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Merry Christmas!

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Here’s a classic piece of Christmas nostalgia. A Charlie Brown Christmas debuted in 1965 and was apparently unappreciated by network executives, who despaired of the child actors’ unprofessional sounding voices, the jazz soundtrack by Vince Guaraldi, and the reading of a Bible passage by Linus. The Christmas special was expected to be a ratings disaster and there were no plans to repeat it.

Half of all the TV households in America were tuned in to watch this show. Getting the attention of such a large portion of the country all at one time was possible in 1965. Although we are even more wired together today, it would be difficult to persuade half of America to look at the same thing simultaneously unless it was a live historic event, a terrible tragedy or the Super Bowl.

“A Charlie Brown Christmas” may have single-handedly killed the aluminum Christmas tree, which was an innovation that I, as a 10 year old, admired. Especially when it came with a revolving color wheel!

The opening scene of children skating on a frozen pond brings back winter memories for me. I did the very same thing with a group of friends on a little pond in the woods near our house in Montrose, New York. This was not a community pond in a public park with a warming house, lights and piped in music. It was really off in the woods, away from any roads and not visited by anyone except us. The forest came right down to the edge of the water. We’d sit on fallen trees to lace up our skates. The frozen surface was rough – occasionally interrupted by a stump or a stick, which added an element of unpredictable excitement to our skating parties. I’m guessing there are no figure skaters who got a start there, but it was a great location for unsupervised, frictionless roughhousing.

Where do you (or did you) go to skate?

52 thoughts on “Merry Christmas!”

  1. Morning all. I grew up in Missouri, so mostly my early ice skating was done on ice rinks. But once when I was about 8, it was a hard winter and the lakes and waterways of Forest Park froze solid for several weeks. Even though there was a fairly new ice skating rink in Forest Park, skating on the lake was a huge novelty. We made a big day of it… first sledding on Art Hill (art museum is at the top of said hill) and then skating on the lake. The park service had done themselves proud with bonfires and hot chocolate. It’s the only time I remember being able to skate on pond/lake ice as a kid, but I remember it fondly.

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  2. I was/am a very poor skater. But we would go into town to two different skating rinks of which I have very clear memories. It was odd for my parents to do this to spend time watching us like that, in the car. When we are older we would go at night. Town rinks are better at night. My first intro to classical music was at skating rinks. They did not play much, but I noticed and liked this different sort of music.A warming house had a distinct atmosphere. Much less skating goes on now than then. The town kids would run there all the time. It was full of kids inthat pre-TV time.
    In my fifth grade year. the Knife River, in the woods a mile below our house, froze solid but there was little snow. We skated the 3/4 mile to one road, then back, then the 1/2 mile to the other road and then back. We did that a few times before real snow finally came. There were lots of problems with frozen pipes and such that year, but those skating trips were special. But they did not make me a skater. To skate through the woods right against the banks in dead silence and scare up a bit of startled wildlife–that was special. It was the last time we three children in our seven year age spread were close.
    My senior year a friend and I flooded the two town hockey rinks, sometimes out spraying water in 40 below weather.We earned the $1.25 an hour.
    I just wished a happy 10th birthday to my grand daughter.
    So good day all.

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      1. There was a little snow. But normally by the time the river froze well it had a foot of snow or more on it. In normal years we would snowshoe to the river and then on it for a ways.Nothing helped my skate very well. My ankles have always been a problem. To play football I had to have my ankles fully taped. Skating hurt them. The long river skates made them very sore but it was worth it.

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        1. I recall the first hour or so of skating being pure agony. It felt like a burning knife along the middle of each foot until I got hardened to the experience of supporting the weight of my body on two narrow blades. This was back when I was just a little scrimp and didn’t carry much weight; can’t imagine what it would be like today, excruciating no doubt.

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    2. ten is such a great time to be a kid. hope she enjoys her day. the whole world is celebrating it. how nice to get all that special stuff over with in one fell swoop. i hear its tough but heck she doesnt know any different. did she end up with holly or some christmas name?

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      1. She does not mind it. She is very easy going. The school principal once asked her father if she ever did NOT smile. She is just always happy, dancing, singing.
        Her name is [ready for this] Lily. Named after a special aunt of her father’s. Her brother will turn 8 on Easter Day this year. Before they knew he was to be a boy, they thought if it was girl, name her Holly. Then they would have an Easter Lily and a Christmas Holly.

