Memories are treasured, but Christmas memories seem to take on a special appeal to all who celebrate. If you have a different winter holiday to celebrate, your memories of the times you rejoiced and gathered with loved ones are much the same.
Christmas memories deserve a special section in your Family Stories Book. You do have one, don't you? If not, no time like the present to start writing and saving your memories in a 3-ring binder so that you can easily add new ones as time goes on.
Today, I want to share a Christmas memory of my own. It was only a small part of our family's Christmas traditions and festivities, but it is a treasured memory for me. It's one my mother mentioned many times when I was an adult, married, and a mother. It finally dawned on me that my special memory was just as special to her.
The Cinnamon Bear
In the mid to late 1940s in Oak Park, a Chicago suburb, I hurried home each day after school to listen to the next 15-minute episode of The Cinnamon Bear. I did this every year between Thanksgiving and Christmas, even though I knew the story well. It felt so good to walk into our warm kitchen knowing a new episode of my greatly loved story awaited.
During the holiday period, the story was broadcast six days a week right up to Christmas. I sat glued to the big console radio in our small apartment living room to follow the story of Jimmy and Judy and an Irish teddy bear named Paddy O’Cinnamon. Only days before Christmas, the silver star on the twins’ Christmas tree is missing. The children and the Cinnamon Bear travel to Maybeland to retrieve the precious family star. They fall into one misadventure after another until the star is found and returned to grace the top of their Christmas tree.
I loved books and stories so it seemed only natural that I would become besotted with this serial. The Cinnamon Bear story became a Christmas tradition in our family. I think my mother listened right along with me as she made dinner preparations or baked Christmas cookies in our very tiny kitchen. As my younger brothers got older, they joined me every afternoon, pushing for top position by the big radio. Why we thought we had to sit practically pasted to the speakers is a wonder. We could have heard it anywhere in our apartment, but being so close somehow made the story more real to us.
From our seats by the radio, we could see our own Christmas tree. An angel, not a star, topped our tree every year. I knew I would have felt as unhappy as Jimmy and Judy if our angel in her pink dress and golden wings suddenly disappeared. I developed the habit of checking that she was right where she belonged every morning before I went to school and again when I returned home.
Now, when I think of the story, the scent of Christmas baking comes along with the memory for my mother baked wonderful Christmas cookies, cinnamon rolls and coffeecakes. and fudge which never got firm no matter how long she beat it. In December, our kitchen could have won a prize for Best Aroma of the Season.
When the daily episode finished, my brothers and I pored through the Sears Christmas catalog, marking our fondest desires with our first name initial. Not once, but day after day adding a few new items but never taking any away. Santa would choose which item was best for each of us. We were certain of that.
The Cinnamon Bear did not air on Sundays, and sometimes it seemed a very long time from the Saturday episode to the Monday one. I knew what was going to happen, but I listened with great anticipation each day. I came to know Jimmy and Judy and Paddy O’Cinnamon as dear friends year after year. They always found the silver star and our pink angel never left the top of our own Christmas tree.
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