Letter to the Editor

DFH Volume 1 Issue 25

From time to time I receive a comment to an article which must be shared with you.  This month’s is a doozer.  My proofer, Izzie, is on the verge of insubordination and being fired for her telling it like it is.  She didn’t suck up to the boss like so many employees do, and what the bosses expect.  However, I thought maybe her courage might also get your juices flowing, and you may want to join in the insanity and controversary.  Come on people!  Let me hear from you on this and future articles.  What follows is the letter which started all this baloney.

IZZIE HAYES WRITES:

Dearest Editor,

I would never say you’re “doing it all wrong,” but this sweet old lady-of-93-Christmases  cherishes this glorious holiday, with all its rituals and traditions, more than most and has perfected a sequence for taking the work out of decorating the tree!!!

1. Starting with “The Nutcracker suite” to get the creative Christmas juices flowing is a fine choice. (I personally favor Handel’s “Messiah”—at full volume—including “The Hallelujah chorus.”)  Anything but the perennial “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”   In any case, it just isn’t Christmas until someone yells,  “Can you crank that thing down?!?”

2. You wrote,  “First came the ornaments. . . next came the lights.”  No, no, no, Mr. Editor!  Decorating your tree that way is a make work project and a sure-fire disaster There’s a much easier choice. If you eschew the cut-your-own tree farm or consider the pricey-but-puny offerings at the lot by your gas station beyond your consideration, you might go to Lowes or Home Depot or even Wal-Mart.  There you will find stunning artificial trees with built-in light systems, either all white or all colored or alternating between the two.  None of the annual struggle with tangled strands of half functional lights!!

If traditional is your thing, step #2 still comes after “The Nutcracker!”  Get the strings of lights out of storage (preferably some new ones). Wrap them throughout the tree—high and low—some close to the trunk of the tree and some out on the branches.  Then sit back and admire the gloriously festive tree before you.

3. O.K.—Now! Bring out your precious ornaments for the final step.  No more getting them messed up by the removal of strings of lights!

Christmas season is my time for excesses, but putting strings of lights on my tree after the tree has my choice ornaments in place is not one of them.  Two choruses

of “Deck the Halls”… “ and a very Merry Christmas to all of you.

I am not Scrooge!!!!

I love you.  Izzie 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Reply To my favorite employee:

I’m not so sure you’re a sweet old lady yet…you’ve still got a lot of fabulous and mischievous kid, and spunk, left in you. Please accept that as a compliment!  Don’t ever lose your youthful spirit.

Alas, we’ve (Jim Dayton household) had an artificial tree for as long as I can remember.  Even the Paul Dayton family had an artificial tree after about 1975.  Anyway, my family has had an artificial from about 1980 to present.   The description of decorating the tree dates from about 1976 till they left home.  Viva la tinsel! Viva la “bubbly” candles!  It’s a less glitzy celebration when the kids are gone.

I bet we did the sequence of decorating it your way on points 2 and 3.  It was so long ago I can no longer remember.  One thing I do remember.  It was a very joyous occasion for each member of our family.  We looked forward to it year after year.  One of my kids has carried on the tradition (partially).  She has an artificial 10’ tree and prefers that each family member participates in decorating it.  She’s partial to good taste now, and the tree is beautiful. 

Now the Jim and Judy family has a new tradition. Judy buys a Hallmark ornament for each of the grandchildren each year, something very personalized to symbolize an important event in their life that year.  For example, my granddaughter, who won on the National Cheerleading Championship team, gets a cheerleader figurine this year.  Judy has another tradition we as a family love.  She writes a poem for each family member for their main gift, which the recipient reads when they open their present.  Each poem is personalized to fit the gift and/or the person. I have a book of her poems.  And don’t forget to add the mistletoe and holly.   And most importantly… we never forget why we have this season. God fulfilled his promise to send a Messiah to be the ultimate sin sacrifice for all humankind.  “Happy holidays” is not in my vocabulary;  “Merry Christmas” is!

