Reminiscing on Christmas in Noblesville
Notes scribbled on the back of a Sears & Roebuck Christmas catalogue . . .
I LOVE Christmas in Noblesville!
There are so many reasons and I suppose itโs a bit different for each of us. For me it starts and ends with Santaโs House on the courthouse square.
Back in the day when the Christmas season was weeks and not months there were a few tenets that rang true with most kids. You tended to be on your best behavior that time of year โ you certainly didnโt want to be on Santaโs naughty list. You hoped and prayed for snow days from school (because you didnโt have that much time off at Christmas and it had to snow a heck of a lot in order for school to be called off). Any time we did get enough of the white stuff to call off school, everyone headed to Forest Park to go sledding! (You wanted to get there early before there were so many sledders the snow got worn down to grass and mud.) There was also the annual Christmas parade through downtown Noblesville โ and I remember how much fun it was to walk in it a time or three with different school stuff.
Tops on it all though was going to see Santa Claus in that little house and telling him what you wanted. And trust me, he always made sure to stress he was watching and we better be on our best behavior.
Not criticizing anyone, but I guarantee you yelling loudly or running through stores not only wouldโve landed you on the wrong list, it wouldโve resulted in swift action from Mom and Dad. Just sayinโ.
DECORATIONS on houses were nowhere near as elaborate as they are today. But it was still fun when Mom and Dad and I went for a drive to look at Christmas lights. What was the name of that place over in Sheridan that was so beautiful? Anyone remember?
OF COURSE back in the โ50s, โ60s and 70s, families were not so spread out all over the country. For a lot of us that meant Christmas Eve or Christmas Day (or both) at multiple family celebrations. For us, we had Christmas Eve at home (when home was on 15th Street and later on James Road). Then on Christmas morning it was off to one set of grandmas and grandpas in the morning and the other set in the afternoon. By the time we got home Christmas evening I was full of cookies, candy and presents. Life was pretty good.
TIMES CHANGE for sure, so hereโs hoping that half a century or so from now the little ones today have the kind of great memories that a lot of us do.
SANTA CAME early for IU and Notre Dame football fans. Actually Santa came early on Nov. 30, 2023 for IU. Thatโs when Curt Cignetti was hired to replace Tom Allen. For this old sports scribe, I canโt think of any example in college football history that compares to what Cignetti has done. Boy this is some fun to watch!
Think Santa didnโt come early for the Irish? Sure he did. He left them a big olโ lump of coal.
And one last note on the fiasco that is the college football world. The problem is indicative of whatโs going on in our country. This is not about putting the best 12 teams on the field. The system is set up to try to be fair and representative. I always thought that the idea of sports was to figure out who was the best in a contest. Silly me.
ALONG THOSE sports lines, the only thing I can hear with the pros is Duke Tumatoe singing Lord Help Our Colts!
SPEAKING OF . . . Did you catch that our president played around with the idea that we should stop calling football, well, football? As we know, the rest of the world doesnโt call it soccer โ thatโs โfootballโ to them. When they refer to the NFL, they simply say American football.
But you know Don. He talks and talks (and tweets) and talks. He just canโt help himself. Hereโs what he said.
“But when you look at what has happened to football in the United States, soccer in the United States. We seem to never call it [football] because we have a little bit of a conflict with another thing that’s called football. But when you think about it, shouldn’t it really be called โฆ this is football, there’s no question about it. We have to come up with another name for the NFL. It really doesn’t make sense when you think about it.”
Mr. President, Iโm just a vagabond journalist with worn-out Weejuns, but if you want to increase the rate at which you are losing folks who used to support you โ go ahead and push this idea. You know how it is, sir. We Americans just love changing what we do and going along with Europe and the rest of the world. Hey, after this maybe we can change baseball to batball, too!
REMEMBER THE Wish Book? Sears first started publishing a Christmas catalogue in 1933. Some folks called it The Wish Book. In 1968, Sears officially changed the name on the cover to that. It was always a treat when it came out. I used to circle the things I wanted. There were a lot of circles. And I might end up with one or two. But I also got socks and underwear and practical things, too. And in the Christmas stocking there would always be apples and oranges and homemade cookies.
Two cents, which is about how much Timmons said his columns are worth, appears periodically in The Times. Timmons is the chief executive officer of Sagamore News Media, the company that owns The Noblesville Times. He is also a proud Noblesville High School graduate and can be contacted at ttimmons@thetimes24-7.com.