“Everyone can make an Ethical Will”

By

Gerry Niskern

I wrote about Ethical Wills once before, years ago. I believe the idea bears repeating for new generations of readers in this New Year. An Ethical Will is an opportunity for you to communicate your hopes and dreams for the future generations of your family. Your morals, regrets and yes, your opinions are all included.  They are usually written by people at a turning point in their lives.

An Ethical will  is not a legal document; rather it is a record of your nonrepresentational wealth. Although parents would like to see their children financially secure, they would also like to leave some philosophical provisions as well.

Think of the many phrases stated by your parents or grandparents that influenced you while growing up. One of my mother’s favorites comes to mind. “Be kind and respectful to the elderly, their life is hard.” When I would argue, “But, Mom, what if they’re crabby with me?” She always replied, “That doesn’t matter. We still respect the old.”

Then there was one of my grandmother’s admonishments, in her broken English. “Don’t go where you no belong.” Her advice still serves a purpose in our family. These examples are not exactly an ethical will, but certainly examples of the making of one.

Writing an Ethical Will does not require enormous education or wisdom. It’s what you have to give of yourself.  Every will is as unique as the person writing it, but there are common themes. Personal values are important, as well as “life’s lessons learned.” Families are mentioned often. “Take care of the family. Value the family.”  Many give instructions on how to maintain the strength of the family.

If you need help getting started, start keeping a journal. Over a period of time themes will emerge that you can use in drafting your ethical will.

.          Many newlyweds sit down and share their values in ethical wills. It doesn’t matter if you are an engaged couple, brand new parents, divorcing, empty nesters, or end of lifers, there is no time like the present. Not everyone can pass along a financial legacy, but everybody can transmit some of the richness of life. You have lived and learned and have thoughts to pass on. Just be yourself. Open your heart and write the gift that your family will cherish.

THE BEST KIND OF CHRISTMAS

By

Gerry Niskern

I had two Christmas celebrations as a child. My sister and I woke up on December 25^th to the smell of pine. Santa had brought presents and a beautiful sparkling tree too. What more could a kid ask for.

But on January 6^th, at my grandma Gunto’s house, we had our favorite Christmas. We looked forward to Grandma’s Orthodox Catholic celebration because we were with our many cousins. Mom came from a family of l3, so there were a lot of cousins. There were no presents exchanged, just the joy of the whole family being together.

My grandma’s living room was cleared of furniture and long tables and chairs were set up. The tables were groaning with food. After a prayer by one of the grownups in my Grandmothers native language, my little Austrian grandma would always say, “Now Geddy, you say in English”. She could never pronounce Gerry. I don’t know why she always chose me, out of all the kids, to say the blessing. I was painfully shy so I guess she thought it would be good practice for me!

We had Hulupkis. They were boiled cabbage leaves filled with browned ground beef and spices and rice. The cabbage was then folded like an envelope, rolled up and placed in a large kettle and covered with the savory brown gravy made from the browned beef. They were delicious.

There was Perogies too; my favorite. After making the dough, it was rolled out and cut into 3 inch squares. Then a mixture of mashed potatoes and chunks of yellow cheese was spooned out onto a square and folded over into a triangle and the edges pinched with a fork. The pockets were then dropped into boiling water for a few minutes to cook like a noodle. Then they were lifted out and plopped into a large skillet sizzling with chopped onion browning in butter.

There was always a bowl of stewed apricots, and fruit pies from the summer’s canning; cherry, peach and berry. The only cookies were plain round sugar cookies with a spoonful of jam in the middle and another round of cookie on top, with a hole in the middle for the jam to bubble thru.

The most important dish of the evening was a platter of round cooked noodle balls covered with honey and poppy seed.  Everyone had to eat one in order to have good health in the coming year. I dreaded that Austrian tradition, but I was always required to choke one down!

