Vintage: It's not the holiday season without ...

What are the must-see, must-do activities you partake in around Chicago this time of year?

We’ve compiled a few of our favorites that have delighted generations of local families.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Happy Kwanzaa to all who celebrate.

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Reader Daniel Knopfloch asked: What songs describe the city “in the best way?” Great question, Daniel.

What’s your favorite song about Chicago and why? Email us. We might use your answer in an upcoming edition of the newsletter.

State Street window displays

Once there was a regular countdown to Christmas in Chicago.

“By early November each year the excitement builds. What will be the theme of the Marshall Field’s holiday windows this year? Their dramatic unveiling has kicked off the holiday season for generations of Chicagoans and visitors alike,” Tribune readers were reminded on Sept. 15, 2002.

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When Field’s rolled up the curtains hiding its windows’ themes, it cued rivals to do similarly.

“Besides Field’s and the Fair, Carson Pirie Scott & Co., Sears Roebuck and Co., Mandel Bros., and later Wieboldt’s, after it merged with Mandel in 1960, all presented displays ranging from the traditional Nativity to outer-space themed holiday tales.”

The crowd they attracted was a spectacle to behold.

‘This Christmas’

Its history speaks to a Midwestern experience in ways you likely never realized. It was written during the Great Blizzard of 1967 by a postal worker with Nat King Cole on the brain, singing to herself and her co-workers to pass the time, soaking in the boredom of sorting mail as Christmas carols were being piped into the office all day.

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By the time it was recorded in 1970, intentions had changed: Donny Hathaway wanted “This Christmas” to be the first pointedly Black Christmas carol — “a perpetual Black standard,” said Ric Powell, Hathaway’s old friend and business partner. Hathaway’s reputation was ascending then, and now, decades later, as music writer Emily Lordi puts it, “for an artist to cite Donny Hathaway as an influence signals a kind of understanding, not necessarily embraced by a white music-listening public, of feeling and virtuosity.” Hathaway’s ambitions, and vulnerabilities, are heard in Frank Ocean, Justin Timberlake, Common and Amy Winehouse.

And yet Hathaway himself remains overlooked, his legacy uncertain.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

The original Rudolph story — about 100 rhyming phrases spread over 32 pages — was written in 1939 by Montgomery Ward advertising copywriter Robert Lewis May and predates his fellow Dartmouth College grad Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!”

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Ward’s and Sears were the nation’s largest mail-order and department stores then. With each company dueling for supremacy, Ward’s came up with an idea to attract families to its toy department — “a Christmas give-away story” May called it in a 1976 letter. Parents would receive copies of the free pamphlet at any of Ward’s more than 600 locations throughout the country during the pre-World War II Christmas season.

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He took on this extra assignment and worked nights and weekends on it from his family’s apartment at 2734 N. Mildred Ave. in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. He essentially crafted an original poem infused with his own relatable, underdog experiences from childhood. He also took inspiration from the “The Ugly Duckling” fairy tale and coupled it with a heroic addition to the “eight, tiny rein-deer” pulling Santa’s sleigh in Clement Clarke Moore’s 1822 poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas.”

May considered a laundry list of “R” names for his character before settling on Rudolph. One wonders if it would still be the most famous reindeer of all — had its name been Reginald, instead?

Hanukkah celebrations

The Jewish Festival of Lights, observed for eight days and coinciding with Christmas Day this year, includes the lighting of candles on a nine-branched candelabrum called a menorah and eating traditional foods, such as latkes.

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Good Fellows

In 1909, one Chicagoan attempted to inspire an entire army of anonymous donors to rise up with an appeal that appeared on the front page of the Tribune.

“Last Christmas and New Year’s eve you and I went out for a good time and spent from $10 to $200. Last Christmas morning over 5,000 children awoke to an empty stocking — the bitter pain of disappointment that Santa Claus had forgotten them. …

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“Now, old man, here’s a chance. … Just send your name and address to The Tribune — address Santa Claus — state about how many children you are willing to protect against grief over that empty stocking, enclose a two-cent stamp and you will be furnished with the names, addresses, sex, and age of that many children. It is then up to you, you do the rest. Select your own present, spend 50 cents or $50, and send or take your gifts to those children on Christmas eve.”

