Local seniors share beloved holiday memories: Holiday traditions connect the past to the future

Local seniors share beloved holiday memories

HOLIDAYTRADITIONS CONNECTTHE PAST TO THE FUTURE

BY SARAH HUBER

Holiday Guide

Merri Brown.

(Photo courtesy: Life Care of Longmont).

SUNDAY, DEC 11: 11-2PM MONDAY, DEC 12: 11-2PM MONDAY, DEC 19: 11-2PM TUESDAY, DEC 20: 11-2PM

For Merri Brown, a resident at Life Care Center in Longmont, the holidays have always been about connecting generations around shared values. She recalled, “We always tried our best to get together during Christmas, the whole kit and kaboodle at least one day out of the year. ” Even now, with some of her grandchildren and great grandchildren living out of state, Brown keeps family on her mind throughout the holidays: “The best part for me is looking forward to my family coming through the door. ”

Brown credits her parents for keeping Christmas centered around faith and time with family and friends. “I’m a preacher’s kid, an Oakie,” she said. “My father would take a dwindling church and work with it until it was a good church, and then we’d move on, but most of our Christmases were in Oklahoma. Money was tight, but my mother, oh my, she was an excellent cook, and she’d bring everyone in. Her brother was at Bible school and would come home with a group of friends, and everyone said it was the best food they had ever eaten.” Each Christmas Brown and her siblings would receive one special gift. “The year we got a chenille bathrobe, well, I thought it was the most wonderful gift I had ever had,” she said. “I was about seven, but I thought I looked so grown up.” Tight funds meant that the family couldn’t afford a nativity set until Brown was out of elementary school. “I can still picture it right there under the edge of the tree. How we loved it,” she said. Brown and her siblings crafted ornaments “and kept the precious ones from year to year. ” She added, “We always had a star, that was the big thing.” Brown passed her mother’s joy in the kitchen to her own children. “My mother was always sending me off with a cake or a stack of cookies to give to someone,” she said.

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“Then every year I baked cookies with my children, and I still remember when chocolate chips came out. We were thrilled to make such good cookies.” Now she anticipates gathering with new friends at Life Care Center and her children and grandchildren at the center’s holiday events, such as the annual ladies’ tea and cocoa and cookies with family.

Life Care Center marks a handful of fall and winter holidays “to make everyone feel welcome and loved,” explained recreation and volunteer coordinator Julie Wilson. This year they kicked off the festivities by welcoming preschoolers to trick or treat from room to room –“something we very much missed during COVID, ” she said. “We put up our thankful tree for Thanksgiving, and we worked together to decorate, making scarecrows and decorating pumpkins. Then we’ll always put up the menorah, and our chaplain will do special services through Advent and have a carol service on Christmas.”

Jay Feldsher, another resident at Life Care Center, said the center’s Hanukkah celebrations “make this place feel like home.” He grew up lighting the menorah with his parents and three sisters in Connecticut; at the center he helps lead prayer during the eight days of Hanukkah.

“My mother would make latkes – she was such a good cook – and the other traditional foods. My parents were very conscious of the faith. They wanted us to know why we were doing what we were doing,” he said. Nonetheless, “I did learn to appreciate Christmas. I think the Christmas songs might be the best of all.” Today Feldsher gathers with his daughter and her family on the first day of Hanukkah. Feldsher said he hopes “to pass down that you can’t live your life without religion, without knowing there is a being over you. And you need to be around good people.”

Wilson said that while the holidays are a valuable time for reminiscing, it’s crucial to Life Care Center to offer opportunities for connections throughout the year. “I love to listen to their stories and to bring in others who will bring them joy. ” She encourages friends and families to share holiday photos with loved ones and to ask residents about their childhood traditions, from the foods they savored to a favorite gift or holiday activity.

Churches and local groups of carolers are scheduled to stop by Life Care Center throughout the season, and a “giving tree” in the entrance includes gift ideas for anyone who would like to brighten the holidays for a Life Care Center resident.

Merri Brown.

(Photo courtesy: Life Care of Longmont).

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December 9-11 10am – 5pm

Adults $8 ::: Children 12 & Under Free with paidAdult Seniors Over 60 $5 ::: Discount Multi-day PassesAvailable FlatironsMineralClub 2022 Annual Rock & Mineral Show

Gem and mineral dealers, exhibits, grab bags, rocks, children’s activities andgames, dig site, fossils, meteorites, tools, jewelry, fluorescent mineral display, and more! Bring your treasures for free mineral identification. Demonstrations include polishing rocks using lapidary equipment.

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Come one, come all, and enjoy the Boulder Model Railroad Club (BMRC) Exposition where you can see different Model Train Layouts for the young and old alike. The show will also have many displays of Model Train related items to both teach and entertain everyone. This includes many vendor tables where you can purchase railroad-related items just in time for the Holidays.

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