Has the glitz of the holidays lost its sparkle over the years? Join me, Marcy Backhus as we journey down the memory lane of holiday traditions, reflecting on how they have transformed in the face of our ever-changing society. From the mesmerizing light parade on Michigan Avenue to the giddy anticipation of unwrapping presents on Christmas Eve, we'll bask in the warmth of treasured memories and merriment.
As we move from the past to the present, we'll explore the dramatic shift in the landscape of holiday shopping. Gone are the days when department stores were the heart of our festive celebrations. We'll reminisce about the personal touch they offered, their vibrant decorations, and the hype of special events that made shopping an experience, not just a chore. Plus, you'll hear about my new water aerobics family in Chicago and how they've brightened up my life.
But our conversation isn't merely confined to the holidays. We'll also turn our attention towards a critical issue concerning seniors - hearing loss. Touching upon the lack of Medicare coverage for hearing aids and the potential link to dementia, we'll stress the importance of staying informed and seeking professional help. As we prepare to dive into the Thanksgiving week, I look forward to hearing your thoughts and engaging with your questions. So, tune in and share this warm, nostalgic journey with me.
Has the glitz of the holidays lost its sparkle over the years? Join me, Marcy Backhus as we journey down the memory lane of holiday traditions, reflecting on how they have transformed in the face of our ever-changing society. From the mesmerizing light parade on Michigan Avenue to the giddy anticipation of unwrapping presents on Christmas Eve, we'll bask in the warmth of treasured memories and merriment.
As we move from the past to the present, we'll explore the dramatic shift in the landscape of holiday shopping. Gone are the days when department stores were the heart of our festive celebrations. We'll reminisce about the personal touch they offered, their vibrant decorations, and the hype of special events that made shopping an experience, not just a chore. Plus, you'll hear about my new water aerobics family in Chicago and how they've brightened up my life.
But our conversation isn't merely confined to the holidays. We'll also turn our attention towards a critical issue concerning seniors - hearing loss. Touching upon the lack of Medicare coverage for hearing aids and the potential link to dementia, we'll stress the importance of staying informed and seeking professional help. As we prepare to dive into the Thanksgiving week, I look forward to hearing your thoughts and engaging with your questions. So, tune in and share this warm, nostalgic journey with me.
Hello and welcome to the AJ and U for Sissy's podcast. My name is Marcy Beckis and I am your host. On today's episode we are going to talk about holidays gone by. I don't know, I started thinking about different traditions, just different things, and I thought I would share that with you and hopefully it will spark some happy and good memories for you too of holidays gone by. So, with that being said, let's sit back and I will catch up with this week of what's been happening here in Chicago, and then we're going to talk about those holidays. So, grab a nice tea, coffee, probably coffee this time of year some hot chocolate, I don't know, something warm, and if you're driving in the car and you grab yourself a Diet Coke from, oh my gosh, where do we get our Diet Coke? I can't even remember. This is what's happening. I'm getting old. Anyways, I hope everybody's doing well. All right, so I remember we get our Diet Cokes at the QT. What a dork I am. Anyways, I love QT Diet Cokes. So again, hope everybody's doing well. This is what we're going into Thanksgiving week. I am recording this Sunday night. We will be available to you on Monday of Thanksgiving week. I can't believe it. I just I seriously can't believe that it's already time for Thanksgiving, like what the heck? So I hope you have your plans. If you don't have plans, sometimes that can be kind of nice too. Families are not easy all the time, but we do have some plans.
Speaker 1:It's been a great week here in Chicago. The weather has been stunning all week long. I can't get over it. Last night Craig and I went to right over to Michigan Avenue, just a half a block from where we live, and we watched the light parade. It's so exciting because down Michigan the magnificent mile, as they call it there's over a million lights. Mickey starts the parade and he comes down and he lights up each block as he goes along and then those lights stay on. They're on day and night, which is really nice because it can get really dark here, especially when it's cloudy, even during the day. It brings a lot of cheer. Obviously they decorate the city like crazy. Gone are the windows of the department stores, but that's something we're going to get into as well in the second half of this.
