This column comes out between Christmas and New Year’s, and because our daughter is home and I’m enjoying relaxed holidays with her, this will be mostly a re-run from past holiday writing. Our daughter, by the way, works for the Department of Justice and is unconcerned about the shutdown. It seems that DOJ has a separate pile of money from fines that criminals pay, so the work goes on. She telecommuted a bit while here and plans to be back in the office by Monday, even though it is New Year’s Eve. It’s possible that the Grinch will parole the people he considered to be his personal indentured servants on New Years’ Eve, but her plane reservations are set. Practical matters like that don’t occur to the guys at the top.
Federal employees indeed get accustomed to budgetary uncertainty, and her attitude is very much that the work goes on regardless of what is happening on the Hill or in Casa Blanca. In fact, when we were exchanging gifts with a neighbor on Christmas Eve, the neighbor said that the packages they had expected from her son, who is a missionary in Honduras, were being held up in Miami. She mentioned the company’s name, and my daughter popped up with, “Oh, we just indicted them.” They both got on their phones and googled the case for recent updates. What a world we have now! Al Gore certainly was right in predicting an information superhighway!
So regardless of what the thumb-sucker-in-chief thinks, most federal employees take their jobs seriously. Law enforcement -- including this suspected drug dealing from Honduras through Miami -- does go on, even while he tries to intimidate Congress by withholding paychecks from the civil servants who track such complex cases. If he is serious about the threat of drugs, he should leave the experts in peace to do their work.
And a second by the way: “Happy holidays” is something I’ve said all my life. I – and my parents before me – used it long before we were aware of Hanukah or Kwanza: It simply means more than one holiday at the time of low light, when we need it most.
Christmas Memories in Minnesota
I enjoy reading the memories that LaGaceta publishes at this time and want to add some of mine. To begin, I don’t remember my oldest brother ever living at home. He was thirteen when I was born, and he lived most of the year with Grandma and Grandpa Schultz in New Ulm, Minnesota, where he could attend a Lutheran prep school. My only memory of him and Christmas is unhappy: I was excited about the holiday and him being home, and I made so much noise that he scolded me. I went to my bedroom crying, and he soon came in and apologized. I’ve never forgotten, though, and I try never to dampen the enthusiasm of joyful children.
My older sister was nine when I was born, but I don’t remember much about her and Christmas, either, although I remember her confirmation in the Lutheran church, her graduation from high school, and other things – especially how I joined with the brother who is just eighteen months older than I to shamelessly rip off her teenage boyfriends by feeding them information about other boyfriends. They paid us in nickels and ice cream cones. Mostly, though, Christmas memories center on the four of us who were younger. Our six-child family is unusual in that the birth years range by twos from the 1930s to 1950: Dad called us “the first crop, the second crop, and the third crop.” There wasn’t any family planning to this; it just happened.
The Christmas with the most photographic memory comes literally from a photograph that I can date to 1952 because my younger sister appears to be about two in it. The four of us are sitting on a rug in the living room, facing a colorful tin Ferris wheel that the youngest brother, who then was four, got for Christmas. It was a fantastic present for the time, and I think the others of us took as much joy in it as he did. Years later, Dad won a contest for a beautiful big bride doll that younger sister got for Christmas, and again I think we all were as thrilled as she.
That Minnesota living room floor featured an electric train that ostensibly belonged to my older brother – but it was Dad and a bunch of uncles who spent the holiday running it. Electric trains were new, and we kids raced old-fashioned push cars while the (male) adults got the modern toy. Mom and the aunts, of course, were in the kitchen, preparing and serving food. Roast goose was Mom’s preferred Christmas dinner, but unless one of the farmer kinfolk brought it, we didn’t have it – both it and other poultry were relatively much more expensive then than today.
On Christmas Eve, Mom made Dad’s favorite Norwegian foods – most of which I hated. I liked the oyster crackers that came with oyster stew, but in landlocked Minnesota at that time, the oysters were canned, not fresh or even frozen. Dad got the majority of them, and we kids had mostly oyster-flavored warm milk. Dad’s preferred entrée was lutefisk, which is cod preserved in lye and then boiled. It was a staple of Norwegian life, and now is the source of countless jokes. It tastes pretty much like warm glue with butter on it.
