- Last time we brought you the discovery of the last surviving Bergner's talking Christmas tree.

- This time we're gonna talk to employees who were inside that tree.

- Why do kids drive them crazy sometimes?

- Well, you gotta see this.

(upbeat music) We're gonna have lots of merriment in this episode, including a local farmstead that has been going on for six generation raising crops, but now they've changed to hops and become a brewery.

- We're also gonna share some recipes for holiday eats and drinks.

And "Eight Track Time Machine" is gonna share some little known back stories to some of your favorite rocking Christmas carols.

In West Peoria, Santa Claus has some helpers, and that's important.

For years, a letters to Santa Mailbox provided an express route between kids and St. Nick.

This year it needed a new home, which has turned out to be City Hall.

Who made that request?

None other than Santa himself says Mayor Jim Dillon.

- We were just talking about where it may be.

And Santa called the next day and wanted permission to put his mailbox out in front of City Hall.

And so of course we said yes, we'd be happy to put it out there.

- The special mailbox first appeared a few years ago in a West Peoria front yard.

The resident there, a friend of Santa himself, thought it would make for a fun way to directly connect Chris Cringle with youngsters as well as with those young at heart.

- Not only kids, but adults can put their letters in there requesting what they would like from Santa if they've been good.

- The box labeled North Pole provides an express delivery.

Each morning a Santa Helper collects the letters and gets them right to Santa's headquarters.

- You know, we watched "The Miracle on 34th Street", where they delivered all the letters to Santa, the postal service.

So this way it's a direct route to Santa.

- Santa doesn't care if kids write well or at all.

- They'll draw pictures for Santa.

You know, they may draw what they want.

So it, it's kind of interesting.

- You don't need to put postage on the letters to Santa, just drop them into the box.

But be sure to include a return address so St. Nick can reply.

- He reminds them that they have to be good to be able to get what they want.

- Has Mayor Dillon sent his letter?

- It's a secret.

- So get those letters in as soon as possible.

West Peoria is happy to help out.

- When you quit believing in Santa Christmas isn't fun anymore.

- Speaking.

of the season, we've been talking about the Bergner's Christmas tree, the talking Christmas tree that families, kids loved for decades.

- But what was it like working inside that tree?

Sometimes for hours on end and sometimes with unruly kids pounding on the door?

- Well, we talked to two of those employees that were inside that tree.

And let's find out.

Every Christmas time, Colleen Waller and Kitty Patterson find themselves treated like celebrities, thanks to a long ago secret.

Decades ago in their teens, they worked inside the Bergner's talking Christmas tree.

These days when conversation turns to local Yuletide traditions, the two women turn heads and spark wide eyed smiles when they reveal they used to make the beloved Bergner's Christmas tree come alive.

- I love meeting people and it was a sweet job, really.

I'm proud to be the Bergner's Christmas tree.

Not many can say that.

(laughs) - The two recently spoke with "You've Gotta See This" at the former site of the Bergner's in Sheridan Village, where the talking tree debuted as a promotion in 1966.

Later, other Bergner's locations hosted similar trees, which enchanted some kids, but spooked others with their oversized eyes and lips.

As a little kid, Colleen Waller would have mixed emotions when her parents announced the family's annual trip to chat with the tree.

- Exciting to hear we're getting to go and somewhat scary once you got there.

At age 16, she got a job at Bergner's at Christmas, inside that tree.

First she learned how to get inside the base.

This was a key part of the job as to not ruin the magic and mystery of the tree.

She had to make sure no one, especially children, ever saw her get in or out.

- You're inside the base and when you go, you have to be very tricky When you're going up there.

There's a little door in the back that has an inside hook latch.

So you had to kind of walk around and whoever was in there let 'em know when the coast was clear, they get out, you get in.

- As for making the tree move and talk, it was kind of like operating a submarine periscope.

- You sit Indian style on a little pillow and there's a microphone hanging.

And if you look in the picture, I was a green tree.

If you look in the picture of the silver tree, you see something on its nose.

That's the microphone I think coming out to talk.

But there was a T-bar so you can turn the tree and look around and you can pull to move the mouth.

- Waller, who worked at Sheridan Village, says she felt pretty comfortable inside the tree.

Patterson, who worked at the Bergner's in Pekin, did not.

- Anybody that does a holiday gig as something, whether it be the Santa Claus or the East Bunny or whoever you are, it's not that easy,.

Hot, sweaty, hard floor.

You're sitting on your bum on the hard floor with your legs crossed Indian style to fit in this little place, you know.

- Still they kept a sunny disposition when talking to passing children.

- Hi, how are you?

