Is any time of the year beloved and enjoyed by more people than those holiday weeks extending from Thanksgiving to early January? Probably not. Part of the joy of the season lies in the comfort of familiar customs and institutions that are staples year after year.
Of course, the most endearing customs are those of a personal nature. Be it the family dinner, the party with friends or the trip to Grandma’s house, those happenings unique to yourself or your family are often the most gratifying.
But events of a community nature also can be satisfying. Towns, states, provinces and countries have common holiday customs that are part of the treasures that emigrants carry with them to wherever they travel.
Chicago is no different. In addition to the personal holiday customs of the area’s millions of residents, we have many common traditions. These come from many sources-businesses, cultural institutions, media. They become a matter of civic pride and a shared commonality for Chicagoans here and Chicagoans-in-exile. Most Chicagoans have experienced one or more of these holiday treats.
By the way, we didn’t want to make this too easy, so don’t necessarily look for the pictures on the cover to clue you in. Here’s our cheery holiday quiz:
1. Cynical astrology buffs might think this movie is seasonal because it’s Capra-corn, but even they have a hard time escaping it at this time of year. The film is, of course:
A. “A Christmas Carol”
B. “Holiday Inn”
C. “It’s a Wonderful Life”
D. “Miracle on 34th Street”
2. This department store was known for giving away 6-foot lighted Santa Clauses to customers who bought major appliances during the holiday season:
A. Polk Brothers
B. Community
C. Wieboldt’s
D. The Fair
3. If you listen to WFMT’s “Midnight Special” on New Year’s Eve, you’re almost certain to hear a song about “The ——–That Ate Chicago”:
A. New Yorker
B. Locust
C. Airplane
D. Eggplant
4. You’ll pay for the privilege, but you get drinks from dozens of local media and sports celebrities at:
A. John Paxson’s Christmas party
B. The Oprah Winfrey holiday bash
C. The World’s Largest Office Party
D. Harry Caray’s Holy Cow holiday festival
5. The adventures of what ursine hero are recounted each year during the holidays by nostalgia disc jockey Chuck Schaden?
A. The Christmas Bear
B. The Cinnamon Bear
C. Yogi Bear
D. Dick Butkus
6. The Lincoln Park Conservatory annually holds a holiday festival featuring a flower named for:
A. the Greek goddess of Christmas
B. a Mexican bird
C. a California weed
D. a bureaucrat
7. For several years, Chicago hosted one of the more unusual celebrations in Daley Plaza. It was unusual because the instruments were:
A. antiques at least 100 years old
B. South American
C. tailored for left-handed people
D. tubas
8. Let’s see if you were paying attention. The city’s official Christmas tree this year is a:
A. Norway pine
B. white spruce
C. balsam fir
D. Scotch pine
9. How many white lights are used annually to decorate Michigan Avenue?
A. 16,732
B. 43,435
C. 75,212
D. 150,996
10. It’s been billed as the world’s largest sing-along-and most likely the best organized. It’s:
A. The regulars getting together when someone plays B17 at the Old Town Ale House jukebox:
B. the Do-It-Yourself Messiah
C. the vocal accompaniment of thousands of Chicagoans when 10 radio stations play “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” simultaneously
D. the audience joining in when the Chicago Symphony Orchestra strikes up the chorus of “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth”
11. “If It’s Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium” was the title of a 1960s movie. But where in Chicago can you find a different-country-every-day theme at Christmastime?
A. Museum of Science and Industry
B. Chicago Council of Foreign Relations
C. Lincoln Park Zoo
D. WFMT-FM
12. Tchaikovsky hated this ballet of his, but his audiences loved it. Every year, depictions of it show up at:
A. The Art Institute
B. Water Tower Place
C. Arie Crown Theater
D. Soldier Field
13. For years, commuters riding the “L” downtown got a Christmas visual treat-red and green lights from the clock tower of what church?
A. Queen of Heaven
B. Quinn Chapel
C. St. Michael’s
D. St. Martin de Porres
14. Each year after Thanksgiving, WGN-AM’s Bob Collins rings in the holidays with songs of the season. And every year, one song is requested far more than any other. That song is recorded by:
A. Gene Autry
B. Bing Crosby
C. Mel Torme
D. Elmo and Patsy
15. Mary and Joe were a modern couple expecting a baby in early winter who were hassled by an endless number of bureaucrats in a classic year-end column by:
A. Mike Royko
B. Irv Kupcinet
C. Sydney J. Harris
D. Finley Peter Dunne
16. Aunt Holly and Uncle Mistletoe live in:
A. Cozy Cloud Cottage
B. West London
C. Yuletide Hollow
D. Christmasville
17. If you’ve had the radio on during the holidays, no doubt you’ve heard a unique version of “Jingle Bells” recorded:
A. in Esperanto
B. by dogs
C. by naked men
D. backward
18. Many local holiday commemorations center on events of years past. To go back the farthest, visit the:
A. Adler Planetarium
B. Spertus Museum of Judaica
C. Chicago Historical Society
D. Field Museum of Natural History
19. “Bah! Humbug!” is most likely to be heard at holiday time in Chicago at:
