A Christmas Memoir

Christmas memories of family & friends

One of my favorite newspaper columns is from the Grand Forks Herald 30 years ago.  Marilyn Hagerty wrote about Christmas Eve in her small South Dakota town.  The Herald republishes it every Christmas Eve.  It’s a paean to small town life.  I read it every year, that and Dylan Thomas,’ “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.”  In that tradition I bring you a few of my family and friend’s recollections. 
First posted online December 17, 2009
                                                           Merry Christmas!

Jim Wallwork Penny Lane Pub Richmond Virginia 2005

Jim Wallwork
Centreville, Virginia 

My Mum grew up on a farm in County Cavan, close to the Northern Ireland border.  It was the custom there to name your home. The Magee place was called Tonaloy.


My parents got married in 1940, at the start of World War II.  Because of the German Blitz many children were evacuated to the countryside from the big cities.  Mum went home to Tonaloy before I was born.  I lived there until the end of the war with Mum, uncles, aunts, and grandparents.  We had a big turkey for Christmas dinner, roasted over an open fireplace.

My Dad was from Manchester, England.  He enlisted in the Lancashire Fusilliers, stationed first in Liverpool then Scapa Flow, in the Orkney Isles.  After the war Dad was de-mobbed and my folks and I moved to Whitefield, near Manchester.  One of my earliest memories is collecting firewood with Dad from a Manchester bomb site.  For as long as my grandparents were alive we visited them at their farm at least once a year, usually during harvest/summer holiday. 

At Christmas my grandparents mailed us a very large turkey –more than 25 pounds--stuffed with several pounds of special butter from their local creamery.   It was a grand free-range turkey.  Back then there was little central heating in England; December was always cold so our turkey arrived well-chilled. 

In November Mum started making her Irish-style fruitcakes.  After baking the cakes she’d wrap them in muslin, pouring a little rum on them each week until Christmas, when she’d decorate them with marzipan.  For Christmas dinner Mum got up in the middle of the night to start the turkey baking because of the heavy demand for town gas which reduced output.  (England now has North Sea gas).   My Dad did his share of holiday baking too, making meat pies on Christmas Eve.  This was the only time of the year he ventured into the kitchen.  He baked several meat pies and they always had great flaky crust, made from scratch too. And it was always delicious.

Husband Rob, Peter, Neil, Joanna, Ann & Gillian

Ann S. & family

Cheadle Hulme

Cheshire, Great Britain 1982

I realise just how things change, as time goes by and we get older. When the children were small we were usually up at around 4:00 a.m., to empty their pillowcases of presents filled by Father Christmas.  We adults then went back to sleep and the children explored the booty.  I also made a trip downstairs to put the turkey in the oven to cook ever so slowly.

By mid-day we were hosting around 30 adult friends and their offspring, passing round homemade shortbreads from a recipe given to me by my much loved mother-in-law and also her dates stuffed with almond paste and almonds, not to mention chocolates and of course something alcoholic to toast the day.  Dinner was eaten at about 3 o'clock after which the custom was for Mummy - me - to have a short nap while all the others cleared up and presented me with a coffee with cream together with a brandy - well deserved I think after all those shopping expeditions, card writing, letter writing (before the days of e-mails and texts) cooking etc.

Boxing Day (December 26) was also a great day - my husband I usually going with our two boys to watch our beloved Manchester City hopefully winning the football match - such great camaraderie, with carols being sung, funny hats worn and hearty handshakes all round.

All that has gone now.  I spread myself around our four children in turn so that none of them have to cope with the aged parent too often and I more or less sit down and enjoy the grandchildren and help with the washing up.  But I still silently toast all those loved friends and those who have left us as I have that after-dinner brandy - and before I have a snooze.   

Molly, Jim, Claire & Aunt Laurie

Aunt Laurie

Millville, Massachusetts

Twice in my life I haven’t had a Christmas tree.  The first time was when I was seven years old and my grandfather died in early December.  My mother said it wasn’t proper to have showy lights when we were in mourning.

The second time was the first year Michael and I were married.  We lived with his father, Mr. K., while we saved for our first house.  Mr. K. said, “Nie!”   He spoke little English, just Polish.  He knew the English word for ‘no’ but it came out of him more forcefully in Polish.  His house, no tree.  Christmas isn’t Christmas to me without a tree. 

So my younger brother, he was 11 at that time, stacked  little pieces of birch to form a Creche for me.  It’s very  special to me. He died when he was 14.  Every year I put his Creche under our Christmas tree. 

Dan & Marian, Letvin Hill, Kief, North Dakota 2008

Dan & Marian Letvin

Kief, North Dakota

I grew up on a farm in Lincoln Valley, North Dakota.  Times were different then.  We had no tree or presents just a really fine Christmas Eve service at church, in German.  After the service big bags of peanuts and oranges were passed around for the children.  We were delighted with those simple treats.  We did our chores no matter how cold it got such as milking the cows, feeding them, taking care of the other animals.

After Dan and I married we enjoyed Christmas Eve church service too, with the added fun of watching our four children do their part in the pageant and singing of carols.  If the weather cooperated we’d go see cousins and Aunt Polly who lived out on the prairie on her own.

Christmas dinner was a feast, with most of our meal made from things we grew on the farm. Turkey, potatoes, carrots, beets, etc.  For dessert we’d have German kuchen made with plums or juneberries we’d canned in summer.  Because we’re cattle ranchers we usually had a big beef roast, or venison Dan bagged during hunting season.  And because we live in North Dakota we almost always had a white Christmas.

Rebecca, Naomi & Janette

Naomi (in hat) with daughter Rebecca & Mom Janette,
Grand Forks, North Dakota 2008

 
Next to Easter, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are the most joyous occasions in my life.  My childhood memories of Christmas are a treasure. Everyone was on his or her best behavior. Santa Claus would NOT visit a dirty house, so my brother and I had to help our mom clean the house in the morning and the afternoon of the twenty-fourth.

We always went to Christmas Eve Candlelight Services and I remember my 3 year-old little brother trying to stay awake long enough to as he said, “Put a fire on my candle.”

I remember the church being dark, and slowly, as each person share his or her light with another, the whole church was illuminated, spreading a sense of wonder among toddlers, teenagers, adults, business people, carpenters, plumbers, physicians and elderly wise people. It was breath taking.

And as that moment was literally extinguished with the blowing out of the candles, a new sense of excitement rose. People who opened presents on Christmas Eve wanted to rush home and tear open their gifts.

Ours was an ethnically mixed family.  Dad, a Scandinavian, wanted to celebrate Christmas Eve. Mom, of British origins, wanted to wait until Christmas Day.

So they cut a deal, on the twenty-fourth, Dad made supper before church: Lutefisk and oyster stew. We got to open gifts from relatives living far away that night.

The next morning, no child was allowed out of the bedroom until Mom had checked to see if Santa Claus had visited and left some gifts. Then she and my father went to the living room as my brother and I raced out of our bedrooms, still in our pajamas, to see what Santa Claus had given us.

I think Mom and Dad had just as much fun watching our eyes and facial expressions as we kids had looking over the gifts. But we never forgot that it was a religious event and the celebration was in honor of Christ’s birth.

While Dad made the lutefisk and oyster stew, Mom made sure we lit the advent candles of joy, peace, love, hope and last, but most important, the Christ child candle.                                                          

First published as Naomi’s Notes, Sioux County Index-Reporter, December 23 1998