The evening was concluded with polka dancing with the music provided by my Uncle Paul from Italy. His sparkling blue accordion shimmered as everyone, young and old. danced. My grandma’s old frame house vibrated with fun. Then, of course, my Uncle Walter, from Russia, gave a command performance dancing the Mazurka. He crouched low, with arms across his chest and his boots kicking high into the air. Everyone tried to imitate him, but no one else was strong enough.

Every year, I ended up on someone’s lap in the living room in front of the fireplace watching the coal fire hiss and spew out plumes of yellow, red and purple flames. Mesmerized by the symphony of color I fell asleep; and always the next thing I knew. I woke up the next morning in my own bed!

“What puts you into the Christmas spirit?”

By

Gerry Niskern

Sometimes it’s the scent of something that you haven’t smelled for a while.This year, for me, it was when I peeled a tangerine from the tree in the back yard. Suddenly,I  was transported back to my childhood and memories of my Christmas stocking. The little mesh see thru stocking (my sister had one too) always contained some nuts, ribbon candy and a tangerine. I realized later that the tangerine was the most expensive item in the sock. Back then, none could be found where we lived so I’m sure my parents had to travel to a larger city to buy the exotic fruit that I loved.

While the tangerine put me in the Christmas mood, it saddened me too. What I have always loved most about the season as an adult, was the preparation. The cookie  baking, candy making and most of all, planning the parties. Physically, I am not up to those activities this year, I guess you could say,  I feel like I’ve been “put on the bench”and I hate it!

I decided the only way to compensate for the “out of the game” feeling was to concentrate on the gifts that I could find (with a lot of help from Amazon!) And also remember some past success at gifting.

Do you try to find the best gift ever for someone on your Christmas list? I do.

I can only get excited about Christmas after I start thinking of something as a really special surprise for at least one person. I can’t do it for everyone, but one’s enough to give me the Christmas spirit.

I get into the spirit of the season remembering some other special gifting. My earliest memory was of a tiny ladies lapel pin. It was a glowing lantern with some holly. I wrapped it in an empty Oxydol box to fool my mom. I saved all year for that special gift that cost 25 cents.

My resident historian was quite a harmonica player in his teens and my steady. I saved baby sitting money for months to buy him a large Hohner chromatic harmonica. I was serenaded many evenings for my efforts.

Back in the 50’s after the Russians had launched Sputnik, rockets were all kids in the U. S. could talk about. I found magazine ad for a heavy cardboard put-together-yourself rocket ship. Our kids were the envy of the block. They stood in line to blast off in our rocket ship.

During the “Maverick” years I scoured Phoenix and found 4 matching cowboy hats for our two boys and their two male cousins. Not just any cowboy hat. When you whipped it off your head a secret cowboy pistol popped out, pointed straight at the “outlaw of the day.”

I remember sewing and smocking two matching dresses for my daughter and her little cousin. If you have ever smocked, you know it was truly a gift of love. Some years later I sewed a gold with brown trim Velour shirt for my first little grandson and an exact duplicate one for his daddy.

Another time, in the sixties, I found a six year old niece a “low rise skirt and Poor Boy top” and she exclaimed, “Oh, a Beatles dress!”

Of course, I’ve received my share of special gifts, but the one I loved the most was during the “baby” years of the 50’s. My resident historian brought home a portable dishwasher. It was like being given a maid for Christmas!

Have you found the best gift ever ?

“How Christmas Wishes have changed”

by

Gerry Niskern

A funny thing happened on the way to Christmas one year. We had a party.

We had  been giving this annual party for thirty some years and most of the people attending had been coming to our house to celebrate the season since we started.

That year I decided that we would test their knowledge of each other with a “guess who that was” game.

I phoned to ask each one to tell me the one special thing that they had wished Santa to bring when they were a kid. Don’t tell me if you received it or not, just something special that you remember asking Santa Clause to bring.

In most cases, before I even finished my question, these “depression babies” named an item they remember vividly yearning for and declared, “And I didn’t get it either!”

A couple of the stories tugged at your heart strings a little more than others.  A lot of farm families used to gather at the grandparent’s house and all the toys for the various cousins would be placed under the tree. When my resident historian, Ken, was a little guy about four, he woke up before dawn and went down stairs to see if Santa had come. Yep! There was a train set all set up around the tree; just what he had wished for. When he came down later with his parents, his cousins were playing with their new train set!

