Christmas Eve, folks! Got most of my gifts (only one more little one to go!) Today is wrapping day for me - before 2PM!
Today is the big day for stores beginning with "W"! You know, "Walgreen's," "Wal-mart," etc.
Every year, Chicago's 24-Hour News Radio Station, WBBM AM 780, and reporter Jim Benes, does a quick, two-minute retrospective of Chicago Christmas's, in 10 year increments, going way back to Christmas, 1927. Click here to listen to each clip.
A few highlights from the last 50 years -
Christmas, 1997 - A white Christmas here in Chicago. Chicagoans were mourning the death of Comedian Chris Farley, who was found dead in his Chicago apartment a week before Christmas. Elton John's tribute to Princess Diana topped the music charts.
Christmas, 1987 - Another white Chicago Christmas - with temperatures climbing later in the day to the middle 30's. Carollers celebrate a recent court ruling to allow a Nativity Scene in Chicago Downtown Daley Plaza, while protesters marched nearby. An 18-foot aluminium menorah also was erected on The Plaza that year.
Christmas, 1977- A very cold Christmas in Chicago - wind chill factor of minus 27 degrees! The Bee Gee's "How Deep is your Love" tops the charts. Chicago's now-defunct Goldblatt's store was selling the new Atari Video Game System for $169.
Christmas, 1967- Another cold Christmas here in Chicago. Many Chicagoans oppose the war in Vietnam - 474,000 Americans were serving in the war on Christmas Day, 1967. Others wonder if American protests were actually encouraging the the Vietnamise Communists in North Vietman.
Christmas, 1957 - Cloudy, rainy, with temperatures in the mid-40's. The Cold War was in full swing, as President Dwight Eisenhower asked the Soviet Union for clear evidence of their intentions to promote peace throughout the world. The Russian Satellite Sputnik was launched two months earlier. Elvis Presley got drafted earlier in 1957, and a brand new song by Rock-a-billy Singer Bobby Helms, "Jingle Bell Rock," was being played on Top 40 Station WIND.
Enjoy the Memories, folks! Merry Christmas!
DEAN & DEAN'S TEAM CHICAGO