A. any tavern on Dec. 24 by out-of-work department store Santa Clauses
B. Soldier Field by fans during the Bears’ final home game
C. thousands of homes by parents receiving charge card bills
D. the Goodman Theatre by the actor portraying Scrooge
20. What time does Christmas Eve Midnight Mass at Holy Name Cathedral begin?
A. 11:45 p.m., with the homily starting at midnight sharp
B. 12:07, to accommodate network television
C. 11 p.m., Mountain Standard Time
D. None of the above
Check the answers and add up your score
1. C. All of them, including Alastair Sim’s version of the Dickens classic (which has some outright chilling scenes), contain corny moments, but “It’s a Wonderful Life” is the one directed by Frank Capra.
2. A. Polk Santas, given away by Polk Bros., were a major attraction in some neighborhoods during the ’50s.
3. D. “The Eggplant That Ate Chicago,” as recorded by Dr. West’s Medicine Show and Junk Band (Dr. West, under his real name of Norman Greenbaum, a few years later recorded the God-rock song “Spirit in the Sky”). This song invariably pops up on the New Year’s Eve “all request” Midnight Special .
4. C. Famous people might pour a drink at a party hosted by Paxson or Oprah, but it won’t matter to you if you’re a member of the general public because these would be private parties and you’re probably not invited. If Harry throws a Holy Cow holiday festival, it means little to most Chicagoans, since the Cubs announcer spends his winters in Palm Springs. The Office Party, however, is a Chicago institution open to everyone, with proceeds going to local charities.
5. B. Paddy O’Cinnamon, the Cinnamon Bear, helped Judy and Jimmy retrieve the silver Christmas star that was stolen by the Crazy Quilt Dragon and taken to Maybeland.
6. D. Joel Poinsett, a former soldier who in 1825 became the first U.S. minister to Mexico, lent his name to the red (or white) flower he discovered south of the border and took home with him.
7. D. Tubas. The concert attracted tuba players from around North America.
8. C. Balsam fir. By the way, this is the 80th year the city has had an official tree. In earlier times, the tree was located in Grant Park, but in most recent years, it has been placed in Daley Plaza. The last time it “traveled” was in 1982, when Mayor Jane Byrne set it at State and Wacker. (Byrne was fighting a bitter election battle against Richard M. Daley and Harold Washington, and Daleyites charged that she moved the tree because she was not willing to focus publicity on a plaza named after the father of an election foe.)
9. Who knows? No one has ever released the exact number, and I always lose count at 12,993.
10. The answer is B, but the others sound like fun, don’t they?
11. A. The Museum of Science and Industry. Belgium was bypassed this year, but the museum exhibit, in its 52nd year, highlighted Christmas customs in Norway, Hawaii, Wales, the Philippines and other areas of the world.
12. C. “The Nutcracker,” portraying soldiers, giant mice, dances representing exotic locales and almost everything except cracking nuts, has been a Chicago favorite at the Arie Crown.
13. C. St. Michael’s Church, in the heart of Old Town and visible to riders of the Ravenswood and Evanston Express trains, annually placed red lights in the north and south clocks of the tower and green lights in the east and west clocks-or was it green lights in the north and south clocks and red liqhts in the east and west clocks?
14. D. Gene Autry might have sung about “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” Bing might croon about a white Christmas, and Mel might warble his “Christmas Song,” but Elmo and Patsy have given us that holiday favorite “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”
15. A. Mike Royko
16. A. Uncle Mistletoe (who at one time had a television show called “The Kindness Club”) and Aunt Holly are caretakers of Cozy Cloud Cottage, Santa’s home away from home, located inside the Marshall Field State Street store.
17. B. “Jingle Bells,” recorded by the Barking Dogs, is a local Christmas musical staple. As one observer described the rendition, “People either like art, or they don’t.”
18. B. The annual “Star of Wonder” exhibit at the Adler Planetarium takes viewers back to approximately 6 B.C.-one estimate of the time that the “star” (actually believed to be a conjunction of planets) could be seen in the Holy Land. But the Spertus Museum annually celebrates the beginning of Hanukkah, the Jewish holiday that remembers the retaking of the temple of Jerusalem from the Syrians in about 165 B.C.
19. Actually, any of the answers is probably correct. The only difference is that we know that Scrooge, in the theater’s annual production of “A Christmas Carol,” will stop saying it by the end of the evening.
20. C. It starts at midnight, Chicago time, which is 11 p.m. to those in the Mountain Time Zone.
SCORE
18-20: You’re a Chicago Christmas Veteran, all right. In fact, I bet you still have one of those Polk Santas in your attic.
15-18: You may not have the Cinnamon Bear down pat, but you probably remember Frazier Thomas scaring Garfield Goose by shouting “Roast goose!” at Christmastime.
12-14: Maybe you spent your childhood holidays here, but ‘fess up-you’ve passed your last few Decembers in Florida, haven’t you?
Less than 12: This time of year brings back warm feelings-of those Christmases back in Pittsburgh.
