Jonesboro, AR – (JonesboroRightNow.com) – Dec. 25, 2024 – Christmas is a time of heartwarming memories and wonderful traditions bringing people together. This year, the staff of Jonesboro Radio Group and Jonesboro Right Now would like to share some of our favorite Christmas stories and traditions with you.
Nena Zimmer (JRN Chief Reporter):
For me, picking my favorite Christmas memory is tough, but if I had to choose my favorite, it would be receiving Peaches for Christmas. For clarity, Peaches was my family’s first Pomeranian and my favorite dog growing up, but it was how we got her that made the memory so wonderful as she wasn’t exactly a present, but more an unexpected guest.
It was Christmas Eve. My siblings and I were playing under the tree in the living room when we heard a scratching at the front door. My mom went to check it out as we watched closely. When she opened the door, there in the snow stood a scruffy-looking one-eyed dog with something in his mouth. The dog, which we later named Patches, slowly inched forward and then placed the tiniest puppy we had ever seen inside the door before turning around and heading back out into the snow. We have no idea where Patches had come from or why he brought Peaches to us, as she didn’t appear to be his, nor would he have anything to do with her after that moment, but that was how God brought us Peaches for Christmas.
Christie Matthews (Jonesboro Radio Group [JRG] general sales manager and on-air talent):
“I was blessed to live next to my grandparents growing up,” she recalled. “Every Christmas Eve we would go to my grandparents for supper, then head to our little Methodist church for services. I can’t tell you how many times I played an angel or Mary in our Christmas programs over the years. We were such a small congregation, so pretty much everyone was part of the choir. After the program, we’d all sing Silent Night and light our candles. Then the lights would come on and the sound of jingle bells would ring across the church and signal that Santa had arrived. He would hand out bags filled with fruit, candy and nuts. I can still smell the scent of the huge cedar tree that stood in the sanctuary. There was always a LIVE tree. After church we would hurry back to my grandparents’ house to open presents and have dessert.”
“Christmas was so much different as a kid, looking back we didn’t always have a lot, but my parents did everything they could to ensure we had a good Christmas,” she noted. “I remember one specific Christmas that my little sister and I both got new bikes. They were baby blue and white with streamers on the handlebars. We had never had a new bike before, so it was a really big deal. Another present that is forever etched in my memories was a doll called the ‘sneezy baby’. It was so squishy and when you squeezed its middle it would sneeze. I loved that doll, and every Christmas I look for one in stores.”
Lynn Stillwell (JRG Director of First Impressions):
“We wanted bicycles for Christmas and when we got up Christmas morning, our bikes were there, me and my sisters,” she recalled. “We lived in Stuttgart, and it had snowed. So, Mama bundled us up and Daddy took us out. We were peddling on the snow on the street, and he was running behind us. He was taking turns holding on to our bikes. Then he would let go and we were doing good, but then we would crash, and we’d get back on again. He’d just laughed.”
“That was the most memorable Christmas to me because he made it so much fun,” she said. “I learned how to ride mine before my sister, and she was 18 months older than me, but I was five. We didn’t know till we were grown that my dad bought these old bikes from a man who resold bikes that people didn’t want anymore. Then, my daddy knocked the dents out of the fenders, painted them for us and put little bells on them. We thought they were brand new from Santa and we never knew until we were grown, but they weren’t brand new bikes. We didn’t realize money was tight. We were little and they just had my little brother.”
Although they didn’t know at the time that their parents didn’t have the money for new bikes, Lynn said their mother told them how hard their father had worked to take out the dents and paint them blue and white, especially for the girls. However, Christmas also brought another treasure as well, a babydoll named Peggy Sue that would stick with Lynn throughout the years.
“I wanted a real baby. I wanted one that’s eyes actually shut, and I got her that year too. She was in a little bassinet, and I named her Peggy Sue. I still have that doll,” she said, noting that she has had Peggy Sue for 61 years. “She is redheaded and has glass blue eyes that clothes when you layer down.”
Josh Wilcoxson (JRG Media Adviser):
Wilcoxson had a hard time choosing just one memory as well, noting two of his favorite Christmas stories and the importance of helping others. The first of which took place somewhere around 2011, not long after marrying his wife.
“I was a police officer here [in Jonesboro] and our neighbors got scammed out of all their money,” he recalled. “They hadn’t bought Christmas gifts yet and they just lost every dime they had. They weren’t sure how to pay bills or eat, much less buy gifts for each other and their kids. They only reason my neighbor even told me was because I was a police officer, and they wanted to know if there was anything they could do.”
“Well, my wife and I decided it would be more important for us to do something for them than spend money on each other,” he said. “So, we took what we were going to spend for Christmas, went around to businesses and Church’s asking for donations. Mary Horne owned a toy store on Parker Road, and she donated several toys, we also bought several toys from there. People donated money, ham, and other food items. We wrapped all the toys, got the food together, and had an envelope of money. We took it to them one night and they had a whole house full of family there and the appreciation and happiness on all faces made that one of the best Christmas’s I’ve ever had, and I will never forget it.”
The second story that took place a few years earlier, after getting home from Iraq in May 2008.
“I was just happy to be alive and home,” he stated. “Well, my family of course had Christmas while I was gone, but they also had presents for me… and saved them till I got home. So, we had Christmas in May with presents and all the food, making it something I’ll never forget because my family wanted me to have that Christmas I missed.”
