Christmas memories 4

Christmas Eve

My ancestry is Swedish—I am proud of the fact that all four of my grandparents were born in Sweden, and immigrated to North America where they met, married, and raised their kids (my parents). So, a lot of the traditions at home came from the Old Country. Including celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve. Not that Christmas Day was ignored, but the festivities definitely started the evening before. Santa was never part of my upbringing, so the fact that we opened our gifts Christmas Eve did not conflict with when he might arrive.

I was privileged to have two families of relatives close by that we almost always got together with at Christmas (either Christmas Eve, or Christmas Day). One family was my aunt and uncle and cousins who were similar in age to my brothers and I. The other family was an older cousin with kids only a bit younger than me. So, we made a crew of about a dozen and a half.

The evening started, of course, with food. Swedish tradition called for a menu of rice and fish. (No, not at all in a Chinese style!) There was supposed to be one whole almond cooked in the rice. The person who ended up with the almond was supposed to have a year of good luck, or something like that.

As I said earlier, I grew up on a farm. Cows to milk, chores to do. So, after supper (the evening meal was never called dinner—that was the noon meal), the cows had to be milked. For us young'uns, it seemed to take forever.

Finally, Dad would come in from the barn, clean up, and we were one step closer to PRESENTS!

Then was the reading of the Christmas story from the Bible. It seemed that most of the Old Testament prophecies were included in what felt like a 5 hour scripture marathon. Actually, it was probably about 10 minutes, but it seemed like we would hit the Easter story before it was finished.

Then the patriarchal prayer. I realize now how blessed I was to have that kind of upbringing, but at the time it seemed to take FOREVER!

Then the gifts. Finally. Wonderful surprises, even in a setting where money was never plentiful. Funny thing is, I never remember feeling that I suffered. There was always lots of food, gallons of love, and no shortage of fun. Yes, there were the gifts of clothing, and other 'useful' things, but plenty of toys as well. I remember a chemistry set (with a volcano that never had enough 'oomph' to actually blow its top). Lots of board games like Monopoly or Clue or Careers. If there was a new one, the whole family would be playing it soon.

Jig saw puzzles spread over the table (only to be covered by a tablecloth for Christmas dinner the next day). And more food. Popcorn balls, mandarin oranges, fudge, fruitcake, lefse, pepparkakor and much more. Isn't it funny how food ends up being involved in all of our wonderful memories!



I have to take a moment to talk about pepparkakor. They are these Swedish cookies—quite spicy, rolled thin and baked until completely crispy. They MUST be cut into holiday shapes, and are best eaten by dunking in hot chocolate or coffee. A definite staple in any homemade Christmas cookie arsenal.
(By the way, the pictures are much more recent than most of these memories, and include my Mother, sister, and nieces, and show that the family addiction to jig puzzles has not been rehabilitated.)

Christmas memories 3

Christmas tree
I grew up on a farm, and Dad had planted 3 rows of spruce trees parallel to the road near our yard as a shelterbelt. The idea was that when the trees grew bigger than the 12 inches they started out as, they would stop the snow from drifting onto the road.

Well, it took a few years, but the trees became tall enough that we could lop the top off of one of them and bring it inside. Over the next few years the tree would grow a new top. For many years, we only had to walk a few steps down to the road, and harvest our yearly Christmas tree. The biggest challenge was bringing a frozen tree that was almost as wide as it was high through the door. Not as exciting as the stories of heading out into the forest with an axe, but it worked well for us. Those trees are now as tall as the power lines, so they are definitely doing the 'shelterbelt' thing well.



The decorations were an uncoordinated blend of stuff Mom had from her days as a child to whatever had been added over the years. The fragile glass balls, the unbreakable plastic ones, the bubble lights, and the angel at the top.

This was long before designer trees, fake trees or mini lights—but you can't beat the warmth of a 'real' tree with decorations that each tell a story of Christmases past.

Christmas memories 2

Community Choir


Small town, small churches, lots of reasons to cooperate. For many years as an older teen and into adulthood, the four churches in our community plus one next town over (and people who maybe didn't even go to church) formed a community choir. We always had one person who could play the piano well enough to learn new and/or difficult music, and pound out the notes for the gang to learn their respective parts. We usually had a person who was either good enough or could be roped into leading this motley crew. And there were usually about five of us who could read music. The rest learned by hearing the notes often enough, and together we had lots of fun. Some years we attempted something out of the ordinary, other times, a familiar selection of carols.

Part of the fun was singing in each others' churches sometime in December. There were times that we hit three churches in one morning. We were incredibly ecumenical in a time when that was rather unusual. The churches ran the gamut from Catholic to Anglican to United to Lutheran to Pentecostal.

Then we would perhaps have a concert for the community in the local community hall.
And we would often haul ourselves through blizzards to the senior citizens lodges in the area. It always seemed to be blizzard season just before Christmas. But we would bring our version of cheer to add to the entertainment the seniors would 'enjoy' during December. And lots of home baking to finish off the evening.

We often did the same kind of thing for Easter.

Christmas memories 1

Memory is a wonderful thing.
It tends to be selective—you remember the good things better than the bad things. Sure, bad things leave their mark, but we do tend to remember the pleasant things more than the painful ones.
I think a lot of what we as adults try to recapture in our Christmas celebrating is the joy and innocence of youth. We work hard (and sometimes fail) trying to recreate the warm fuzzies of when we were kids. But time goes on, situations change, and even the way we celebrate takes on new forms.
So, I hope you have some pleasant Christmas memories as you slide through another December, and perhaps have opportunities to relive some of the fun you remember as a kid.

This is the first post of a few Christmas memories. May they at least trigger some good ones of your own. And it's never too late to start making some new ones.

The Sunday School Christmas Program

Every fall, the Sunday School teachers would start planning for the yearly 'event'. Finding cute (hopefully meaningful) little recitations, and some sort of drama for the teenagers to perform. It would involve several weeks worth of practicing, before 'that night' (one of my Mother's pet peeves was the constant reference to what would or wouldn't happen 'that night'.) As a kid I remember helping make the candy bags to give out at the end of the evening—a brown bag half full of candy, peanuts, orange, and probably some homemade fudge. And don't forget the costumes—angels with lopsided halos, shepherds in over-sized bathrobes, and wise men with 'priceless' boxes wrapped in foil.

One of my lifelong memories involves a play that I was in as a teenager. One of the bits of action on stage involved another actor handing me a note. Now it didn't matter if anything was actually written on the paper, it was just a prop. However, one rehearsal the gal who was to hand me the note had written this silly little riddle on it before handing it to me: 'What happened when they threw oranges at the synagogue?' 'The Jews (juice) ran out.' Well, it probably wasn't all that funny, but it cracked me up, spoiling the seriousness of that particular moment. And I still remember it mumblty mumble years later.