We didn’t always have lutefisk, but we always had what translated as “sweet soup.” This is a boiled concoction of prunes, raisins, lemons, and tapioca. Some of my cousins still make it, using a sweet red wine. These descendants of the Froisland family also gather at a Lutheran church for an annual family lefsa-making; they take turns using the roller that belonged to my Dad’s bachelor Uncle Karl, who was born in 1886. Lefsa is a sort of crepe made of boiled potatoes and flour; served warm with enough sugar, cinnamon, and butter, it’s pretty good.
After the Christmas Eve meal, we went to church for the annual children’s pageant. We rehearsed for several Sunday afternoons prior to it, with each of us memorizing at least one “piece” to recite. The church had trees on both sides of the altar, with room for presents to and from Sunday school teachers. Ushers delivered the presents to us in our pews, as well as a paper bag for each child that always contained the same thing: an apple, an orange, various nuts in their shells, and hard ribbon candy. We thought it was terrific.
Dad sneaked back home meanwhile, and we arrived to find that Santa had been there. I never really believed, though, as Dad usually added a line about wishing Santa would pay the bills. We opened our presents on Christmas Eve in Dad’s Norwegian tradition, and on Christmas morning went back to church. Christmas Day was not nearly as exciting as Christmas Eve, but what we called The Second Day of Christmas was fun. My Norwegian grandparents had died by then, and we went to the German grandparents on the 26th.
That was always a crowded gathering, and we kids were largely relegated to the basement. I’m not sure how many cousins I had at that point, but eventually 56 grandkids descended from my grandparents’ twelve children. Not surprisingly, Grandma didn’t shop individually. She went to rummage sales throughout the year, and at Christmas, she held out two grab bags, one with items for boys and one for girls. I remember being thrilled once to pull out a little blue purse made of plastic – another new and marvelous material in those postwar years. I wanted a plastic doll instead of the porcelain one I got.
Christmas memories in Arkansas
My parents moved us four younger kids to Arkansas when I was ten, and for the first time, we cut our own trees. The portion of Minnesota where we had lived was prairie, not forest, but after we lived in the Ozarks, there were plenty of trees. We kids would pick out one in the summer or fall – usually a cedar, but sometimes a pine – and knew exactly where to go when it was time to chop it down. Arkansas, of course, was much poorer than Minnesota, and we were one of the few families to display outdoor lights. Dad used nails to create a tree pattern and strung the lights so that, from our high hill, the image could be seen by people passing on the road below.
That was nothing compared with Minnesota, where the town not only hung lights across the street, but also decorated lampposts with swags of fresh fir. But Dad never regretted moving, and the first year we lived in Arkansas, he plowed a field on Christmas Day just so that he could say he had done that miraculous thing. Mom and I, in contrast, found the weather too hot for baking Christmas cookies. The German pfeffernusse was her favorite cookie, but finding the essential cardamom was impossible in Arkansas.
They bought the farm that they did because there was a Lutheran church nearby, and again we went to church twice within a few hours, with services at night on Christmas Eve and in the morning on Christmas Day. Churches and schools in both places gave performances and held gift exchanges, both with a mixture of religiosity and secularism. I remember my older sister singing “O Holy Night” at the Christmas party given by her employer, the local pickle plant. Dad’s employer, a turkey researcher, also gave a big party with a full meal and presents for everyone. I also sang “O Holy Night” as a teenager, carrying a candle down the church aisle and worrying about both the flame and the high notes of the song.
Unless it fell on a Sunday, we didn’t have church at New Years. Some Minnesota churches had what Mom called “watch parties” that lasted until midnight, and she recalled that with pleasure when we didn’t have them in Arkansas. Most of the others in the family would go to bed, but she and I listened to the radio and toasted the New Year with Kool-Aid, another marvel of the time.
My older sister introduced me to more sophisticated New Year’s celebrations when we both lived in the Washington area soon after Hubby and I married. Our husbands were Army officers, and the first dress-up New Year’s I experienced was at the Officers Club in Fort Meade, Maryland. I wore the blue lace gown Mom had made for a big dance back in college, and Sis sewed her own white dress with a big turquoise boa. We have a very good picture of that, and not just in my mind.
