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In with the old as a new year limps closer SANDRA SNYDER WALL TO WALL

Saturday December 20, 2008 | 12:00 AM

Somewhere along the line, as 2008’s closing credits were getting ready to roll, someone noticed and announced something interesting. But you might have missed it, sandwiched as the declaration came between a lot of political hubbub and economic turmoil. If so, here’s a repeat:

Old people are cool.

Yep, it’s true. That’s what “they” said, curiously enough, right around the time a 47-year-old Barack Obama, adored and adulated by the young, was getting himself elected president.

But aside from that, the trumpet blared, it was quite apparent that all things seasoned, ripe and time-tested were having a moment.

Most of the evidence was purely fun — “Golden Girls” reruns are all the rage, for example — but the whole business was and is seriously thought-provoking, especially at Christmas, especially this Christmas.

What a year we’ve had. Can’t glance at the paper or turn on the news without a double dose of doom, gloom and downright fear. What’s a soul to do?

As a new year dawns, why not look to the old? Just a thought.

Why not reconsider not only how things were done way back when but by whom? Must be a good reason someone decided the wisdom of those advanced in age was worth tapping into in this crazy day and age.

Comfort is my guess. Something lots of us clearly don’t feel this Christmas.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we all found a box of warm-fuzzies under the tree — and not in the form of slippers? Can’t we all use a nice package of perspective, courtesy especially of those who no longer walk among us?

To our Christmas dinner this year, I’d love to invite back lots of people no longer here, and one is Grandma, a wonder of a woman who’s been gone more than a decade now but still visits my memory almost daily, delivering a number of notable quotables for which she became almost famous.

One of 10 children who grew up sharing bath water and getting oranges from Santa, this was a woman who’d been through it, without complaint. During times of special turmoil, though, she’ll long be remembered for one key declaration: “I have Frank and electric heat. What more do I need?”

Frank was my grandfather, and electric heat was THE thing, at least when she kept house, but that’s beside the point, beside her point.

I think I need my Grandma. I say this as I fret over the 401K and summon the courage to open the gas bill. I’ll trust Grandma to remind me that at least I have a blanket.

In fact, two of the dozen-plus blankets I own were bought, really, because they reminded me of hers, specifically of a particular checkered-knit one that long draped the back of what she called a “sofa,” in “the parlor.”

Year after predictable year, I admired that blanket in all its cozy, familiar glory. Only much later did it hit me that Grandma obviously never felt the need to buy a new blanket, not while the original was “working” just fine.

How unlike us she was. How unlike us they all probably were.

That’s a bit of today’s problem, and it might explain why those at board-room tables everywhere have very little idea what the next move is.

Maybe it’s time to convene a meeting at what I’ve always called “The Great Kitchen Table In The Sky.” Grandma, can you help? Can you gather all the old people, here and there, who are now, officially, cool?

We need to talk.

Send us your spirits this Christmas, and maybe we’ll start off much better in 2009.

About the Author

Sandra Snyder covers Features for the Times Leader. Reach her at (570) 831-7383 or ssnyder@timesleader.com.

Sandra Snyder is the Times Leader's features editor, overseeing the food, family, home and Sunday lifestyles sections as well as the weekly entertainment Guide. She began working at the Times Leader in 1993 as a copy editor and has held various positions, including Hazleton editor/bureau chief, editor of the Times Leader-Mountaintop and Social Issues co-team leader. She also has done general-interest news and features reporting. Her most memorable interview to this day remains the delightful and now decidedly not 16-going-on-17 Charmian Carr, a.k.a. Liesl in "The Sound of Music." These days, she encourages readers who love (and sometimes despise) their homes to write to her and share their household tales, tragic or otherwise, particularly the type they're willing to have retold in print.