It was signed simply: “Good Fellow.”

Suzy Snowflake

“Here comes Suzy Snowflake, dressed in her snow white gown. Tap, tap, tappin’ on your windowpane to tell you she’s in town.”

For many kids of the 1960s and ’70s in Chicago, the Christmas season officially started when the children’s shows “Ray Rayner and His Friends” and “Garfield Goose and Friends” began to air old-timey Christmas cartoons.

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“The best was ‘Suzy Snowflake,’ which was the gentlest of the three, presented in flat 21/2 dimensional stop-action animation with a Disney harmonics song that was at the same time as cheerful as it was sad and as optimistic as it was mournful,” Mark Holmberg wrote in the Tribune in 2021.

Christmas tree for all to see

In October 1913, Chicago followed New York City’s lead and found a way to bring people together during the holiday season. The answer? A really tall tree.

For those who couldn’t afford a tree, Capt. Herman Schuenemann — better known as “Captain Santa” — came to their rescue. For 25 years, he sailed fresh-cut trees from the northern tip of Lake Michigan to the southwest corner of the Clark Street bridge.

There were dozens of other tree ships, but Chicagoans trusted Schuenemann. He and his older brother, August, sailed what is believed to be the first boatload of Christmas trees to Chicago in December 1887, according to Tribune files.

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But it was risky business. Winter gales and ice were a constant threat. And in 1912, this Chicago tradition turned to grief.

The Walnut Room

One of the most historic restaurants in the city has become beloved for more than its food.

“The Walnut Room is best known for its holiday tradition,” said executive chef Brad Saylor in 2022, as a 45-foot-high Christmas tree towered in the middle of his dining room. “We just celebrated our 115th anniversary, so we go back as one of the oldest restaurants in Chicago. I call ourselves the protector of traditions.”

The Walnut Room at Macy’s on State Street

Its most iconic dish, Mrs. Hering’s chicken pot pie, is said to date back even further to 1890. The chef brought back The Field Special, an open-face sandwich and salad combo from the 1940s, for the holidays. The pot pie, however, remains the fan favorite year-round, whatever its true origin story, but new traditions have emerged around The Great Tree.

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What’s the grossest Christmas-themed recipe in the Tribune’s archives? Something the color of the Grinch’s fur — a bizarre concoction touted in the Dec. 16, 1964, newspaper as “Hot Avocado Pie Yule Delight.”

Officially named Avocado Poinsettia Pie, the concoction of canned cream of celery soup and frozen peas mixed with two eggs reflects an era when refrigerator space was limited and fresh ingredients — especially those out of season — were difficult to find at the supermarket. Its top layer made of avocado, must have seemed exotic to a Midwestern family almost 60 years ago.

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On the sweet side, the nearly 70-year-old Sea Foam Salad recipe was described as “a cream cheese, pear, and lime gelatin combination which presents an elegant appearance on the buffet table.”

And what says fun, old-fashioned family Christmas better than a Jell-O mold?

A boot — or mug, kettle or flute — of Glühwein at Christkindlmarket

Mugs have been a souvenir staple of Christkindlmarket, which is Chicago’s version of a German open-air Christmas market, since it premiered in Pioneer Court in 1996.

A variety of colors, designs and shapes have been used to make each year’s mug design look and feel special — and variety is just what is preferred by Maren Biester Priebe, CEO and general manager of German American Events, which runs Christkindlmarket.

“We think about it already this year for next year because we want to make sure the collection continues to be exciting,” she said. “Also, to try to push the envelope a little bit and see how people feel about it.”

Here’s a look back — a virtual cupboard — of every mug produced for Christkindlmarket since 1996.

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