We trace our loss of Christmas excitement back to the 1960s, when we grew too old for holiday enchantments and became enamored of going bra-less and barefoot. So we’re going to Oak Park Public Library, 834 Lake St., on Tuesday, Dec. 12, at 7 p.m. to hear author Neal Samors talk about “Chicago in the Sixties: Remembering a Time of Change” (383-8200). We were so busy liberating ourselves in those days, we were afraid to get excited about anything that wasn’t political or Native American.
More recently, we got another chance to enjoy holiday magic with our own children, until they, too, got too old to be moved by dancing sugarplums or inexpensive toys made from colored plastic. If you are lucky enough to have children of a starry-eyed age, you should know that a production of the fairy tale opera Hansel and Gretel is coming to the Nineteenth Century Club on Saturday, Dec. 9, at 1 p.m. Read about it in the Calendar section.
And enjoy it while you’ve got it.
Back in gritty old reality this year, we find our gift shopping is further aggravated by the fact that we keep finding pretty things we want for ourselves, having long outgrown our ’60s guilt about enjoying possessions. This is why you will not see us examining the jewelry and clothes at the Boyd-Garver Trunk Show on Friday, Dec. 8, from 7 to 9 p.m. at At the Gallery, 135 N. Oak Park Ave. (445-9793). We will be at home, bra-less and barefoot, searching the attic for a copy of “The Night Before Christmas” and trying to dance like a sugarplum. A dispirited sugarplum.
