If you’re looking for a great Minnesota winter Staycation for your family, but your budget can’t stretch beyond the drive-thru at the local Mickey D’s, there’s an old-fashioned way to have fun in your own neighborhood. And, best of all, it’s free!
These days, Minneapolis is blessed with The Holidazzle Parade, which runs every Thursday through Sunday evenings until December 19th. It’s a treasure that most cities would envy, with professional floats and some very hearty performers. It always reminds me of the Main Street Electrical Parade in Disneyland. I was living in California when Target started Holidazzle, and haven’t had the opportunity or ambition to go see it for myself yet, but this could be the year. The Holidazzle website shows the parade schedule and parking information.
When I was growing up in Minneapolis, our family would often do what the family in the popular movie “A Christmas Story” did. We’d bundle ourselves up in our heavy winter coats, hop into the car and head downtown and see the Christmas displays in the stores along Nicollet Avenue. Yes, Nicollet Avenue, before it became Nicollet Mall.
The big department stores like Dayton’s, Donaldson’s, and Young Quinlan’s would have huge elaborate displays in their street level windows. They had animated figurines of fairies, snowmen, and (of course!) Santa Claus. Those small vignettes were works of art that fascinated me as I watched Santa’s sleigh go back and forth across the snow-covered hills and over a chimney top. There was usually a scene from Santa’s Workshop, too, filled with elves busily cobbling toys for good children around the world. And Mrs. Claus would be there laying out Santa’s hat and coat. Other windows would be filled with Christmas gift ideas for the passers-by. Naturally, I was only interested in the toys. Sleds and bicycles, baseball bats and gloves, and model airplanes galore. And we were hardly alone walking up and down the streets. There were always crowds of people doing just what we were, huddling together to keep warm as the kids press their faces against the shop windows.
Another tradition in our family was to hop in the car and creep slowly up and down the streets in our neighborhood and look at the Christmas decorations on the houses. There were far fewer houses decorated at all back then than I see today. The Star and Tribune newspaper would have a contest for the best Christmas decorations, and on the closing Sunday they would print an article with black and white pictures of the runner-ups, and one color photo of the winner. Since I’ve moved back to the Twin Cities, I’ve been struck by how many people put up lights and displays. There’s a street near me where the curbs are lined with (electric) candles that is just a treat to see. I also see dozens of Tim Taylor’s out there, whose houses are so brightly lit that you have to squint. The LED icicles are still everywhere, too, it seems.
Once we’d seen all the lights (or, once my sister and I would start to fuss, I’m sure), we’d hurry back home for hot tea and Christmas cookies. I clearly remember always having nearly stuffed myself with cookies before the tea was cool enough for me to drink. A sensitive lad, was I, more used to cold milk. My mother, God bless her, loved Christmas cookies. Every year she’d make huge batches of thumbprints, Chinese New Year cookies, and divinity, and carefully put them all up into tins lined with wax paper. But she wouldn’t let us eat any of them until just before Christmas, except when we’d go out to see the lights. This usually meant we still had Christmas cookies in February to eat in front of the Valentine’s Bush – the prickly, nearly lifeless remnants of our Christmas tree. As much as Mom loved Christmas and Christmas cookies, Dad loved the tree. Every year, Dad would spend hours taking the lights and ornaments down out of the attic, untangling the cords, checking all of the bulbs, painstakingly winding the strands of lights around the branchs with his engineer’s eye for symmetry, and carefully draping single strands of tinsel everywhere in-between until he’d created a masterpiece. And also every year, he hated to take it down because it meant that Christmas was over.
Sure, many of my memories of Christmas revolve around the wonderful toys I’d gotten in those years. But they don’t come close to how dear I consider those times when our family would celebrate Christmas together.
Merry Christmas, Everyone!