Speaker 1:But it was exciting to be out there with the kids and the families and to get you in that feeling. And our weather was so good. It wasn't even that cold. It wasn't even cold, I hate to say it. It was in the high forties, which, with no wind, is no longer cold. To me, with wind, it's cold. So stood out there, watched that fabulous parade, enjoyed it with the families and the kids and walked and had dinner and then walked home and I was talking to Craig about how different our life is here.
Speaker 1:The truth is we do a lot more things together, which is really nice. We had gotten very separate in California and I think being here and having things just to walk to and go to and do our life has become more intertwined. Even today, after church, we walk together to get our hair cut and we both got a haircut and it's just weird. It's weird how our life has changed. And after 33, almost 34, december 8th there'll be 34 years of marriage. We're doing more things together, which I think is really nice. And I don't know if anybody else is finding that. I do find that he's around the house a little too much, but that's going to change because there's a project happening in Kentucky, so he's going to be traveling a lot more, which will help things out a little bit.
Speaker 1:I was very excited this week. I know this is going to sound just so silly, but I've told you I've been going to my water aerobic at the Equinox gym, the very fancy gym, and I only say that because it's so funny. In our water aerobics class there's a huge group of women that are late 70s, 80s, mid 80s, late 80s, and they've been going there since 2006, I think, she said. Joan said so. They've invited me to coffee several times after and I've gone a couple times now. So this time I'm so excited I got invited to be on the email list and their list and they do all kinds of things, like the other night. One of them lives at the Waldorf Astoria and everybody was invited, and I was invited to this, to a tree lighting ceremony there, and now they have a Christmas party coming up. So now they've got my information. They're super sweet.
Speaker 1:I finally have myself a group of people that I really enjoy and it doesn't hurt. When I gave her my she goes give. Make sure you give your birthday, you don't have to give the year, and I wrote the year she goes. Well, you're the youngest one of us Now, I'm just telling you that made my day, but they're adorable, they're fun, they're smart women, they're accomplished women, it just, and they want to live. They are older and they go to classes and they I don't know, it's just. It's a really inspiring group of women and I finally have found my place here in the city and it makes me very happy. As I've said before, super close friends is not something I need. I have my super close friends, but I needed a group to just kind of mesh with and I think this is it and I'm feeling pretty good. It was super cute because when she said, well, we need you, I'm like I'm going to be included and she goes well, we're not those kind of ladies I go, I know, but it's just exciting for me. So it was kind of cute. That was fun this week, made me feel really good and they care about each other and that's what I need here, that's what I miss. So that was exciting this week.
Speaker 1:The other thing Craig and I did you know I've kind of shoved the holidays a little quicker this year, I think I've told you because we are going to be out of our house for nine days in December Are they Retail our kitchen, put new countertops, new backsplash in the kitchen, keeping the cabinets, and we already bought all new appliances during the summer. And then the bathroom. We're going to get that walk-in shower that everybody over 60 needs. We're not going to. We're getting rid of the bathtub. We only have one bathroom in this place, so I'm very excited. Get in no door. We're doing a glass partition. Open no door, nothing to trip over, nothing to run into, nothing to think you've opened and knocked yourself. I just wanted it simple. So we're getting it retiled. We're getting the new shower, new counter and new sink in there and all new fixture. So, and some new lighting. So that's, that's pretty exciting. So we'll be out for nine days. So I knew I wasn't going to be in my house with all my decorations. We're going to go out to where Craig's mom used to live, and right now the human siblings are going through that house, tearing it apart, going through all the stuff, so it's not conducive for holiday joy and merriment. So I'll be there for nine days.
Speaker 1:So I decided to try to push the holidays a little bit. We won't be down in the city, which I love, and so this week we went. This is what also spurred my second conversation that's going to come. We went to what's called the Walnut Room. It's in the old original Marshall Fields building on State Street which is now a Macy's, which upsets everybody here in Chicago. It upsets me too. It is not the department store of days gone by, but they still have their giant Walnut Room. It's all paneled and walnut paneling. It's beautiful, and they put a beautiful tree up every year and so we had our lunch down at the Walnut Room.