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  3. Good morning. I didn’t do much skating when I was young. I did get a pair of skates when I was in high school in St. Clair Shores for 2 years and did a little skating on Lake St Clair. That is a big lake and there were some rough places where the ice formed in big ridges. Ice hockey was a big thing there close to Detroit which was the home of the Detroit Red Wings. Gordie Howe was playing for them in those days and he was a big star. My stakes were ice hockey skates. I was only in high school in St. Clair Shores for two years and didn’t get into playing ice hockey. At least I had the right skates for joining in on a game if I had found a place to play.

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  4. A very Merry Christmas to each and every baboon out there. Hope you have a wonderful day.

    I got my first pair of ice skates when I was seven, the kind that you screwed on with a key. Like most of my friends, I didn’t have a pair of solid boots to screw them onto, so we screwed them on our Wellies (rubber boots usually worn when it was raining). This was in 1950, back before climate change had pretty much done away with white Christmas and frozen lakes and even seas in Denmark. Most of the time we skated on a small pond called Hjertesøen (Heart Lake, so named because of its shape). Like Dale’s pond in the woods, a rather rough surface to skate on, and numerous times the front of the skate would come loose from the boot and further complicate an already treacherous undertaking. One year, sometime before we moved to Copenhagen in 1954, I remember the strait between Falster, the small island I lived on, and Bogø, the even smaller island north of us, freezing solid. That meant we had a vast expanse of frozen sea water to skate on, miles of it. That winter it froze so hard that you could drive cars across the ice from one island to the other (we didn’t have a car, so this didn’t apply to us). When we moved to Copenhagen a few years later, I acquired a pair of ski boots. These sturdier boots made it likelier the skates remained screwed on, and thus made crashes due to equipment failure less frequent. Never an accomplished skater, I managed to have a significant number of them anyway; I bear a scar on the bottom of my chin to this day as proof. Our “skating rink” in Lyngby (the suburb of Copenhagen where we lived) was a flooded soccer field. I have never skated in an ice rink, and although I understand the concept of a warming house, I have never actually been in one.

    I remember skating as a child fondly. It was a time of cavorting with friends and lots of fresh air. We’d return home with pink cheeks, bruised hands and knees, and completely worn out after hours of strenuous physical activity; it was great. I didn’t get a pair of figure skates until I moved to Cheyenne in 1965. Sadly my skating days are all behind me, can’t afford another fall on a hard surface.

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  5. I’ve mentioned all of this before. We would walk out of my home and go down a hill, across a field and then down another hill. (“We” would usually be my two best buddies and me.) And there we would find Squaw Creek, which in winter would usually be frozen. We’d sit on the bank to lace up our skates (hockey skates; the ones with tall tops were “girls’ skates”). We had knapsacks loaded with essential equipment. And then we would take off upriver, scooting along in long glides that made a lovely sound. Danny, my golden retriever, would scrabble hard to keep up with us, his toenails sliding on the ice.

    The special joy of this was that the curving creek kept giving us new views, always delighting and surprising us. If a stick had been floating on the creek when it froze, and if one of our skates hit that stick, it would stop that skate RIGHT NOW; only the skater would not stop but would fly forward and then slide, tummy and nose on the ice, for several yards.

    Just a little skating would take us to the north edge of town (13th Street). Anywhere up there we might pull into shore and build a fire to roast wieners and marshmallows, slipping a few wieners to Danny. And we would talk the silly talk of boys who are out on an adventure on their own. Note two things: we were outdoors (as we almost always were in those days) and no adult had any idea of where we were, much less was present to supervise. We lived in a world populated only by boys, boys grinning and skating with runny noses, boys who ruled the world or as much of it as they cared about.

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  6. I grew up in Iowa being regaled by my mother with tales of skating on the little lake near their house in Young America. My grandpa (who I never knew) built the kids a shed affair with an old wood stove in it for a warming house, and it sounds like they spent most of the winter out there.

    We had nothing of the sort, but when I was in junior high, someone got the idea that a bunch of us should skate on the backwater of the Wapsipinicon river in our town, which had all the features exactly as Dale describes them. My paternal grandparents had gotten me skates that year for Christmas, and I guess they figured I was going to take after that side of the family in terms of foot size, so I was gamely doing my best in size 9 skates on my size 6 feet (wear a couple of pairs of socks, you’ll be fine!).

    Thing I remember best about those excursions was stopping and the gas station that had a hot chocolate and coffee vending machine afterwards. (how cool, and machine that made hot chocolate one cup at a time)

    I love the idea of skating, I truly do (adore the book, Hans Brinker!), but as my hands are my livlihood and I never learned to do it well, I am a little wary of it these days (which is not to say I may not give it a try this winter on the rink near Groveland school).

