Madison Messenger - December 9th, 2018

PAGE 4 - MADISON MESSENGER - December 9, 2018
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Decorating the present with pieces of the past
I love traditions, especially at
Christmas.
A 1960-era plastic Santa Claus
face backed by a pleated aluminum Linda Dillman
circle circa 1960, with a curlicue
beard so sparse I conducted a transplant last
year, sits high atop my tree. It held court on
spruces, firs and pines when I was a child, traveled
across the country when we celebrated
Christmas in other states, and glowed with a single
bulb when we lived in Japan.
When I was 6 years old, I accompanied my
mother for the first time back to Austria, the country
of her birth and home to holiday traditions
dating back centuries. A kindly, little old lady did not let a language
barrier stop her from giving a shy American schoolgirl a homemade
pine cone Santa sporting a bright red cloth hat and clutching a tiny
wax candle.
Fifty-six years later, he continues to occupy a place of honor in a
hutch my grandmother passed down to me. Every year, I straighten
the candle he clutches, re-glue his pine cone arm and set him in a
place of honor. Throughout the rest of the year, he resides next to a
partially burned wax candle in the shape of a fireplace, which sat
on the shelf of a paperboard fireplace in the house where I grew up,
which didn’t have a real fireplace.
I now have a wood burning stove flanked by a brick wall and
topped by a cherry mantle, but I fondly remember the cardboard fireplace
my parents put up for many years before it fell apart, much
like the nearly 30-year-old artificial tree we replaced last year.
Our faux Christmas tree lost needles at the rate of a real-life
counterpart. Over the years, some of its branches were rigged in
place. We bought it in 1986, the first Christmas we spent in Japan
when we were stationed at Misawa Air Force Base. The local Boy
Scout troop sold live trees, but we were forewarned if we wanted to
keep a tree up for longer than a week to get a fake one.
I never liked the idea of a tree that you assembled from scratch.
It seemed anti-holiday, but necessity is not only the mother of invention,
it also comes in handy in extending the Christmas season
when you’re thousands of miles from home. We bought a tree-in-abox
at the local base exchange, covered it in family treasures and
periodically sprayed it with pine scent.
I clung to that tree for nearly three decades. It, like me, continued
to hang on, despite broken limbs (I dislocated and broke my
ankle for the first time two weeks before I turned 50), falling needles
and the march of time.
The tree was part of our family, our holiday scrapbook and, until
it was beyond repair, stood front and center in our front room window.
Today its successor, one in which I still string my own largebulb
lights, stands tall and perfect in our living room.
On its branches are ornaments old and new. One is a small ceramic
bear painted in splotches of color, the outcome of an afternoon
of crafting that resulted in our youngest daughter taking first place
places
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in the youth category of a military art competition. station. If my mother saw him on her television in
Nearby hangs a plastic cut-out ball coated in flaking Columbus, no matter what time it was, she would place
silver. It once graced my grandparents’ tree. My grandfather
passed away in 1978, the year after our oldest Likewise, I always had to watch “Mr. Magoo’s Christ-
a long distance call to Misawa and let me know.
daughter was born. My grandmother followed him in mas Carol,” Charlie Brown and the “Peanuts” gang, Alistair
Sims in the best non-animated version of Charles
1983, the year after our second child turned 1.
But, the ornament lives on, like others belonging to Dickens’ classic, “A Christmas Carol,” Bing, Danny,
my parents when they celebrated their first Christmas Rosemary and Vera Ellen dancing and singing their
together and ones bought for me from the time I was a way through “White Christmas,” and the double delight
little girl. Some are fancy, adorned in glitter, and of “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Santa Claus
painted in bright colors. Others are simple, such as a is Coming to Town.”
flat-faced cardboard Santa who has lost his nose.
The ornaments, the tree, the pine cone Santa, the
While decorations played a big part in shaping my meals and all of the other traditions I hold close are
holiday world, televised Christmas specials and traditional
meals satisfied a different hunger.
parents close to my heart when I miss them most, they
echoes of the past. They keep my daddy and my grand-
The “Norelco Santa” sailing down a snowy hill always
heralded the start of the holiday season for me and mas mornings far from home, and they are who I am.
bring back memories of Japanese snowfalls on Christ-
my family, even when we lived in Japan and did not receive
American commercials on our single American Linda Dillman is a Messenger staff writer.
Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop
Glitter and glow
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The holiday season is for giving, not
only gifts and time, but also sharing
germs. With the colder weather brings
infections that can put a damper on your
holiday plans.
Influenza is one of the biggest worries, but pertussis
can be just as serious. Pertussis or whooping cough is a
respiratory infection that is best known for the “whooping”
sound that is made when coughing. This can cause
the person to gasp for air after a coughing fit. The cough
can last for up to 10 weeks and, like influenza, can be
very dangerous for infants and older adults.
According to the Centers for Disease Control approximately
half of all babies less than 1 year old are hospitalized
because of pertussis. Worldwide, there are
annually around 24.1 million cases of pertussis and
about 160,700 deaths per year.
The good news is that there are things you can do to
prevent pertussis. The Advisory Committee of Immunization
Practices recommends that
children get the DTaP vaccine as part
of their primary series, five doses as
well as a booster Tdap at the age of 12
or going into seventh grade. It is also
recommended that adults over the age
of 65 and pregnant women receive a
dose of the Tdap vaccine.
Vaccination along with good hand
hygiene, covering your cough and
staying home when you are ill, can
help prevent the spread of this potentially
dangerous infection.
For more information about the
pertussis vaccine, call your physician’s office or Madison
County Public Health at (740) 852-3065.
health
Ashley Palmer
Ashley Palmer, R,N,, is a public health nurse with Madison
County Public Health.
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