Speaker 1:We took the red line from our house and got off and walked up and walked into Macy's. The interesting thing about the Macy's that's a very historic building so it still has all the historic parts to it. It actually looked very beautiful. It was decorated, but they don't do the windows like they used to and hide them and have a story. It looked like they were decorated somewhat, but not like when our kids were little and, I know, when Craig and his siblings were younger. So again, another thing that's changed. But that's been my week.
Speaker 1:Getting into the holidays, we are going out to Craig's cousin Sue's for Thanksgiving, looking forward to Thanksgiving with her and her family, and then at Christmas time we'll be back with Craig's family. Craig's old sister, deb, is going to be coming with us out to cousin Sue's. The other sisters have other plans and then we're going to all convene for Christmas at my sister-in-law Ann's house. So got exciting things. Looking forward to Church has been fun.
Speaker 1:We adopted a single older woman for Christmas and it was fun. Yesterday I went out shopping and there were some clothes, things she wanted, and her income is below $10,000, which just blows my mind, and it was delightful to do something for someone else. So I hope you can find a way to give back or to give it to someone else, because I'll tell you honestly, there's nothing anybody could buy me that will give me the feeling of helping her out and knowing on Christmas, craig's going to wrap her gifts, which we all know. Craig wraps a beautiful package and she'll have those packages to open and it makes my heart glad. So hope you find something to make your heart glad this holiday season.
Speaker 1:Well, that's catching up here in Chicago Again. There's nothing more beautiful than a big city decorated for Christmas and the streets were just bustling yesterday and last night and it's nice to see the city. People coming in, people staying in the hotels for the parade, etc. Etc was awesome. So sit back and let's get started with our conversation of holidays gone by All right.
Speaker 1:So this week got me thinking about the way shopping used to be, the way holidays used to be, the way things used to be, and I made a few notes about things that I remembered, about the way holidays used to be, the way department stores used to work, the way all of that used to work and how different it is today and how I think it's really sad that it's gone. There's nobody that loves Amazon more than me. Well, there might be a few people, but that department store shopping, that looking for something, that finding that just the right thing, the being able to touch it and see it, has really disappeared. I was thinking about all of the department stores where, when I grew up in the area of Southern California, that are gone. Now I think Macy's is the only Macy's, nordstroms, bloomingdale's are left.
Speaker 1:When I was young, I had a shopping mall called the Topanga Plaza. The anchor stores were a Broadway, a May company. We had a Montgomery wards. There was also a Joseph Magnans in there that my mother and my oldest sister worked at. It was a woman's store. It was amazing, had great clothes. My mom and sister both worked the makeup counter, I believe. And then there was the Fallbrook Mall that had seers in it and JC Pennies and it was an outdoor mall. It was open, and then came along the Promenade which was the fancy mall and it had a Robinson's and a Saks Fifth Avenue. And the Robinson's was very exciting because it had a glass elevator in it and it also had an ice cream parlor and my mom would take me there sometimes for ice cream and all of these department stores at the holiday time.
Speaker 1:If you remember back in the day, and I'm sure wherever you were, they had boxes Like if you bought a blouse, if you bought a sweater, you'd get a box to wrap it in. Now the Joseph Magnans that my mom worked in, they had a theme every year for their boxes and I remember my favorite theme was the year that it was a bakery and like a slice of cake was a box and if you boxed a few things in it you could make a whole cake from it. And the bigger box, if you had something bigger, was a gingerbread house and you know. And department stores, even when it wasn't the holiday, had boxes. They had a wrapping department. Do you remember that? Do you remember that you could go and they had all the wrappings that they did up there and you could pick it like if it's a birthday or father's day or what have you, they had different wrapping. You say I want number two on this and it was free, like okay, are you kidding me? Where is that all gone? And I think customer service you had, especially in the way back machine.
