Press staffers share holiday highlights from yesteryear

To our friends, family, colleagues and valued subscribers: Merry Christmas!

Accompanying our good tidings this yuletide season are some of our favorite holiday memories and traditions, straight from the hearts in our newsroom to your festively decorated holiday hearths.

It is a gift to share the news of our community. Please accept this gift of Christmas cheer and meander down our snow-covered Memory Lanes with us as you surround yourselves with friends and loved ones during the most wonderful time of the year.

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Of course Christmas morning was the star of the show, but stepping out into my parents' snowy front yard with my mom and dad and big brother and sister on Christmas Eve to see Santa fly overhead with his lit-up sleigh was magical.
Only years later did I find out it was a local businessman with a helicopter who put on this show for the Coeur d'Alene community. I remember looking up into the sky, with a snow-capped Best Mountain to the east of us, holding my parents' hands with delight as we waited for the magical moment, our breath hanging on the chilly winter air.

My parents live in the same house, so I still feel the Christmas magic of my childhood this time of year when I go visit them. Don't even get me started on the Christmas Eve wild moose chase of 1992 ...

— Devin Weeks, reporter

On Dec. 15, 1992, my parents and I were on our way to spend Christmas with my grandma, Katherine, in Yuma, Ariz. We were traveling in our Chevy pickup and camper. My dad had bought a car-top carrier to put our Christmas presents in. Because there was ice on the camper roof, he was unable to mount the carrier. Instead he strapped it down with ropes. He planned to mount it permanently after the ice melted.

We headed out of North Idaho, through Bend, Ore., then down Interstate 5. Our plan was to go to Disneyland on the way to Yuma. On the second day of travel, we were passing through Stockton, Calif., when a truck driver passed waving at us. My mom thought it was just a really friendly truck driver.

Apparently, the car-top carrier had flew off the top of our camper. We got off the freeway at the next exit and circled back to pick it up. We saw it sitting in the median, but after several exits off and back on the freeway our car-top carrier was gone.

Feeling sad that our presents were gone, we reported it lost to the California Highway Patrol. We continued on our trip to Disneyland. On the way to Yuma, my dad called my grandma, Katherine, who said that my other grandma, Shirley, had called and was very worried about us. She had received a call from a local retail truck driver in California who had picked up our car-top carrier.

He found her name and address on a present she sent in the mail to me.

After spending Christmas in Yuma, we stopped in Stockton to pick up the car-top carrier and presents at the truck driver's house.

Inside the car-top carrier was a note from Santa Claus that said he had stopped to deliver my presents and that Rudolph chewed the ropes, which made our carrier fly off the camper.

I would have to say not one particular present has ever been the best, but the experience of having our Christmas presents returned and to know that honest people do exist has been the best gift I have ever received.

— Hillary Main, editorial assistant/copy editor

I was named for my great-grandmother, Carrie, who came to America from Italy when she was a child. Christmastime always meant celebrating our Italian heritage. The kitchen was the beating heart of the holidays. In the days leading up to Christmas, my mother and grandmother would work together and sometimes at odds to make meat and vegetarian lasagna so that everyone had their favorite food to fill their bellies for Christmas. 

We would do an informal nod at the Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve. Since creating seven seafood dishes was a lot to wrangle for a single night leading up to the holiday, my grandmother would supplement her food by buying some platters of calamari and other ocean-based delights to better represent the tradition. 

I would help my mom bake and decorate the round cookies that we only made for the holiday season and coat them with confectionary sugar icing and sprinkles to ensure dessert was something to look forward to. 

Nanee always let us know when it was time to go by very subtly shouting for the adults to get their coffee. “Coffee” was her hilarious way of letting us know her socialization energy had reached its end. She loved shouting in ways that let us know we were loved, and I’ll always treasure her vivacious personality and the fun she brought to the holidays. 

