Thanks Mom for decades of Christmas Eve’s with the Yule Log and Dress Up games

Thanks Mom for decades of Christmas Eve’s with the Yule Log and Dress Up games

[Carol Kramer’s “Yule Log,” Photo: David Kramer, 12/22/21, see To Mom with love from Talker]

Sadly, as seen in More on Carol Kramer (1933 – 2021) and Tales of the Highland Crossing in Brighton, Carol Kramer will not be hosting the Christmas Eves and Christmas dinners for which friends and families gathered for decades.

One of her clever visual puns — if that is the correct term — was a “Yule Log” where people left commentary on the year that was.  Over the decades, scores have attended the Eves and Dinners. Now five are gone: Tom Harris, Ray Murphy, Don Franklin, Eugene Kramer and now Carol.

From the “Socks and Dress up stuff” box.

One of Carol favorite traditions was a hokey dress up session accompanying the opening of gifts. Carol collected various gags like cat masks for Julie, Groucho Marx glasses with attached eyebrows for Sid and a whole assortment of Dr. Seuss looking caps and visors. At the Dollar Store, she bought various toys like weird maze games, guns that shot flags and model cars that traversed small plastic tracks, all worn merrily — if on occasion begrudgingly by the Grinches — by her guests.

(top left) l-r Lynda Howland (in funny pink headpiece) Don Franklin, Byrna Weir from Byrna Weir remembers and honors Don Franklin’s life and art (top right) Ray Murphy, Audrey Boyce, Eugene Kramer in silly looking costumes, see Eugene Kramer: August 14th, 1929 to June 30th, 2019 (bottom left) Actually this is New Year’s Eve 1976, l-r Anya Kramer Julie Everett, Adolph Klapprodt, Mabel Klapprodt, Carol Kramer, Leslie Kramer and Tom Harris, see In a clinic in Paiwas”:Thomas W. Harris (1925 – 1999) (bottom right) l-r Lynda Howland, Carol Kramer, Justin Boyce and Leslie Kramer in Groucho Marx glasses.

(top left) (l-r) Tom Harris, Richard Gollin, Jeanne Jackson, Lucian Waddell (see Long lost football team recalled by its star lineman) [Photo: Carol, date unknown] from To Mom with love from Talker (top right) Ray Murphy and David Kramer; (bottom left) This from Julie’s Henrietta home: Leslie, Kramer, Julie Everett, Barbara Zinker and Lucian Wadell, see On the Marketview Heights Neighborhood from Julie Everitt; 40 years later still optimistic (bottom right) David Kramer and Eric Kemperman, see Eric Kemperman, Brighton High School ’81, is back in town and sledding!

Perhaps the tradition will continue in a future season.

SEE

More on Carol Kramer (1933 – 2021) and Tales of the Highland Crossing in Brighton

Thanks, Mom!

To Mom with love from Talker

About The Author

dkramer3@naz.edu

Welcome to Talker of the Town! My name is David Kramer. I have a Ph.D in English and teach at Keuka College. I am a former and still active Fellow at the Nazareth College Center for Public History and a Storyteller in Residence at the SmallMatters Institute. Over the years, I have taught at Monroe Community College, the Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher College. I have published numerous Guest Essays, Letters, Book Reviews and Opinion pieces in The New York Times, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the Buffalo News, the Rochester Patriot, the Providence Journal, the Providence Business News, the Brown Alumni Magazine, the New London Day, the Boston Herald, the Messenger Post Newspapers, the Wedge, the Empty Closet, the CITY, Lake Affect Magazine and Brighton Connections. My poetry appears in The Criterion: An International Journal in English and Rundenalia and my academic writing in War, Literature and the Arts and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Starting in February 2013, I wrote for three Democratic and Chronicle  blogs, "Make City Schools Better," "Unite Rochester," and the "Editorial Board." When my tenure at the D & C  ended, I wanted to continue conversations first begun there. And start new ones.  So we created this new space, Talker of the Town, where all are invited to join. I don’t like to say these posts are “mine.” Very few of them are the sole product of my sometimes overheated imagination. Instead, I call them partnerships and collaborations. Or as they say in education, “peer group work.” Talker of the Town might better be Talkers of the Town. The blog won’t thrive without your leads, text, pictures, ideas, facebook shares, tweets, comments and criticisms.

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