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    2. I grew up skating on that Groveland school rink. I was never very good, but always had fun. One time a friend lost a lens from her glasses on the ice. I found it. Still one of my claims to fame. The last time I tried skaking, about 20 years ago, I had total ankle failure and had to practically crawl off the ice. Haven’t tried it since. Merry Christmas to all!

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  8. I remember doing a little skating on a frozen section of the St. Croix as a kid. Betsy Setzer’s mom made cocoa for the throngs.

    As a teenager I remember a nondescript rink with a warming house, but I couldn’t tell you where it was.

    Have a good holiday, ‘boons – since I can’t give each of you an individual gift, I wish you all songs of joy and peace, whichever are your favorites.

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  10. Greetings! I did some ice skating as a child, but a particularly memorable time was in high school. I attended a hippie, progressive boarding school an hour from Green Bay. It was a beautiful, wooded campus with a small lake. One winter, it got real cold before it snowed, so the lake froze flat and smooth with no snow. Although they usually shoveled a skating area, for a few weeks we had perfect skating over the entire lake. I was a decent skater after some practice, so I loved to go by myself and skate far around the lake in the moonlight, listening to the silence, enjoying my solitude and stretching my skating ability. I loved the feeling of total freedom and being able to skate practically anywhere on the expanse of clear ice.

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  11. Rise and Shine on a Merry Christmas Day Baboons!

    I skated on the local ice rinks created by our small Iowa town fire department and the city parks. The gravel pit also froze over and the city rec department cleared that, as well. We skated daily unless it was snowing or far below zero. There were no warming houses, only warm cars. I was a good skater ( in that time and place) having learned to spin, skate backwards, and do a few tricks. Like PJ, That is over–no more hard falls for me and my sacro iliac.

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  12. We are talking about skating while my seven-year-old and ten-year-old (as of today) arre setting up their new Kindle Fires.

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  14. As a kid I skated at C&C Field in St. Louis Park. It was a hub of Little League baseball in the summer, but sported a huge general skating rink plus a hockey rink in winter. I had to walk about a mile to get there, and rarely if ever got a ride from Mom or Dad.

    I stunk as a skater when I was a kid. I must have spent five years just learning how to keep from skating on my ankles! (I’m much better at it now, thank you.) But my dad was the goalie for SLP when they went to the state tournament in the early ’50s. Even cooler, his best friend, Bob Owen, went on to play hockey at Harvard and was a member of the 1960 Olympic hockey team that won the gold medal in Squaw Valley. So Dad was always a hockey fan and coached little kids even when my brother and I were out of high school.

    My brother played hockey up until high school and was much better at it than me, but I was the classic “wannabe” rink rat. I don’t know why I cared so much about playing hockey, since I didn’t relish the hitting, or later the fighting. And it certainly hurt to get a puck to the ankle back in the day when skates were just leather boots bolted to steel blades. No foot protection at all.

    But I loved the gliding! The effortless traveling, especially when skating downwind. I felt as if I could fly if only I could get up enough speed. And the sharp turns, sometimes on on the brink of wiping out ,the two edged stops that shoot a spray of ice and snow into the air, the sound of the metal blade scraping the ice with each step, the crack of the puck as it left the blade of a stick on a slapshot. But the gliding most of all.

    A few winters, Dad would flood the garden in the backyard, and we’d be able to skate there instead of traipsing down to C&C. But the garden was only about 30×30 feet, so one couldn’t get up much speed or play a pickup game. Nevertheless, we kids thought it was way cool.

    I also had fond memories of skating on the chain of lakes in Minneapolis those rare winters when the freezing cold came before the first substantial snowfall. Skating from Cedar, to Lake of the Isles, to Calhoun and back again was fantasyland for us. Almost like being in the Netherlands and skating on the canals.

    I still skate now in Owatonna on the Straight River when it freezes over and the city clears a huge rink just above the Morehouse Park dam. I don’t play hockey anymore since a few years ago when I caught a blade in a rut and busted up my face on a steel post that supports the boards.

