Every year or so during the Christmas season, I try to return
to the small town of Mt. Tabor in northern New Jersey where I grew up. Not only does it bring back memories from my
childhood, but the town itself hasn't changed much since the Victorian era, so
it’s like walking into a Victorian Christmas.
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| Mt. Tabor, NJ |
Mt. Tabor was founded in 1869 by the Methodist church as one
of two camp meeting grounds in New Jersey for outdoor summer religious retreats. The Methodist faithful would pitch tents and camp
out in either Mt. Tabor or Ocean Grove for the month of August to study the
Bible, attend revival meetings, and hear sermons and religious lectures. In time, the revelers built cottages on the 16’
x 25' tent lots and Mt. Tabor soon became a summer resort. Eventually the cottages were winterized,
which led to a year-round community.
Many of the original cottages still exist today. Homes in the old section of town are covered
with Victorian filigree, trim and railings and many are still painted with bold
complementary colors true to the Victorian era.
Mt. Tabor is still a hilltop community of about 1,000 people
with beautiful wooded streets, 15 MPH speed limits, its own nine-hole golf
course—the former farm of Stephan Dickerson, who sold the property to the
Methodists in 1869 and whose descendants still live in town—basketball courts,
a playground, a baseball diamond and Mt. Tabor School, to which I walked across
town as a child, as do the children today. It was a special place, and still is.
But for most of us, the Christmas season was the most
special. Christmas decorations were a
tradition in town; not the Santa Claus and reindeer variety, but white and
multi-colored lights adorning the angular peaks, gingerbread and railings of
the Victorian homes. There was no rulebook
that said you had to participate, but almost every household did its part to
decorate the town.
In our family, trimming the outside of the house was as much
an annual ritual as decorating the Christmas tree. We’d march up to the attic and bring down all
the lights, then crawl under the porch to drag out the ladder. Dad would direct us to our stations, then
climb the ladder and my three brothers and I would feed the strings of lights
along like a bucket brigade, Paul, the youngest behind me, Jon ahead of me, and
Mark, the oldest, a "big kid" with his feet two rungs up on the
ladder. By the time we got back inside
hours later, the house was warm from the fire and Mom had Andy Williams, Burl
Ives and Tony Bennett singing Christmas songs on the record player. The house smelled like fireplace smoke, pine
from the Christmas tree, and cinnamon and cloves from the hot mulled cider Mom
had ready for us. After a snack and
Christmas cookies with the hot cider, we'd tackle decorating the Christmas
tree.
I'm sure it didn't snow for some Christmases, although my
memory is a blank for those, as I always remember walking around town on snow-covered
streets with my family to take in the lights, and to participate in groups of
Christmas carolers performing for the neighbors. It had an aura of something from Charles
Dickens’ era: the crunch of snow underfoot, Oh
Come All Ye Faithful wafting from a few blocks away from another group of
carolers, and our noses and fingers stinging from the cold air. I always half expected to see Scrooge, after
his evening transformation by the ghosts, with Tiny Tim beside him, walk around
the corner.
On those caroling evenings we were frequently invited inside
for hot chocolate by the neighbors.
Maybe people would think that's corny today, but it still goes on.
Another tradition was sledding (we called it “sleigh riding”)
and tobogganing on the golf course. The
fourth green, sacred ground that couldn’t be tread upon by kids in summer, was always
made available to us in winter as a perfect launching pad for our rides. You could even find Chas Fouquet, the most
obsessive golfer in town, helping to give our sleds that initial push across
the expanse of the green to build up speed for a breathtaking run down the hill
to the long slope of the third fairway.
There was also a rite of passage at about the fifth or sixth grade that
advanced you to taking runs down "Bloody Guts", the 45-degree bone-crushing
hill from the tee down to the sixth green over rocks, nasty tree stumps and a
stream bed that would eat you alive if you didn't properly negotiate the four-foot-wide
bridge across it.
As I write this I've decided I'm going back to Mt. Tabor
this year to walk around town to take in the Christmas lights. Hopefully snow will cover the streets, as it
should. Most things in our lives change,
but Mt. Tabor will always hold, for those of us who grew up there, the ability
to transport us into the past by virtue of its retention of the traditions of
old. I wish you all happy holidays with
the hope you have an opportunity to revisit some of your own traditions of the
season, and that your memories of former holidays are as precious as mine.