And they'd be tugging on their mom's legs, either scared or excited.

Have you been a good little boy or girl and what do you want for Christmas?

Things like that.

- Every kid that went by you'd holler out to 'em, Merry Christmas or something.

They'd turn around and talk to you.

It was cute.

But how did they see outside the tree and how did they know the kids' names?

The tree had a two-way mirror, which allowed employees to look out.

So sometimes they'd spot a familiar face and shout out their name.

- A two-way mirror on it so you could look out and see the kids, but they couldn't look in.

Of course, they saw that two-way mirror and they all tried.

And sometimes youthful curiosity turned kids rambunctious.

They wanted to know how that tree worked and who might be inside.

- You had the kids that were trying to figure it out, so they're looking in the, you know, little merry Christmas window and going around the back and pulling on the door and shaking it and pushing it.

But at that point, you know, I take the T-bar and whew, I'm like, oh, Santa's not gonna be not good to you if you're not a nice little boy or girl.

- Some of them were sweet as pie and I mean there's enough of 'em that, you know, they're so curious.

You know, kids are curious and I even had 'em try to tip the tree over because it's just plywood, it's made outta plywood, you know, and decorated on the outside.

So I've had 'em push on it and try to open the trap door and open the trap door and throw stuff in it.

Yeah, I see you in there.

There's me, but some of them are so sweet and precious, you know, they're just in awe of it, you know, they just talk and tell you what they want for Christmas and it's just sweet, you know.

- Waller also warmly recalls childlike sweetness.

- Oh yeah, they were very sweet.

It was very cute.

I mean, you know, they'd get excited and then you would have the little ones that would come up and wanna give you a kiss.

And very sweet.

- Bergner's ended the Talking Tree promotion 20 years ago.

But the memories, oh, both women enjoy sharing their stories with family, friends, and even strangers about their time as the Bergner's talking Christmas tree.

- It's all good.

It was fun.

I enjoyed it.

I'd do it again.

(upbeat music) - It's always great to take a look back at old favorites like Bergner's.

- And we don't normally show commercials on our station, but we wanna show you one that was from the 1960s from Bergner's.

- And this from the looks of things, was from right around Christmas time.

♪ Where the swinging set goes ♪ ♪ Day and night you will find them there ♪ ♪ Looking at the greatest clothes ♪ ♪ Meet me at Bergner's ♪ ♪ right after school.

♪ ♪ Lets head for Bergner's ♪ ♪ Hey man it's cool ♪ ♪ We can take in the records and clothes ♪ ♪ Go get a Coke ♪ ♪ Before the doors close ♪ ♪ Meet me ♪ - After six generations, the Sommer farm has switched its agricultural focus.

For more than a century, the emphasis was corn.

Now its hops.

That's the vision of Adam Sommer, an electrician who wanted to be a math teacher, but instead became a brewer.

He and his wife Melissa have turned the Sommer homestead into Evergreen Farm Brewing.

- Every time we go on vacation, we like to hit wineries and breweries and just kind of check out little places here and there, kind of out of the way.

And every place has its own unique characters to it, you know, different traits.

And we just kind of started looking around here.

And this farm has a whole lot of history and uniqueness that was common at one point, but a lot of that's kind of starting to go away.

Whereas here a lot of it's been preserved since it's been in my family for so long.

- George Sommer, Adam Sommer's great-great-grandfather, started farming about two miles south of Metamora in 1858.

That's the same year that Abraham Lincoln did his last legal work at what is now known as a Metamora Courthouse state historic site.

George Sommer planted on what would eventually grow to become 225 acre operation, mostly corn.

- So my family's been here since mid 1800s.

Some of the buildings here were started around then.

Like most farmhouses do, they've been added onto.

But the building we're in right now, actually the shelf over here in the corner, housed a bank of glass batteries.

It was a Delcp Gen set, ran off of natural gas, had a generator on it, it would charge up those batteries.

And then there was a wire that went over and fed the house.

And our farmhouse was one of the first in the area to get electric lights installed in it.

- Adam Sommer, the fifth generation of Sommers on the farm, grew up on the land.

He'd often ride along when his father worked the fields in his tractor.

But when Adam was 14, the work became too much for his dad, especially amid competition from mega farms.

- At that point my dad worked full time, same job he has now and just farmed at night.

And it was just kind of paying for itself, more of a hobby just 'cause it had always been in the family.

- So in 1994, most of the acreage was sold off except for a plot with the family home and several outbuildings.

Then eight years later, Adam Sommer married Melissa.

In 2017 they decided to move with their two kids from Peoria Heights back to the family farm.