Happy New Year to you all!
doris@dweatherford.com
Doris Weatherford writes a weekly column for La Gaceta, the nation's only trilingual newspaper. With pages in Spanish, Italian, and English, it has been published in Tampa since 1922.
Federal employees indeed get accustomed to budgetary uncertainty, and her attitude is very much that the work goes on regardless of what is happening on the Hill or in Casa Blanca. In fact, when we were exchanging gifts with a neighbor on Christmas Eve, the neighbor said that the packages they had expected from her son, who is a missionary in Honduras, were being held up in Miami. She mentioned the company’s name, and my daughter popped up with, “Oh, we just indicted them.” They both got on their phones and googled the case for recent updates. What a world we have now! Al Gore certainly was right in predicting an information superhighway!
So regardless of what the thumb-sucker-in-chief thinks, most federal employees take their jobs seriously. Law enforcement -- including this suspected drug dealing from Honduras through Miami -- does go on, even while he tries to intimidate Congress by withholding paychecks from the civil servants who track such complex cases. If he is serious about the threat of drugs, he should leave the experts in peace to do their work.
And a second by the way: “Happy holidays” is something I’ve said all my life. I – and my parents before me – used it long before we were aware of Hanukah or Kwanza: It simply means more than one holiday at the time of low light, when we need it most.
Christmas Memories in Minnesota
I enjoy reading the memories that LaGaceta publishes at this time and want to add some of mine. To begin, I don’t remember my oldest brother ever living at home. He was thirteen when I was born, and he lived most of the year with Grandma and Grandpa Schultz in New Ulm, Minnesota, where he could attend a Lutheran prep school. My only memory of him and Christmas is unhappy: I was excited about the holiday and him being home, and I made so much noise that he scolded me. I went to my bedroom crying, and he soon came in and apologized. I’ve never forgotten, though, and I try never to dampen the enthusiasm of joyful children.
My older sister was nine when I was born, but I don’t remember much about her and Christmas, either, although I remember her confirmation in the Lutheran church, her graduation from high school, and other things – especially how I joined with the brother who is just eighteen months older than I to shamelessly rip off her teenage boyfriends by feeding them information about other boyfriends. They paid us in nickels and ice cream cones. Mostly, though, Christmas memories center on the four of us who were younger. Our six-child family is unusual in that the birth years range by twos from the 1930s to 1950: Dad called us “the first crop, the second crop, and the third crop.” There wasn’t any family planning to this; it just happened.
The Christmas with the most photographic memory comes literally from a photograph that I can date to 1952 because my younger sister appears to be about two in it. The four of us are sitting on a rug in the living room, facing a colorful tin Ferris wheel that the youngest brother, who then was four, got for Christmas. It was a fantastic present for the time, and I think the others of us took as much joy in it as he did. Years later, Dad won a contest for a beautiful big bride doll that younger sister got for Christmas, and again I think we all were as thrilled as she.
That Minnesota living room floor featured an electric train that ostensibly belonged to my older brother – but it was Dad and a bunch of uncles who spent the holiday running it. Electric trains were new, and we kids raced old-fashioned push cars while the (male) adults got the modern toy. Mom and the aunts, of course, were in the kitchen, preparing and serving food. Roast goose was Mom’s preferred Christmas dinner, but unless one of the farmer kinfolk brought it, we didn’t have it – both it and other poultry were relatively much more expensive then than today.
On Christmas Eve, Mom made Dad’s favorite Norwegian foods – most of which I hated. I liked the oyster crackers that came with oyster stew, but in landlocked Minnesota at that time, the oysters were canned, not fresh or even frozen. Dad got the majority of them, and we kids had mostly oyster-flavored warm milk. Dad’s preferred entrée was lutefisk, which is cod preserved in lye and then boiled. It was a staple of Norwegian life, and now is the source of countless jokes. It tastes pretty much like warm glue with butter on it.