    But I’m a rabid Gopher hockey fan and actually had the privilege of taking a hockey class for a Phy-Ed credit at the U of M on old Mariucci Arena. What a charge that was back in 1977, when Herb Brooks was the coach, the Gophers were winning NCAA championships, and Herb was nearing his coaching tenure for the 1980 Miracle Olympic team. Herbie was actually listed as the instructor for that hockey class, but he only introduced himself on the first day and handed over the class to his teaching assistant, who might have been one of the players, for all I know. Still, scoring a goal on the ice of Mariucci Arena in a Phy-Ed class was a highlight of college for me.

    The Morehouse Park rink isn’t open yet, but I think it will be by this weekend, thanks to the near 0 temps we’re getting this week. I’ll be out there Saturday for sure unless it’s too cold. My toes don’t handle cold temps as well as they used to, but I froze my toes so darn many times playing rink rat hockey at C&C that I suppose they’re telling me I’m too old to skate outside anymore. To which I say, “Bah, humbug!”

    Merry Christmas, Baboons.

    Chris in Owatonna

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    1. Great memories, Chris. There’s is something about that gliding motion that is very satisfying, isn’t there? I always admired those two bladed stops that made the snow fly, but I was never able to do it myself. For one thing, the skates would have come off the boots if I had tried it, so I never did. Skating backwards was another skill that I never really mastered.

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  15. There was a small rink with a warming house across from the High School next to the Wisconsin Synod Church. I skated there sometimes, but was such a wimp when it came to cold I didn’t skate much. In our town there is a large outdoor rink that the city maintains, and we have skated there with our son and daughter, bringing hockey sticks and pucks and trying to look somewhat graceful but not suceeding. I can stand the cold now, but my, I land hard when I fall. We also have an indoor rink that the public can use when the hockey teams aren’t using it. The city sponsors a New Year’s Eve skating party there every year that is a nice alcohol-free alternative for families and teens. Today is my parents’ 70th wedding anniversary. Happy |Anniversary, Jake and Evie!

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  16. One of the big differences between Missouri and Minnesota is hockey. While St. Louis has an ice hockey team, most of the players come from elsewhere; ice hockey isn’t an ingrained sport for kids there like it is here. And I still love to see the parks flooded for skating – that’s something that never happens in Missour!

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  17. Afternoon everyone.

    I never did ice skate. It seems maybe I tried once or twice with olld skates that never fit right. And the creek froze so rough you really couldn’t skate on it. I used to roller skate a fair amount with 4H but after I hurt my leg and ankle then I could only go in little circles anyway.

    OT; it’s unusual to have a quiet day or night outside with no sounds of traffic in the distance or airplanes, tractors, neighbors or something. But had it last night and again this morning. Stood outside and only heard chickens / ducks and it was nice.

    Merry Christmas and thanks for being here. Thanks for sharing!

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    1. yep we had a bonfire and the wood popping and tilting your head down to keep the smoke from burning your eyes is a wonderful way to interact with outdoors. i had called for a bonfire but everyone wanted to call it of because it was too cold out. when i went to get the firewood to move the fire to the fireplace in the living room decided it was the perfect temp for a bonfire, gotta stand close and turn but thats when you celebrate a good fire
      ive commented before on my wearing the sides off my skates bought to fit this year and next by a hand me down dad from the depression who was told newspaper and sox will make any pair of skates fit. i wanted figure skates but there were never any boys figure skates so i got girls and shoe dye but the dye came off in the snow and i got teased. my ego was a little fragile back then and i didnt want to be teased nightly so i gave up the skating rink as a hangout. there was a guy with speed skates i would have give my left arm for but that would never happen in my house. something so extravagent was beyond thought. later i found out i was lucky i didnt learn about skating in the hockey rink . it would have ben right up my alley but i grew up in the time when the padding was newspapers in the sweatpand legs and helmets and teeth guardes were for sissies, so i would likely have been toothless and scarred in addition to being distracted by one more jock pursuit i ould have had to abandon when hippiedom rolled around. the hockey guys really hated the hippies. i knew because i had 3 or 4 friends on the state high school hockey team and they took a lot of flack for hanging out with a hippy.
      on snoopy/ i loved that show like none of the subsequent charlie brown shows. something about the lack of high falluting cinematography and the simplicity of the message. the linus scene is still one i stop for
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKk9rv2hUfA