Phil Jamison (JRG On-Air Talent):
“It was Christmas of 2000,” he began. “Our kids were young and still big believers in Santa Claus. After they had gone to bed on Christmas Eve, my wife Joy and I went to the living room where we had the Christmas tree and began putting out presents and setting the scene of a real Santa visit. We took soot from the fireplace and sprinkled a trail out onto the hearth. We took a small piece of red felt cloth and hooked it on the fireplace screen as though Santa had snagged his red suit. We even took a shoe and made footprints going into the fireplace in the soot. Of course, we ate some of the cookies the kids had left out for Santa.”
“Christmas morning the kids were up bright and early and came running into the bedroom exclaiming that Santa had been to the house,” he recalled. “We all retreated to the living room and the kids showed us the “evidence” PROVING that Santa was really there. The kids began opening their presents but would occasionally stop to look over at the fireplace. You could tell they were trying to figure out just how Santa was able to get all those gifts and his big belly down the chimney. They are grown now, out of the house and have kids of their own. What I wouldn’t give for another Christmas morning like that one.”
Tim Smith (JRG Media Adviser):
“Christmas with family was always a great memory and still is,” he said. “Getting up early and making them wait in their room on Christmas morning to get the cameras set up to record the moment they saw what Santa had brought them will always be a memory. They couldn’t understand why they had to wait. It was always difficult for our boys to get to sleep on Christmas Eve.”
“I can remember one Christmas Eve having to go outside, bounce a basketball on top of the roof and take a broom and sweep across the windows to make them think that Santa was trying to stop at our house, but he couldn’t because they weren’t asleep,” Smith said. “I believe it worked.”
Tarah Richardson (JRG Traffic Assistant):
“In my family, Christmas morning is the big deal,” she noted. “We get up and all open our stockings from Santa. Then we have a huge breakfast and open our gifts to each other.”
“Now that my siblings and I are all grown, we still carry on this tradition, just a few days early, and it’s even more fun with all the nieces and nephews getting excited about their stockings. My special part of the morning is helping make breakfast and waking everyone up to the smell of bacon. I have 10 siblings, and, to this day, we all try to make sure we are there for the “Christmas Morning” even though it’s moved a few days forward so our individual families can have their own Christmas mornings.”
Brett Hall Barber (JRG On-Air Talent and JRN Contributing Writer):
“It’s a dessert drink that was first made by my grandmother, then, my aunt and now my wife… And I only get it during the holidays. It’s boiled custard,” he explained. “It’s a tasty mixture of milk, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. And it’s wonderful. But I never get to have it until Christmas time.”
He said this has been his favorite Christmas tradition since he was a little boy.
Rachel Rudd (JRN Editor-in-Chief):
“Hanging stockings has always been my favorite holiday tradition, as boring as it sounds. It was always the last piece of decorating my family did, so it felt like everything was ‘complete’ once stockings went up. I always had a lot of fun going around asking my parents and brother which stocking they wanted to put up, because it changed each year. Mine never did though, I always put out a big red stocking my grandma made before I was born,” Rudd said.
“However, a not so fun part of it was doing all the math involved,” she laughed. “My dad always insisted that the stockings had to be evenly spaced, so that involved me measuring and remeasuring the mantle, which always came out to a weird number, and then dividing that by like, six or seven because we did stockings for our dogs, as well as the four of us. I wasn’t very good at math as a kid, but I remember feeling so satisfied when I finally got the spacing right and everything looked perfect.”
Stephanie Benish (JRG Traffic Director):
“I have teenagers now, but, when they were younger, we did the Elf on the Shelf thing for a year or two,” she recalled. “I was never a big fan… I thought it was kind of creepy, but the kids liked it. One year in the spring my son was watching some video on YouTube and came across a video where someone had made their elf look like a zombie…green face, red eyes, torn clothes… the works! This video made it look like the zombie elf was alive and walking around looking for other dolls to eat or something silly like that. TRAUMATIZED! No more elf on the shelf at our house.”
However, she said the next Christmas they decided that both kids would get their own tabletop tree for their bedrooms.
“They could pick out all the mini decorations and lights they wanted,” she said. “We would decorate these trees and leave the lights on all the time. If they got in trouble, they had to unplug the lights, and Santa could see from the North Pole and was still keeping an eye on them.”
“My kids have also picked out a new ornament every year to put on the tree,” Benish noted. “We put their names and the year on it somewhere. When they move out and start their own tree, they can have their ornaments if they want them.”
Trey Stafford (President and General Manager of JRG and JRN):
“When I was a little boy, it was customary for my Grandma Bartholomew to come down to Marked Tree from Trumann and spend the night with my sister and me,” he said. “We would all crowd into my sister’s bed and Grandma would try to get the both of us to sleep. I didn’t know it at the time, but Mom and Dad were “busy” in the living room doing Santa work.”
“One year my sister went to sleep, but I didn’t,” Stafford recalled. “Grandma worked and worked to get me to sleep. Finally, she looked out the window in the backyard of Ms. Pearlie Faye’s house across the street. There was a bright light (probably a porch light) on. My grandma told me “See? See that light? That’s Santa Clause! He’s over at their house. If you don’t go to sleep, he’s going to skip your house, Trey!” That was all I needed to hear. Within a few minutes (I think) I was fast asleep, Santa came, and all in the world was right when I woke up Christmas morning.”