Merry Christmas, Your boss.

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Bad News-Good News. Keep Your Chin Up, Mary!

DFH Volume 1 Issue 25

By Jim Dayton

FIRST THE BAD NEWS—My sister, Mary Fuller, daughter of Paul and Ruth Dayton, has been homebound for many years, suffering several painful conditions. Nearly 35 years ago she was in an automobile accident which left her with excruciating back pain. Then about 30 years ago, she was stricken with fibromyalgia, a debilitating disease which amplifies pain to nerve endings.  A simple, light touch to the body can cause major pain.  It has left her in a wheelchair most of the time. Despite this, she tried to get to church each Sunday, and she usually did.  She got out to go to the doctor, and sometimes to dinner.  Then in November 2018, she was diagnosed with bone cancer in her shoulder and upper arm.  They successfully replaced bone with metal, and that completely removed that pain.  In the spring of 2019, they discovered a small cancerous spot on her back.  During the surgery to remove it, they damaged a nerve which extended down her leg all the way to her toes.  As a result, that damage incapacitated her leg.  She now uses either a walker or wheelchair for every mobile moment.

NOW THE GOOD NEWS—Fortunately, some outdoor mobility has returned.  She still uses a wheelchair or walker for every moving moment, but, her wonderful, caregiving husband, Bill Fuller, recently added a lift chair to their porch stairs.  She is still in a wheelchair and the pain hasn’t subsided, but now she is able to get to a car and regain some freedom.  She’s been to her hairdresser. It’s no longer an ordeal to go to a doctor’s appointment.  She’s been to restaurants.  And most importantly, she can go to church again.  Bill is thrilled to see Mary “on the go,” if only a very small go-at-a-time.  All is still not rosy, but it’s a major improvement in her quality of life.  I’m sure she would love to hear from her Dayton relatives.  You can reach her at 28 Oak St., Corinth, NY, 12822.  She may be too ill to answer, but she wants you to know that she loves her Dayton extended family.

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Neighborhood Caroling

DFH Volume 1 Issue 25

By Jim Dayton

   The Joy of Christ in Christmas was never so real as the evening our neighborhood in Connecticut got together for caroling and refreshments.

We lived in a new 88-acre development, and we were all corporate gypsies.  Its residents came from every corner of America, and we cherished the geographical, cultural, ethnic and religious diversity of our roots, especially our local Christmas traditions.  None of us had family close by, so we neighbors were one big family.  One Christmas season, someone organized a neighborhood gathering for Christmas caroling and a time of refreshments.   About fifty people showed up.

   We gathered, after dark, at the turnaround of a cul-de-sac.  The air was frigid, so the men had built a fire in a 55-gallon drum.  The neighborhood “friendship leader” had the foresight to hand out copies of the words to the carols.  We read the words by firelight or flashlight.  Nearly all the carols we sang honored Christ—I don’t remember singing about Rudolph or Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.  We sang about Christ In a Manger, about a Little Town Called Bethlehem, about a Silent and Holy Night, about Joy, about Angels Singing, about Merry Gentlemen Resting.  It thrilled my soul to see and hear my neighbor’s families joyfully singing about Christ.  Godliness and practicing Christianity aren’t very high priorities in New England.  That night, the presence of Christ came to the end of Horse Stable Circle, and I saw the love of Christ on the faces of my friends and neighbors.  I heard the love of Christ in their voices.  The Johnsons opened their home to us, and when we finished singing our praises to God for the babe in the manger, we filled their house with laughter and joy.

Corporate gypsies move on.  None of our families live there anymore.  But every Christmas, I’ll bet there are a dozen or so families that fondly remember the love they felt for their neighbors and the presence of Christ at the end of Horse Stable Circle one Christmas eve.

