At the center of our Christmas celebrations was the spirit of the living God in Christ. That sense of Christmas was not crowded out by all the wild gift giving and festivity that we have today. The entire community celebrated. Everybody attended both the Christmas program at the school and the programs and services at the church. After the programs we all went home with a little brown paper bag filled with an apple, some nuts and some Christmas candy.
We always had a tree. I don’t know where they came from, as they sure didn’t grow on the prairie. Decorating the tree was the secret enterprise of the mother, done on the day of Christmas Eve and unveiled that night. It was decorated with popcorn and cranberries as well as homemade decorations that gathered from year to year and with candles for lights. Some years Ma made the candles from tallow. She had a stick with 4 or 5 strings attached and she’d dip the strings in a kettle of warm tallow, let it drip and cool, and then dip it again until it was the desired thickness. The candles were then attached to the tree limbs with little clips.
The gifts were simple, scarves, mittens, and sweaters. One year there were two fruit jars under the tree. One was filled with tiny donuts and the other with tiny fattiman. I suppose there were other gifts, but I was really struck by the special baking done just for me. One year I got a doll. I had spent the night with my grandmother, and I helped her make out an order from the Montgomery Ward catalog. I found a doll head and through hints managed to get her to order it. It was 80 cents. Not cheap. When the head arrived she gave it to Ma who made a body from muslin. Pa whittled legs and arms. It was precious. I had it until after I was married, but it burned when we lost our house.
The Christmas when Alfred was eight he was so excited about the preparations, but Mom told him we wouldn’t be having such a great Christmas as there wasn’t much money that year. She didn’t buy a tree, just decorated a limb from one of our trees. There was something under the tree for everybody, but it probably wasn’t much. Before we went to bed Alfred said, “Why did you say it wouldn’t be a very good Christmas? I think it was the best one we ever had.”
With less emphasis on the material, I think we put more of ourselves into it. There was the big Christmas dinner with friends and relatives each family staking turns hosting it. There’d be turkey and goose with lots of trimmings and baked apples and lots of cookies and candy.
My favorite part of Christmas was Yule Boking. The festivities lasted a week between Christmas and New Years. We’d dress up in costumes and masks, pile in the sleigh with our fiddles and guitars and go to a neighbor’s house making lots of noise. They’d invite us in for a party and then dress up and come along with us along with others that we picked up along the way. Sometimes we’d wind up staying for a couple of hours, singing and dancing.
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