Speaker 1:People really knew their departments. My girlfriend's grandmother worked at Fine Jewelry at Robinson's on Wilshire I believe, if I'm remembering correctly, and she knew the jewelry, she knew her job. It was her job to know that. And people when they worked in the glove department or do you remember ladies pantyhose departments, I was telling a girl at the gym who was trying to get a pair of pantyhose on the other day I said, do you know that department stores you still have a whole department for she goes really. And I was telling her, yeah, really they did. And there was. It was like looking through a file folder looking for your pantyhose and what you wanted and all the different types, and she was so cute I'm sharing that with her and department stores really were full of service and at the holiday times was the height of their service and the decorations and the windows and most of your fine department stores had a lunch room a fancy lunch room or a dining room, let's call it and they would have breakfast with Santa on those types of things during the holiday.
Speaker 1:And this is where we're going, to the walnut room. It's so fun to go because it's a family tradition for so many families here in Chicago and you see mothers with young kids and their mom, because their mom brought them, and everybody comes dressed and there's a fairy that walks around and gives you Christmas wishes and it's just, it's very cute and it's sad that we don't have those types of things anymore. So that was my thoughts about department stores. The you always had a Santa in the department stores. They may still have that, I don't know, but I the boxes was a thing. I mean you know you buy something now and you want to wrap it as a gift and you got to go buy boxes and oh, all those things and just that personal help. I do miss that. So let's think about some other things. So I don't know about you. If you celebrate Christmas now. Many of you can celebrate many other holidays. So my, what I know, is Christmas. What I celebrated was Christmas, so I'm going to talk about my from my sharing point. So there's night opening gifts and there's morning opening gifts.
Speaker 1:People and I grew up as a Lutheran. My husband also grew up as a Lutheran and we were so lucky that both of us opened gifts on Christmas Eve, so that was a tradition that we didn't have to argue over. That's how our kids have done it Now. I have found figured out something years ago when I was little I am eight, 10 and 12 years younger than my siblings, so you can imagine when I was old enough to get out of bed on Christmas morning, nobody wanted to get up at the hour I was up, so we had Christmas stockings hung down our rails in our house. We had our two-story house, so down the the banister and I was allowed which is very unusual to get up by myself, go get my Christmas stocking and bring it in my bed and open it, and so what my parents would do would put all kinds like tons of things in there and wrap each one of them. So I had to take the time to wrap them. It gave me something to play with and I let everybody sleep in.
Speaker 1:Well, what that did for me was, as an adult, I prefer Christmas stocking gifts to the actual gifts you get on Christmas. So for my children and for Craig, I started the tradition in our family of the multi-gift Christmas stockings, and you know, christmas Eve you get a gift. When the kids were little, santa would bring one, but the Christmas stocking would be chalked full of all kinds of fun things and that is a tradition that we have kept up. So are you a night opener? Are you a morning opener? So for us we basically ended up with both, because we would do presents at night, then Santa, and stockings in the morning. So my kids kind of got a double dose. But I can remember as a kid we always went to 11 o'clock what they call midnight service, and all your friends would be there and I'd get to tell them what I got for Christmas and I'd be so excited. But most of them weren't even going to open their presents till the morning. I can remember that distinctly.
Speaker 1:My dad loved to video, not video, oh my god. My dad took movies. There was no video and so there was no sound. So dad would like direct us. Okay, look at the tree, be excited, show how we like my dad, like my dad was like the Steven Spielberg of our family and it's pretty cool because when my parents passed away he had all those things organized and my brother sent the movies a little bit at a time to Costco and got them put on CDs for us, that way in case they got lost. They weren't all together, but I was watching one of the CDs the other day or a while ago and I was looking at this little baby learning to walk and so I looked and I'm like there's my brother. That was me. I actually got to see my first steps. That was kind of exciting.