Ruining a Friend’s Belief System

DFH Volume 1 Issue 25

By Jim Dayton

I never believed in Santa Claus.  From my beginning, dad taught me that Santa was mythological and that the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ was the entire purpose for Christmas.  When I was in 2nd grade, I let my friend, Ron Dunn, in on the secret.  Not only did I tell him that there was no Santa, but I explained the reasons why St. Nick could not be real.  I convinced him, and he ran and told his mother.  His mother got so mad at me, she ordered me to leave.  On the way home, I analyzed what had just happened, and I couldn’t make any sense out of getting in trouble because I had told the truth.

Dad’s Horrid Christmas Tree

Christmas memories are some of the fondest of a lifetime full of memories. When I published a Sunday School Newsletter in Texas in the nineties, I asked the class to send me stories of their fondest Christmas memories.  Here are some that I wrote for that newsletter.

DFH Volume 1 Issue 25

By Jim Dayton

When it came to harvesting a Christmas tree, my dad, Paul Dayton, could hold his own with Charlie Brown.  If they ever held a contest for worst looking tree, my dad would retire the trophy.  He sometimes cut one from the woods behind his sawmill.  He delighted in his manly duty of choosing and felling “just the right one” for our small home.  He preferred spruce or balsam over pine, even though pine was the wood of choice for his livelihood.  Pine was too messy.  His pride and joy was usually about 6 feet tall, and it sprouted about one or two branches per foot.   It was pathetic.  My mom never complained, but she must have been disappointed year after year.  She did the best she could to cover its nakedness, but it was hopeless.  Starting when we were old enough to discern its shame, my brothers and sisters and I would always joke about how bad it was.  Now we have come to enjoy memories of our dad’s trees because of their, and his, unique character.  [Footnote: Some years he purchased one, so this story is a little exaggerated.  However it makes a valid point.]

There’s No Place Like Home

There’s No Place Like Home

By Dave Hayes (Grandson of Charles Dayton)

         Living the life of a nomadic military family had its ups and downs.  Sure, we got to see so much of the country and even sampled some life overseas.  But when it came to the holidays, we were more aware than ever of being far from the “North Country” and the family we loved.  The other service families were in the same position, so we became a sort of “surrogate family” for each other.  Still, we missed seeing grandparents, aunts & uncles and lots of cousins!

          Enter Grampa Charles Dayton!  No matter where we lived, Grampa, Gramma Jo and Cammie always came to visit us.  I remember their visit to Killeen, Texas, accompanied by Rev. Floyd Tyler & his wife, Helen, where they continued south to Mexico and returned with a large bull whip which they enthusiastically demonstrated in the front yard.  It’s a wonder no one was hurt!  They also visited us in California.  We ushered them to the redwoods, the seashore, the town wharf with its stores and restaurants, one of the string of California missions, and many other local sites of interest.  And they even came to Italy, where Grampa helped Dad to lead the Easter Sunrise Service on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.  We made a quick trip to Rome to see the Sistine Chapel and several other monuments and sites, and they even got a bonus trip up through Germany to see the windmills and tulips in Holland and the lovely gardens in Belgium.  Now that was a whirlwind trip!

          For us, these visits were a crucial tie to the family we had left behind!  But it was also a reminder that we were loved and cherished and certainly not forgotten.  My father’s devotion and patriotic service to his country as well as our family’s sacrifice of a life surrounded by our extended loved ones were honored with each remote stay.  Cammie became more than our aunt…she became a friend and a remembrance that, even as kids, Keith and I had roots deep in the hills of upstate New York.  Grampa & Gramma Jo brought news from the home front and dived into the local culture and customs wherever we were, fully enjoying themselves in a distant or foreign locale.  It tied us together more strongly, and that lasting bond is still unbroken.  What a gift it was to greet my grandparents at my house and to know that they were bringing the love and caring of a family we loved so much, there in the Adirondacks! 

          Thanks, Grampa & Gramma Jo & Cammie for those treasured times!