- So just a lot of different things changed to where the teaching thing didn't quite make as much sense as it once did.

And then with the ties to the farm and wanting to keep that history going, we just slowly started thinking about what we could do out here.

- Recalling those brewery and winery trips with his wife, Sommer decided to try his hand at brewing.

He eyed an old building where the family washed clothes generations ago.

In the basement he started brewing beer, a move connected to family history.

- And my great-grandfather used to brew beer and make his own wine out here.

And then that cellar they used as a root cellar so they would can various things.

And then also his beer and wine that he would make, he would store that down there.

Upstairs he created a small tap room to accommodate more visitors.

He fashioned a tasting room inside the old shop building where his ancestors cut timber into boards.

Since the brewery's debut in January, 2022, visitors have marveled over the folksy feel.

- As far as the feel, people love it 'cause they come in, we don't have a sign out front yet.

Eventually we will, but they just feel like they're coming to a big family reunion.

So it's, it's real welcoming.

People love that it's just, it's easy going, kick back, feel like they're just going to somebody's house and hanging out.

- Actually they are going to someone's house.

The Sommers still live on site.

And the sixth generation, their kids, they're a key part of the business.

- Houston's 14, Zoe's 13.

And once we started, especially right at the beginning, we didn't hire any employees, so it was just strictly our family.

And obviously somebody's gotta wash all the glasses, so they were the runners and they were down there in the basement washing the glasses and keeping going.

They loved it 'cause it's home.

It's kind of a weird dynamic I guess, 'cause it's a business, but it's also our home.

So they, they were just enjoying helping out.

- In addition to the work by Adam and Melissa, his dad and in-laws also help out.

Some weekends the brewery's open only on Fridays and Saturdays.

The crowds can get really big.

- It's pretty insane.

But everybody's so sweet and kind and it's just really a good fun time.

It just keeps us hopping, really.

- At the farm, Sommer is growing hops and other ingredients that he often uses in his brew.

It's another connection between the family farm's, history of crops and the future with beer.

- The first saison recipe I ever wrote, I have that one on tap right now.

It's furthest step from home.

So that one was kind of a play on words with starting the business at our house.

And the tap room's literally like 20 feet from my house.

So it was like furthest step from home.

It was the furthest thing I thought of that you know, I never thought I was gonna start a brewery out here, but it's right here at our house and.

(mellow music) - Ho ho ho and welcome to the Winter Wonderland of Worth Township, Illinois, and a very special episode of "Eight Track Time Machine".

And here our staff, we were wondering what can we do to celebrate Christmas during the eight track era?

What songs, what can we do for this time of year?

And you know, all these tunes are kind of played out.

We know them all.

Rock country, traditional, whatever from Christmas, right?

So we just didn't wanna just regurgitate the same old, same old even off eight tracks.

But we did wonder, are there some songs that have interesting backstories?

And you know what, yes, there are.

And so without further ado, let's bring you those eight track era backstories to Christmas carols.

"Please Come Home for Christmas", the Eagles.

So this song almost didn't get done, but outta necessity, the Eagles decided just to shoot it out there.

Back in '76, "Hotel California" comes out, right?

Smash album.

And this was an era when bands had to come out with an album pretty much every year.

Well, you move ahead to' 78 and the Eagles are trying to get all their stuff together for what would become the long run.

But they're getting nowhere.

They're 6, 7, 8 months behind and it's the fall of '78.

And the producer for the album's going, "Guys, we gotta get something going.

The label's really getting ticked off."

So Don Henley goes, "Well, why don't we feed him something?"

How about a Christmas carol?

And they figured, well, why not at least get the label off our back.

Glenn Frey goes, "Well man, we're in Florida, it's hotter than hell.

How are we gonna get in the Christmas spirit?"

So Henley says, let's just try it anyway.

And you know, there was a song I loved as a kid, it's called, "Please Come Home for Christmas".

And nowadays we all kind of know the song really well, but back then it kind of had faded.

But they decided, let's do it.

And it was done by Charles Brown back in the '60s and it just didn't, it was kind of melancholy, but they made it even more melancholy 'cause where Brown sang a glad, glad song.

Henley changed it to a sad, sad song.

But nowadays it's, especially with those tubular bells at the beginning, the bells will be ringing, that line.

That's what people think the song is called in a lot of cases.

Actually, a lot of people think the Eagles wrote this song because you know what?

They now own it.

"Please Come Home For Christmas".

"Wonderful Christmas Time".

Paul McCartney.

Now Paul McCartney in 1980 just decided to write a Christmas song.

It took him all of 10 minutes to write this one.

10 minutes.