We didn’t always have lutefisk, but we always had what translated as “sweet soup.” This is a boiled concoction of prunes, raisins, lemons, and tapioca. Some of my cousins still make it, using a sweet red wine. These descendants of the Froisland family also gather at a Lutheran church for an annual family lefsa-making; they take turns using the roller that belonged to my Dad’s bachelor Uncle Karl, who was born in 1886. Lefsa is a sort of crepe made of boiled potatoes and flour; served warm with enough sugar, cinnamon, and butter, it’s pretty good.
After the Christmas Eve meal, we went to church for the annual children’s pageant. We rehearsed for several Sunday afternoons prior to it, with each of us memorizing at least one “piece” to recite. The church had trees on both sides of the altar, with room for presents to and from Sunday school teachers. Ushers delivered the presents to us in our pews, as well as a paper bag for each child that always contained the same thing: an apple, an orange, various nuts in their shells, and hard ribbon candy. We thought it was terrific.
Dad sneaked back home meanwhile, and we arrived to find that Santa had been there. I never really believed, though, as Dad usually added a line about wishing Santa would pay the bills. We opened our presents on Christmas Eve in Dad’s Norwegian tradition, and on Christmas morning went back to church. Christmas Day was not nearly as exciting as Christmas Eve, but what we called The Second Day of Christmas was fun. My Norwegian grandparents had died by then, and we went to the German grandparents on the 26th.
That was always a crowded gathering, and we kids were largely relegated to the basement. I’m not sure how many cousins I had at that point, but eventually 56 grandkids descended from my grandparents’ twelve children. Not surprisingly, Grandma didn’t shop individually. She went to rummage sales throughout the year, and at Christmas, she held out two grab bags, one with items for boys and one for girls. I remember being thrilled once to pull out a little blue purse made of plastic – another new and marvelous material in those postwar years. I wanted a plastic doll instead of the porcelain one I got.
Christmas memories in Arkansas
My parents moved us four younger kids to Arkansas when I was ten, and for the first time, we cut our own trees. The portion of Minnesota where we had lived was prairie, not forest, but after we lived in the Ozarks, there were plenty of trees. We kids would pick out one in the summer or fall – usually a cedar, but sometimes a pine – and knew exactly where to go when it was time to chop it down. Arkansas, of course, was much poorer than Minnesota, and we were one of the few families to display outdoor lights. Dad used nails to create a tree pattern and strung the lights so that, from our high hill, the image could be seen by people passing on the road below.
That was nothing compared with Minnesota, where the town not only hung lights across the street, but also decorated lampposts with swags of fresh fir. But Dad never regretted moving, and the first year we lived in Arkansas, he plowed a field on Christmas Day just so that he could say he had done that miraculous thing. Mom and I, in contrast, found the weather too hot for baking Christmas cookies. The German pfeffernusse was her favorite cookie, but finding the essential cardamom was impossible in Arkansas.
They bought the farm that they did because there was a Lutheran church nearby, and again we went to church twice within a few hours, with services at night on Christmas Eve and in the morning on Christmas Day. Churches and schools in both places gave performances and held gift exchanges, both with a mixture of religiosity and secularism. I remember my older sister singing “O Holy Night” at the Christmas party given by her employer, the local pickle plant. Dad’s employer, a turkey researcher, also gave a big party with a full meal and presents for everyone. I also sang “O Holy Night” as a teenager, carrying a candle down the church aisle and worrying about both the flame and the high notes of the song.
Unless it fell on a Sunday, we didn’t have church at New Years. Some Minnesota churches had what Mom called “watch parties” that lasted until midnight, and she recalled that with pleasure when we didn’t have them in Arkansas. Most of the others in the family would go to bed, but she and I listened to the radio and toasted the New Year with Kool-Aid, another marvel of the time.
My older sister introduced me to more sophisticated New Year’s celebrations when we both lived in the Washington area soon after Hubby and I married. Our husbands were Army officers, and the first dress-up New Year’s I experienced was at the Officers Club in Fort Meade, Maryland. I wore the blue lace gown Mom had made for a big dance back in college, and Sis sewed her own white dress with a big turquoise boa. We have a very good picture of that, and not just in my mind.
Happy New Year to you all!
doris@dweatherford.com
Doris Weatherford writes a weekly column for La Gaceta, the nation's only trilingual newspaper. With pages in Spanish, Italian, and English, it has been published in Tampa since 1922.