Another Oklahoma  girl asked every year for a Shirley Temple doll. Year after year she saw other cousins unwrapping Shirley Temple dolls!

A little boy from Texas asked for any kind of airplane. His mother managed to buy him a little balsa wood flyer propelled by a rubber band. The problem was the first time he launched it, the little plane flew down the hill right into the hog pen. They pounced on it thinking it was food and ground it into the mud.

A Glendale girl always yearned for a pair of roller skates. She skated on friend’s skates once or twice, but Santa never had enough money for a pair of skates for her.

One Tennessee girl asked for  a Dionne Quintuplet doll, but more than anything she yearned for some clothes that weren’t three sizes too big, so she could “grow into them”.

There were wishes for Monopoly games, BB guns bicycles and basketballs. One young fellow found a basketball in the attic and assumed he was receiving it for Christmas. He and his friends built a backboard and hoop getting all prepared. Imagine his shock when a neighbor came to retrieve her son’s basketball that his mother was hiding for her.

It kind of blows your mind when you realize all of today’s children have to do is go online and  record their choices that are easy for grandmas, aunts and other relatives to consult and purchase for them!

Kids Christmas Coup

Every year we hear the same lament.  “Christmas is getting way too commercial.”

I have a great idea of how we could put some of the enchantment and wonder back into the Yuletide season for the children. Ban the photo sessions in the malls!

Let me explain.

Years ago I accompanied a young mother when she took her two little boys to the mall to visit Santa Claus. While standing in a two hour line with a chorus of babies’cries ringing in my ears, I watched various groups of teenage girls, taking turns sitting on ST. Nick’s knee to have their picture taken. There were also some idle retirees who thought it would be cute to send a photo taken with Santa to the kids back home. To be fair, I’m sure they didn’t realize how many minutes of precious toy ordering time they were wasting.

I saw scores of children climb onto Santa’s lap, settle in for a nice chat, only to be commanded to say “cheese, hit with a blinding flash, and when whisked away to make room for the next victim. The elf brigade with their cameras had landed!

As we waited in line with our toddlers, the joy of the season slowly disipated like whip cream losing its’ “oomph” on the season’s hot chocolate. The five-year-old had completely given up waiting and was polishing the mall floor with his new jeans. His two-year-old brother’s screams of hunger were echoing throughout the halls.

A shoving match broke out behind us. One discouraged four-year-old tried to take hurry things along by taking cuts. The offended kid cut on sent the cuttee packing with a hard shove. Tiny nerves get shot too, while standing in long lines.

How can we recapture the Yule tide season for the kids?

Easy. The same way the young mother with me did. She politely declined the photo pitch from the cute little elf with the camera. I could have sworn I saw the elf shoes curl tighter in shock when my young friend explained. “My boys are here to do some serious talking with Santa Claus, not to have their picture taken.”

I wanted to shout, “Hooray! Good for you!”

There was a time, not so many years ago; when watching a child visit St. Nick was a joy to behold. The wait in line, sans photo sessions, was no more than five or ten-minute’s tops. The child could climb on Santa’s knee and talk to the big guy to his hearts content. No one cut short the serious conference about which type of baseball mitt was best, or was Wedding Barbie better than Tahiti Barbie was.

I don’t know when the annual visit to deliver the wish list was turned into a photo session. Parents have gradually been caught up in the trap of “everyone has their child’s picture taken with Santa. How else will they remember the occasion?”

Trust me. The kids will remember. The memory will be tucked away in that special place in their heart where one on one conversations with larger than life adults always reside.

Wouldn’t it be great to pick up the newspaper one-day and read these headlines, “All Santa’s helpers carrying cameras banned from the malls?”

I’m sure it would please one tired, little boy I overheard as I was leaving. He looked up and said,  “ Daddy, couldn’t we just go home and fax Santa my Christmas wish list.”