Speaker 1:But how many of you had parents that did Um movies? Or were your parents um photo takers? When my dad took photos, he made them into slides. So we had to sit through slide presentations that were horrifying for me because I was never in them, because I was the youngest, so blah, blah, blah, and then one time I didn't like it, so my dad said he'd never show slides again. I think I was five. Come on, dad, but you know parents are parents. Um, what other things were I thinking about?
Speaker 1:Oh, do you have a traditional dinner you do on Christmas Eve or Christmas day? Christmas day for us was always prime rib, mashed potatoes, yorkshire, pudding cream, corn, uh. And Christmas Eve we always um with my family. I'm cranking our kids. We always went to church Christmas Eve to the family service, and then we always had Chinese dinner. It didn't matter where we lived, whether it was Texas, oregon and in Orange County where we lived for our 22 years we always went to Wan Fuse and had Chinese dinner. And the sad thing is the year before the last Christmas we all had together, before Craig and I moved, I had fricking COVID. So I didn't get to go to church, I didn't get to go to Chinese restaurant, I didn't get to be out there and open presents with everyone, and that was probably our last little family Christmas and I'm kind of bummed about that. But you know, so it goes, so it goes.
Speaker 1:We also have a traditional Christmas breakfast. What do you have for traditional Christmas breakfast? Some people have egg cast roles. I always made monkey bread and sausage. So that was our Christmas morning Open the stockings, open your gifts from Santa, kind of breakfast. And then we would have the big prime rib in the afternoon. And then, when the kids were young, we went to the movies. There was always a new Pixar movie or Disney movie out right around Christmas and we would do that.
Speaker 1:Thanksgiving's were a little different Thanksgiving's. Most of our Thanksgiving's we spent. I hosted a few, my sister's hosted a few, my nephew Chris's hosted a few. But when my mom and dad were alive, craig and I, when we lived in California, would drive up to Oregon and when we lived in Portland we would drive down to mom and dad's. Mom always did Thanksgiving and then when I moved to California, my sister and I kind of split it and then my nephew Chris is a great cook and he jumped in the fray and we've all kind of shared that that's Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1:Do you have Thanksgiving dishes that are traditional, traditional to your family? Ours, one of ours, was a Southern candied yam. So my mom would make yams and they had what was called a praline topping. So you just create praline, you put it was like molten lava. Seriously, by the time she took it out of the oven. But that was something my mom was known for. My dad loved cream onions, so do I, and those are in rolls. We always had a lot of rolls. I loved rolls. My sister Devin my oldest sister Devin loved to roll, probably still does, and so do I.
Speaker 1:I'm not a big turkey person. I don't know about you, I just I don't really like turkey. So I will have all the sides. I love the green bean casserole, traditional canned soup. Don't fancy it up. What did I see on Instagram or something the other day? Don't experiment on Thanksgiving. Like, if you're making a family dish, don't experiment on Thanksgiving. It will go. People will be so ungrateful. I'm telling you I thought that was pretty funny. Don't mess up any of the favorite dishes, just do them the way you're told. Do them the way the recipe says.
Speaker 1:Did your family have something other than turkey? We always had turkey. One of my friends, my new friends, pearl, her husband does all the cooking and he's making duck. So I know some people have duck. Some people add a ham in there. I'm a ham lover. That's why I love to eat your dinner, because we always had a ham. I love a ham.
Speaker 1:Easter dinner makes me laugh because when we lived in Texas I was talking to my mom on the phone. Kyle was about three and my mom had asked me they were coming for Easter. Should she bring a leg of lamb? Because her and Craig and my dad all love lamb. So I yelled across the house to Craig. I said hey, my mom wants to bring a leg of lamb. Do you want her to bring it? Craig said sure. So about an hour and a half went by and Kyle came up to me and she said mom, is grandma bringing a sheep on the plane. Like what do you mean? And then I thought about it a leg of lamb. She thought grandma was bringing a sheep on the plane. Sorry, that joke, that little funny, still gets me. So those are some of the holiday traditions I miss. I miss the department stores. I miss that shopping going down to whatever Main Street was, even in the San Fernando Valley, they would decorate across Van Nuys Boulevard, ventura Boulevard, you'd have all your decorations.
