WEST LEBANON — December is a season of traditions, though some have been upended by the COVID-19 pandemic.
And the slow start to winter has also kept snow sports, such as sledding and cross-county skiing, from kicking into gear just yet. Normally, we’d have seen more than 10 inches of snow in the Upper Valley.
But looking back to December 1976 — another year where an incumbent president was voted out of office — is a reminder of traditions that were popular then, some that are gone, and some that remain.
Children sat on Santa’s lap on the Lebanon Mall, which can’t happen these days because of social distancing requirements.
Volunteers gathered in nonprofit kitchens to prepare holiday meals for seniors.
And breaking out the plaid, children from White River Junction sang carols and performed holiday skits.
One popular tradition, that ran into the 1990s, was an annual coloring contest sponsored by the Valley News and area businesses.
Children across the Upper Valley would submit thousands of entries from sketches to be colored in that were printed in the newspaper.
In 1976 grand-prize winners in three age categories won $20 apiece ($91 today, adjusted for inflation), plus participating stores gave away prizes as well.
“It was a highlight of the year at Christmas,” said Cathy Langley, who as an 11-year-old Lebanon resident was a grand-prize winner in the contest for older kids.
Langley, who now lives in Enfield, said she and her siblings had “all sorts of colored pencils” and would compete, and win, regularly.
“The paper had all kinds of things you could color. The Shoetorium had a puppy in a slipper,” she recalled.
Donald Johnson, the newspaper’s staff artist in the advertising department at the time, would meet with the winners.
“We had a lot of fun doing it,” said Johnson, now 76 and a freelance illustrator in Lebanon whose work has appeared in TheNew York Times and other major publications. “The kids loved this contest every year. It was a little money for them, and it was fun for the kids to come in and to see their coloring efforts.”
“I actually wish you guys still did that,” Langley said, “because we have grandkids that we are parenting now.”
John P. Gregg can be reached at jgregg@vnews.com.