— Carolyn Bostick, reporter

A favorite Christmas memory my family still gives me grief for was “my worst Christmas ever.” It was 2006, I was 6 years old and I really wanted a Littlest Pet Shop electronic diary. It came with a little bobblehead toy and a plastic diary cover to lock a diary in, and it was equipped with a “voice-controlled password” so nobody but me could read its contents. Because privacy from your snoopy 5-year-old sister was a must for a mature and sophisticated first grader like myself, and all the cool commercials I’d seen for the toy that holiday season convinced me I had to have it.

Christmas morning came, and sure enough, Santa brought me my new privacy journal. I was thrilled! After all the presents were opened, I decided to set up my new journal, growing frustrated that I couldn’t get it to open despite my password input. Hitting my limit, I tugged on the cover only to find the tiniest bit of force was enough to open the cover. I was so upset, that somehow $20 worth of the finest plastic wasn't enough to hold all my deepest elementary school secrets. Distressed, I ran crying to my mom, bawling, “The TV lied to me!” It took her a minute to compose herself, and even longer to compose me. According to her, I pouted all evening long to Grandma's house for Christmas dinner.

Unfortunately, that was not the last Christmas a child cried over something small and silly, but the giggles we all share when recalling that story are something that we look forward to every Christmas, and that’s enough for me. 

— Maddison Baxter, copy editor

My fondest holiday memories are of the Christmas Eves spent at my grandmother’s home on Shaw Street in Hayden. For our family, Christmas Day was quiet and spent at home; Christmas Eve was when we gathered to share a meal and exchange gifts. 

When my sisters and I were very young, our mom had the forethought to buy multiple rolls of the same wrapping paper — shiny, red, patterned with an illustrated portrait of Santa Claus — and tuck it away somewhere secret for 11 months of the year. Gifts from Santa always came wrapped in that pretty paper, so each year, when my sisters and I saw the red gleam under the tree on Christmas morning, we knew right away that he’d made it to our house. 

It’s funny how a little thing like wrapping paper can add to the magic of Christmas. I smile to think of it even now. 

— Kaye Thornbrugh, reporter

As a North Idaho newcomer, this is my first season to make Christmas memories in Coeur d’Alene. However, I’m lucky enough to have 24 Christmases’ worth of memories from spending each holiday at my childhood home in California, where I was fortunate to return to every year even after I moved away for college.

Christmas has always been a big deal in my family, and I’ve realized it's the “smaller” moments that end up making Christmas so special.

One such memory is me and my younger brother’s unofficial tradition of reading in the early hours of Christmas morning until it was “late” enough to wake our parents up — which was still by about 7 a.m.

Always the earlier riser, my brother was usually the one to wake me up, and it was always his room we’d hang out in. We’d usually get a new book or two on Christmas Eve, and we’d each read our separate books for a while until we agreed we waited long enough to get our parents.

The funny thing was, even though I was never a “patient” child, we both resisted the urge of peeking into the living room to see what was left under the tree until we all went out as a family.

Seeing what Santa had brought was always the highlight, but I think the real magic hung in the anticipation — and we both wanted to hold on to that as long as possible each year.

— Hailey Hill, reporter

Music played a large part in Christmas for my family. We had an assortment of beloved Christmas albums we’d pull out every year (“3 Ships” by Jon Anderson and “Christmas Eve and Other Stories” by Trans-Siberian Orchestra being two of my favorites), and we would often take our guitars and play songs like “Silent Night” and “Away in a Manger” for friends.

One particularly notable year was 2019, when my dad, my sister and I got together to record a Christmas album. My dad did most of the arrangement, instrumentation and production; my sister sang, played oboe and helped with the arrangement; I did backing vocals and the album artwork. It was a difficult project, but we were all very proud of the end result. It was a wonderful way to celebrate our love for the season, as well as share that love with close friends and family.

— Rebekah Nielsen, copy editor

    Press copy editor Rebekah Nielsen recorded a Christmas album in 2019 with her dad and sister, creating a cherished family memory.
  

    Carolyn Bostick preparing to celebrate Christmas by singing and playing trumpet in a school concert in 1998 in Central New York.
  

    Hailey Hill (right) and her brother Austin (left) on Christmas morning 2006.
  

    Press reporter Kaye Thornbrugh (center, age 3) celebrates Christmas with sisters Kelly and Kami in 1995.