House Top and several others combined.

I kept looking and listening. I remembered a beautiful choral piece that begins “When blossoms fall into snow upon a winter night… I first found the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s version but a more in depth search finally turned up the older recording.

I remember the version of Carol of the Bells was a bit scary. The French horns carry the middle of the song until the strings come blasting in with the “gayly they ring while people sing songs of good cheer Christmas is here.”

Because I am writing this outside tonight, next to my little fire, I don’t really have access to my playlist but I think I’ve found the majority of them. I know there is one that eludes me, as I can hear a fragment of it in my head but not enough to identify it. It is frustrating to have my memory crap out like that, but one day, in the shower probably, it will come to me.

The tape was only about fifteen minutes on each side, which means three to five songs on each side. Plus, there were station breaks but no advertising. So, there were pauses that took up space on the tape.

I am proud of myself for remembering what I have. Being able to put a name to the artist after all these years is satisfying. I admit crying when I found Tony Mottola. That jazz guitar has haunted me for years.

It is a wonderful Christmas memory and if I can, I will link some of them to this post.

Merry Christmas 🎄🎄🎄

“

The Eagles Nest (another Christmas tale)

A long time ago..in the early 70’s before the mall enclosed in 1982, Penn Square was an unusual mall. Wikipedia supplies me some information as my memory of the mall’s history is incorrect. However, I do remember that Montgomery Ward anchored the east side and John A Brown anchored the west. There was a very posh high end store across from JAB called Rothschild’s, I think.

Anyway, this story isn’t about the Mall. It is about a restaurant across from Ward’s called The Eagles Nest. Very high end expensive steak house where Dr. Starry, my father’s wealthy partner held court. I don’t remember much about my dad’s business partner except that he didn’t like children and advised my parents to send me to Hockaday Boarding School in Dallas.

My parents ignored him. They ignored his advice a lot, actually.

So, one Christmas, while shopping, my dad and I discovered that the Eagles Nest served all you can eat shrimp for 11.99 at lunchtime. Back in the 70’s, that was a fair amount of money, but worth it because of the volume.

We went there practically every Saturday for a couple of months. Dad even invited his Dr. pal Dr. Vogel to go with us. I think this might have been the first time dad invited him along. So, we feasted on all this shrimp. But, in bringing Dr.Vogel along, we unknowingly let the cat out of the bag. Dr. Vogel was well connected to Oklahoma City Society, consequently, the whole of the planet seemed to know. The place became so jammed that you actually needed a reservation.

We are there only once after the reservation system went into place and I remember it was around Christmas. The price went up and the portion was smaller. I know my dad was disappointed and I was too. Good deals don’t really last and we were lucky. I’m grateful for that deal and the memory of Christmas with my dad it’s given me. It’s why we have peel and eat shrimp around here on Christmas day.

It’s funny. You start thinking about your traditions and how they started. I can point to this one and say, this is why the peel and eat shrimp is important. It is connected to this event long long ago.

When they enclosed the mall the Eagles Nest moved to the top of Founder’s Tower and became part of a nightclub called Nikz. I performed there once.

They have since permanently closed and the building renovated to be condos I think.

Lots of restaurants in Oklahoma bear the name Eagles Nest. But for me there was only one. The one across from Ward’s circa 1978.

Of Stars and Moons: A Yule Memory.

Somewhere in my youth, I discovered the movie Bell, Book, and Candle with Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak. It was one of my mother’s most liked movies, and she always joked that we should make Gillian Holroyd’s tree.

If you have seen the movie, then you know the tree is made of concentric gold rings held together with gold macrame cord. Not an easy tree to emulate since the weight of it might be a problem.

So started the period of making different style trees for Christmas. My mother, years ago, made the Daily Oklahoman style section with a tree she created out of a large tumbleweed. She painted a good sizes tumbleweed white and then added tiny glass balls and beads.

We decided to spend one cold (very) at South Padre Island, Texas, mistakenly believing it would be warm. It wasn’t. We stayed at an older property called the Sand Dollar inn. It was next to the hotel we always stayed at for Spring Break. The Sand Dollar was a series of casitas with large windows in the front. Since we had no tree, my mother, father and I constructed one from driftwood, fishing net, and shells we either bought or collected. We made it triangular, and wrapped lights around it. In the dark, in front of the giant window, it looked like a real tree, until you really looked at it. Then it appeared as it the lights were floating in air.

The next tree, was modeled after a spiral one I’d seen at a local store called Flower City. My dad and I took a broom handle and placed a knob at one end. Then we painted it dark green. I took two grapevine wreaths and wrapped one of those realistic looking pine garlands all the way around the grapevine that had been cut apart so that the wreath spiralled.

Dad engineered the tree base by finding a motorized bottom that we hid in a flower pot. The motor turned the center pole. We hung the grapevine so that it spiraled around the center pole. We used some of our traditional ornaments such as the tree faerie, but most of the ornaments for this tree were special made by my dad and I.

He cut from a large piece of wood a bunch of stars and moons…half moons. We painted all of them bright metallic gold with a lacquer paint and clear gloss varnish. Dad placed a loop screw in the top of all of them, and I used flora wire to wire them to the grapevine. The tree had some of the first clear battery operated lights. It rotated beautifully and was a gorgeous 6ft Solstice tree. We had a lovely woodcut star on top of it too.

Merry Winter Solstice!