Christmas Through the Years in Chicago

A big rush for the most popular toy at Christmas; the Mayor muses about turning Meigs Field into a park, and a report that sending Christmas cards was in decline.

A protest outside the Mayor's home; talk about changing the way the Electoral College works; worries about the economy didn't stop people from going to see the new Star Wars movie. And then, of course, there was the Tuba Christmas.

The Bears, with their newly signed superstar, have a game where it's warmer; federal agents are called on the carpet for the way they're enforcing prohibition; Billy Sunday and the Ziegfeld Follies!

A Santa Claus parade! A benefit and then another benefit. Charles Lindbergh and family spend the holiday aboard a ship. "Your Hit Parade" is new on the radio.

The phrase "peace on Earth" had a special meaning in December, 1945. Tens of thousands of service men and women were returning home after the end of World War II. This caused a big transportation headache in Chicago. Jack Benny and his butler Rochester were preparing a special holiday dinner for Ronald and Bonita Coleman,

The Montgomery bus boycott, caroling at the White House and at Union Station, rock and roll is here; but so is "Sixteen Tons"; the cost of living was up just 0.1% which meant the average factory worker's pay rose 80 cents to $72.85 per week.

A weather nightmare in Chicago, Vietnam and civil rights protests; businessmen ask 'what can we do with these new computer things?' and James Brown feels good.

Vietnamese children have their first meeting with Santa Claus; and names in the news include Jane Byrne, Norman Swenson, Barry Manilow and Carlos the Jackal.

Kindness was spreading across Chicagoland, according to the Tribune. The city was in a good mood because the Bears were 15-1 and almost everybody was singing "The Super Bowl Shuffle." Mayor Washington snuck away from his office to play Santa for hospitalized children, and many of us waited to find out what was in Al Capone's vault.

A run on all things Marshall Field's as the iconic department store gets new ownership; the Bears play the Packers as the Mayor ponders the possibility of getting a new team in Chicago, and a pair of newly-born babies turn up in a Chicago chufch.