The thing that I think is interesting about this song, a lot of people love it and a lot of people hate it.

A lot of people love the simplicity of it, but it's just this bouncy little tune and having a, well, of course a wonderful Christmas time.

Other people hate it as simplistic.

Like, there's not much going on here.

And, and, and that synthesizer it just irritating.

In fact, it ends up on the worst Christmas carol list all the time.

But still a lot of people love it.

So it's kind of that boom boom, good or bad.

Paul McCartney's never said what he thinks about it, but I'll tell you this, every year he makes approximately a half a million dollars on this song.

And that ain't bad for 10 minutes work.

"Same Old Lang Syne", Dan Fogelberg.

Now if you're from anywhere near Peoria, you know the backstory to this song.

Rockstar comes home, Christmas Eve has to go out to get some stuff for the family celebration, runs into his old lover, they share some beers.

It's wistful, it's nostalgic, it's a great song.

It comes out at the end of 1980 and it seems to be getting more and more popular every day.

But here's some stuff you might not know.

This song started as a joke.

In around 1980-ish Fogelberg says, "You know what, I'm gonna mess around and have fun.

What can I do?

What's the most non-rock song?

How about the 1812 Overture?'

And he starts messing around with that on the piano and other instruments.

Da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da.

Listen here.

Now you hear where the melody for this song comes from, right?

And he just kind of, he had it in his back pocket.

And then later on he said, "Well maybe I can do something else with this.

I can use my craft to actually turn it into a song, but I'm never gonna play for anyone."

And as he later recalled, it sort of took a life of his own as he started thinking about that Christmas in Peoria with the old lover.

It just started growing and growing and growing and all of a sudden, boom, he's got this song.

And as he later said, and he was not exactly really heartfelt with remembering how he would do what he did.

But he admitted, he said, "I don't think I'll ever write a song as good as that and I'll never get tired of it."

What a song would that started as a joke and it's now, it's a chestnut and it's especially important for us here in Peoria.

Well that was some festive fun.

And so from all of us here at "You Gotta See This," and "Eight Track Time Machine, wish you a a Merry Christmas, happy holidays, jolly everything and we'll see you next time on "Eight Track Time Machine".

(mellow music) - In Pekin, you can find something that's kind of rare these days, an independent donut shop.

It used to be part of the Spudnuts chain, but there are few Spudnuts anywhere anymore.

And the Pekin location recently became Tadoughs.

- Well, Spudnuts were started in the 1940s by a couple of brothers with a potato recipe and I think they had over 200 franchise stores in the '40s.

And then they sold off to somebody and eventually it eventually disappeared.

There's probably five or six Spudnut locations left.

Ours was one of 'em, but we changed from Spudnuts to Tadoughs because we are gonna grow the business.

And there is franchise, or there's trade names on the Spudnut name that we couldn't infringe on.

SpudNuts is an iconic business in Pekin and we heard it was up for sale.

So I talked to my daughter Jacqueline who lives in Vegas and the idea is to eventually get it out there once her kids get a little older and we decided to buy it to carry on the tradition 'cause there's a lot of difference in how they're made and what goes into 'em.

And there's a lot of difference you know, a lot of the things such as other franchise stores have frozen donuts shipped to all their locations and they're able to do that and keep the prices down by, you know, much more automated equipment.

We can't automate our process because it's very specific to these donuts, right?

The back gets here about six o'clock at night and it'll work till two in the morning or on a Thursday, Friday they'll work till four or five in the morning.

So they, they make the dough, they let it set so it'll rise, cut the dough, they'll roll it out and they'll put it through a machine called the sheeter.

The sheeter cuts them into the donut size that we want for the type of donut it is.

Then it goes in the proof box, which sits, it's a heated box, which helps raise the donuts quicker.

And then about a half an hour after that they'll actually fry the donuts and then ice them and they're on the way.

- I've been a cook for about 30 years.

But how can you go wrong when you make donuts?

No, actually we do at the end of the night, go out and look at the case, see what we've done for the day.

Take pride in it a little bit.

- The front gets here a little before four o'clock and then goes till 10.

And we literally have people waiting in the parking lot at four o'clock.

- I mean, I'm surrounded by donuts and customers are great.

So we give out free smiles all day long.

Most popular is our glazed traditional donut, but my favorite is Maple Bacon.

It's so good.

- Potato based donuts, that's the reason the name Tadoughs, it's potato without the po and a little more dough is our slogan.

So yeah, the potato base makes it different.

And it is something that we hear all the time that our donuts are the only donuts people can eat that don't upset their stomach.

So I don't know the secret to that, but it works.

(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Dustin Maquet.