      we had a wonderful christmas in spite of my wife drinking a glass of wine the 3 glsses of bailys and getting just schnockered. she was funny as hell but by the time it was present wrapping on the agenda which she excels at she was sawing logs and mumbling. i was up until 4 with one break where i fell asleep in the bathtub only to wake up as my head snapped all the way back and crack every vertebrate in my upper spine.(helped a lot). this am the wait for sister and her new husband had my yougest wearing a hole in the carpet in form ot the window looking out for htem so we could begin the day. they were 30 minutes late but i woke up a bit late myself after the night of wrappung and watching the christmas story 3 or 4 times before the crash and burn occurred. for a long enough tme to band aid in a 30 minute nap about 2 and geting back in the saddle. i will sleep well tonight thoug. 7 feels like 11 tonight.
      thanks baboons have a good boxing day and thanks for the wonderful stories of growing up on rivers and ponds to skate on in your youth. we will certainly be the last generation of americans telling those stories. even eveleth and warroad need perfect ice today i am told to compete at the proper level and to have rink time when the winter is too warm. i love the days when the kids picked teams and ran the show and the lenght of the day was determined by the remaining hours of daylight before sundown and then the night took over as the object of passion. anybody else ever hear of bumper dragging. gosh i loved that sport. behind bill hendersons 59 chev or dave wilsons 64 ford we would grab onto the bumpers after the snow fall before the salt rucks screwed up the streets and we would basically hang on for dear life as the driver tried to play crack the whip with you hanging onto the bumper. if the day took you out to the boonies the back roads could be used days after the storm sometimes more fun with packed ice and real good slick surfaces before the spring thaw would fix the traction so we couldn’t go without wearing out our boots and the seat of our pants.
      cross country skiing felt like skating to me as you all describe it but the loneliness of sightseeing on beautiful trails vs social life at the warming house was a better than fair trade.
      i love cross country skiing maybe this will be a winter where it will work.
      see you all down the trail

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      2. tim, you’re a marvel! It’s a wonder that you haven’t managed to kill yourself already (though your wife might if she reads this blog). Personally I’m glad you have survived to tell your amazing stories; so glad you’re a blog regular.

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        1. bumper dragging was not anything but fun, the cops saw us and told us to be careful and said they wished they could be with us. the world was a club in those days. they could tell if you were mean spirited or just creative spirits and had the freedom to deal with the world as they saw fit. i was very proud of talking my way through some sticky wickets by explaining the logic employed by the irresponsible decision of the moment with a bit of snappy patter and respect for authority with a wink wink thrown in on the side. life is a fun event. isn’t it.
          i didnt get a motorcycle until 5 years ago because i was certain id kill myself. today i employ the no alcohol on the bike rule and hop to enjoy it as i ride off into the sunset with a hey nanny nanny and a love of life. i am so happy this blog is here for us all to meet. who else would hang out here on christmas day. a great group of good people and good friends. life can be simple.

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  18. My first memories of ice skating are on a little rink my dad flooded in our front yard. Strapped on skates on the steps and waddled through the snow to the little postage stamp of ice and pushed around a red wooden chair (for balance). Eventually I upgraded to the rink at the park down the road. I remember watching my mother skate lazy backwards circles and my brother speed around on his hockey skates. I was envious of both. I can skate lazy circles now myself (forwards and back), but never learned speed. We occasionally went down to Lake Harriet, but that ice was often bumpy and you couldn’t be sure when it was really ready – the park rink was a safer bet. Now they don’t even bother with trying to clear a rink at Lake Harriet, but I have found that I am totally spoiled by free warming houses and free skating rinks. When it was so awful last year at the outdoor rinks I went a couple of times to the rink downtown with Daughter – and while warm and indoors is nice, I could never used to paying to skate. Better be cold enough this winter – we are trying to flood a small spot in our back yard this year – in part because Daughter got fine new skates from Santa that she is itching to use. If ours doesn’t work, we’ll have to keep our fingers crossed that Lynnhurst Park will have more than mush for us this year to skate on.

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    1. Anna, for a skating adventure on a weekend, head to the smallish rink next to the Landmark Center in St. Paul. Rice Park is beautifully lit up, and it’s truly a magical atmosphere, pretty sure you and your daughter will love it. To make a day of it, you could combine it with a visit to the Science Museum that’s within walking distance.

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      1. Anna, I live about a five minute drive from there. If parking is an issue, and it almost always is, you could come to my house and park there. I’d be glad to to drop you off and pick you up.

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      2. I often walk by that little rink by the Landmark Center on my way to and from the opera. Haven’t yet made it down – though it seems like a lovely place to skate. And if I were to make a day of it with Daughter, a trip to the nearby Science Museum is definitely in order. May have to put that on the “staycation” agenda for January…(long weekend when we can’t get out of town, but Something Fun should happen). Heck, I’d even pay for parking. 😀

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