Speaker 1:I remember going to the Hollywood Christmas Parade as a kid, not with my family but with other families that would take me Maybe I went with my family once. I remember doing that. I remember with my family going to the Rose Parade and Craig and I were blessed enough. Our nieces from Chicago were marching in at several just before COVID and I got to go to Disneyland and see them march there, because the kids always get to march at Disneyland before they march in the Rose Parade and saw them there and then got to see them at the Rose Parade and really had a great time. Had was seating in the bleachers. I'm not a big one for these big crowd things, even though I love Disneyland as much as I do, because I know how to get myself around things at Disneyland. But once again, as I'm getting older, I'm pushing myself out there, so we've got to do that.
Speaker 1:So I hope that you're thinking about your traditions. I'm hoping, if you're young enough and you haven't set up your family traditions, you think about it. Think about what you want as your traditions and find a few. Take some from your parents and then add some of your own. Craig and I'll still do big stockings for each other. I don't know if anybody's gonna be here for Christmas. Alec and Sharon said they might come. Well, they said they'd come. Now they might come. Kyle's still not talking to me, so we'll just let that be. So think about it. I'm excited about the holidays. I'm looking forward to the holidays. I know they're not the happiest time for everyone, but if you can find some joy, I hope you find it Alrighty. Well, that's my trip down memory lane, and now we're gonna have a senior moment.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't know if you've seen the news lately or if you're aware of Maria Shriver's work with Alzheimer's, but in watching the Today Show this week in the morning, there's been a new study and this is really important. Getting treatment for hearing loss, such as hearing aids, could help protect your brain against Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. This is according to a new study. It's a very comprehensive study. I suggest you look this up.
Speaker 1:But then let's go back to health insurance. All the money we pay for health insurance doesn't cover hearing aids and I'm gonna tell you right now and you've learned this from our past episodes Medicare doesn't cover hearing aids either. I hate to tell you. You have to have an Advantage plan and usually an Advantage plan doesn't cover all of it, but covers a great deal of it. Craig's hearing aids were gonna be like $6,000. I think they cost us a thousand, so we still have to pay for them.
Speaker 1:But these are things that are important. It's important to pay attention to the new findings and what's happening in the news. If hearing aids could really help the brain fight against Alzheimer's and dementia, what a small price to pay, right, wearing a hearing aid? Craig wears his all the time. You can't see him Telling you these new hearing aids are pretty fabulous. He does everything on his phone. Occasionally he has a problem, but if you are having hearing issues, I want you to go get your hearing checked, find out if your insurance covers it. Most insurance don't.
Speaker 1:And again, I'm gonna tell you right now, plain, straight forward Medicare does not pay for hearing aids. So I know I hear people all the time oh, I'll just wait till I get Medicare. Well, good luck, because if you don't have an advantage plan or if you don't have someone like Nita Wendrick and all her information's on my website to help you navigate the Medicare, you won't get them covered. But think about that. If you have someone in your life that is not hearing, well, this is a great reason to tell them hey, you may wanna look into hearing aids. Dementia, alzheimer's reduces the risk. That's amazing to me and you know, the more and more we find out.
Speaker 1:You need to stay up with the news, you need to listen, you need to look into, go online and look up senior news. Follow AARP. As you know, aarp I'm a big proponent of that always has all this information Good information for us as seniors. So if you need information, go to my website wwwaging8forcissiescom. I'm sorry, aging8forcissiespodcastcom. Aging8forcissiespodcastcom. Agingfast1atgmailcom. Again, that's agingfast1atgmailcom. You can email me directly. I answer emails all the time. If you have a subject you'd like me to cover, please email me, or if you have someone you think would love to talk to me on the podcast, please let me know. As we go into the holiday, season Gets harder to get people to come on cause everybody's busy, but I am working to get Craig's audiologist on here and I think, after having this little conversation today, we should probably do that. So remember what I always say aging8forcissies Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Thank you.