I'm the owner of Maquet's Railhouse in Pekin, Illinois.

This is my bar manager, Debbie.

And today we're gonna show you one of our favorite holiday signature drinks.

It's a drink made with salted caramel Crown Royal and a Bailey's product called S'mores.

Equal parts serve chilled in a rim glass with a graham cracker crust and a cinnamon and sugar.

So pour equal parts of each in a shaker glass.

Shake it slightly with the, first you gotta rim the glass.

That's the best part.

You gotta do that first.

Fill it with ice and we're gonna garnish it with a cinnamon stick here.

This is a really good drink, actually.

Very simple garnish.

And that's the s'mores salty nut.

(peppy music) - I'm making my ham and white bean soup.

This is one of my favorite soups.

First of all, it's all out comforting.

Second of all, you've just had a house full of guests for the holiday.

You've served this delicious ham and now you're thinking, what am I gonna do with the hand bone and this leftover ham?

This is where this soup comes in.

Just wrap up your hand bone and save a little ham in some foil.

Tuck it away in the freezer.

And after your guests leave the next day, you just want a comforting bowl of soup.

You've got your ham bone and that ham to start making this delicious recipe.

Let's start by sauteing the vegetables.

In a large soup pot, heat one tablespoon of olive oil.

Then add three quarter cup each of finely chopped onion and diced carrots followed by two garlic cloves minced.

Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally until they are softened.

Drop in three sprigs of fresh rosemary, a half teaspoon of ground coriander, stir in three 15 ounce cans of cannellini beans, rinsed and drained, then add five to six cups of chicken stock as needed.

Next, we add our ham bone in and increase the heat and bring it to a simmer.

Cover partially and simmer on medium low for 20 minutes.

While the ham and the rosemary have added all of that delicious flavor.

So now we can move the ham bone out of the soup.

I set it on a cutting board.

I'm gonna fish my rosemary out of the soup.

Now we're gonna remove all of this delicious ham that's on the ham bone, dice it up and put it right back in the soup pot 'cause we don't wanna miss out on all that delicious ham.

Then I'm gonna puree half the soup in a food processor or blender.

This method gives you a creamy soup without any flour, but the other half has some nice vegetables and beans to bite into.

Add the puree portion back into the pot.

Let's stir the one pound of smoked ham already cut into half inch pieces.

And of course, any ham that you remove from the ham bone if used.

If the soup is too thick, add some or all of the additional one cup of stock.

Bring the soup to a simmer and add three tablespoons of finely chopped Italian parsley.

And of course, salt and pepper to taste.

I sure love the smell of a pot of soup on the stove.

What makes this soup over the top is the crouton garnish, which is always better when you make it yourself.

First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

You'll need two cups of cubed French bread cut into one inch pieces.

In your mixing bowl, toss the french bread cubes with two to three tablespoons of olive oil, about a half a teaspoon of smoked paprika, a pinch of salt, and a grind of fresh pepper.

These are gonna be so good on top of the soup.

Transfer the bread crumbs to a baking sheet pan lined with foil.

Bake in the oven for about 10 minutes until the bread cubes turn a light golden brown.

Who doesn't like the aroma of bread toasting in the oven?

I just love this soup.

It's so simple, but it has such dimension of flavor.

You have that lemony pine flavor from the rosemary and the coriander gives you a flowery citrus note to it.

And of course, our delicious cannellini beans, which are so versatile, they're great for soups and salads.

They have a slight nutty flavor.

So the combination of all of these delicious spices really come together to enhance this soup.

And then we've got these homemade croutons.

Sprinkle on the top with that paprika so you have a little crunch with the creaminess of the soup.

Alls I can say is, wow, I wanna curl up on my La-Z-Boy couch and just enjoy the fact that we're in fall.

- "You Gotta See This" salutes Gene Neely, a patriot all his life.

We visited with the Tremont man in June to talk about his remarkable service to his country.

He served overseas with the Army in World War II.

Returning home he became a charter member of the Illinois Air National Guard Base in Peoria.

Even after retiring, he long remained in the Air Force Reserves.

Late in life, starting at age 87, Gene Neely became a volunteer, an extraordinary volunteer for greater Peoria Honor Flight, raising, money, awareness, and spirits.

When each flight would return to Peoria, he'd be first at the gate welcoming home each veteran with kind words and a hearty thumbs up.

Gene Neely passed away peacefully at home November 19th.

He was 97.

Where's Santa?

We've been waiting a while, but we still haven't seen him at all.

- I know, but I think we're gonna wait around for a little while.

But you guys, we'll see you next time on "You Gotta See This".

(happy music)