I reached out to our county departments to see if anyone would share a warm, holiday tradition, and a few did. Enjoy!
For Christmas, 425th Judicial District Court Judge Betsy Lambeth said that as children, she and her three siblings would take turns playing the piano and singing carols for the family. “I think we probably sounded like the Salvation Army band, but my parents and grandparents loved it!”
Besides the piano, Lambeth and her siblings played several other instruments. Oftentimes, they went to her grandparents’ dairy farm on Onion Creek to play and sing for them. Her grandfather would join in, playing his French harp or harmonica.
Cortney Husband said that she, her mother and sister have been attending Christmas at the Caswell in Austin for 25 years. They make it a fun “girls” day by dressing up and partaking of the three-course champagne brunch, while listening to live Christmas music.
The accountant with the County Auditor and her husband will welcome their first baby next spring—a girl. One day she too will dress up and join the girls at the Caswell House.
For the last 16 years, Pam Navarrette, Assistant Financial Director with the Auditor, said her stepfather assembles his miniature Christmas village annually. His collection started as a window seat display at home and has grown to a garage-sized village with an airport resembling the Georgetown Airport.
Since he was a boy, her stepfather collected match cars that are part of the village. Every holiday, parked in front of what looks like the Wilco Historic Courthouse, is a tiny replica of her first car, a 1969 blue Camaro.
Navarrette called his collection the “most fabulous decoration tradition” of her family’s holidays. (CLICK on Read More for the rest of the oped and more photos of our Wilco families.)