60 years & counting: Father-daughter shopping spree is a Jackson family Christmas tradition

JACKSON, MI – As Bob Myers loaded his four daughters in his car the Saturday before Christmas in 1964, he had two things in mind – getting the girls out of the house long enough for his wife to finish making them pajamas for the upcoming holiday, and secretly doing some last-minute Christmas shopping of his own.

He didn’t realize then he was starting a family tradition that would endure for the next six decades.

Donning their usual red shirts sporting the phrase “$pending Time with Dad,” Myers’ four daughters made the annual shopping trip to JCPenney Saturday, Dec. 21, in Jackson. Myers, 86, wore a near-identical shirt reading “$pending Time with My Girls.”

“It’s great, we all still get along so well,” Myers said. “Even throughout the year, we’ll do things together just because we love it.”

Saturday’s excursion at Jackson’s Westwood Mall marked the 60th consecutive year the family has gotten together to make an all-day event out of Christmas shopping.

Each of the sisters’ shirts had the nickname their parents gave them written on the back. Everyone also wore a pin marked with a “60” over a photo of their mother Kaylene “Sam” Myers, for whom they always shopped for before her death in 2016.

Robyn Borreson, 60, said one of her mother’s last wishes was for the girls to continue this tradition because it was so important to everyone. Instead of buying gifts for their mom, the family now shops for someone in the community going through hard times.

“She said what she wanted us to do is to find someone who’s had a tough year and end their year so they feel full of love and like someone cares for them,” Borreson said. “So we pick a family or an individual and try to make the end of their year great.”

Their mother had a deep love and commitment to community service the rest of her family has inherited, Borreson said.

This year’s presents are going to a young boy and his mother Borreson met through her job as a speech pathologist at the Hillsdale Hospital Physical Therapy outpatient clinic.

Among the gifts of winter clothing and toys for the boy, the group also bought baking supplies, coloring books and “Reserve-A-Ride” tickets for the family, said Barbara Simmons, 64.

The youngest of four girls, Borreson was only a year old during the first father-daughter shopping spree.

Maintaining the tradition that no one has missed during the years has sometimes meant overcoming illness and injury.

Daughter Pam Beers, 67, has gone on the shopping trip while going through cancer treatments and Borreson said she once showed up just a few days after an emergency appendectomy.

During their 45th anniversary shopping trip, eldest sister Cyndi Alldaffer, 68, shopped in a wheelchair because of two broken ankles.

Related: Christmas shopping trip a 45-year tradition for Vandercook Lake father and four daughters

Myers himself had just been released from the hospital a few days before this year’s shopping trip, Simmons said. It was his turn to ride through the store in a wheelchair.

“These sisters are the best in the world,” Beers said. “We used to think that we were the normal people, but then we found out the normal families sometimes don’t get along so great, and we’re the odd ones. We get together and we get sore stomachs and sore cheeks from laughing.”

The Myers family has stuck to the tradition so stringently they’re often recognized by other shoppers and store owners, Alldaffer said. They always stop by Applebee’s for lunch before heading home to wrap presents, with the restaurant reserving a table for them every year.

As the Myers family were checking out at JCPenney on Saturday, they caught the attention of fellow shopper Bill Hartshorn, who became a little choked up after seeing them still shopping with their father.

“You guys are going to make me cry,” Hartshorn said as he was standing behind them in line.

Hartshorn himself is the father of four girls between age of 16 and 21.

“It really makes you look forward,” Hartshorn said.

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