Christmas at Grandmother's House

Like a page from an old scrapbook, many of us have Christmas memories of holidays at Grandmother's house, with all of the table leaves stretching the table to hold the adults, and maybe a children's table in the kitchen.  Traditional meals were the same year after year, and when the meal was done the women gathered in the kitchen, washing the dishes and putting them away as they dried them in places where Grandmother would need weeks to find everything.

The men would find comfortable chairs to settle into and tell yarns and catch naps, while the children would play with the toys Santa had brought.  If it was the tradition not to open packages until after the meal, they would sneak packages from under the tree to shake and squeeze in hopes of guessing the contents. 

The day was orchestrated carefully, rarely changing much.  If someone failed to bring a favorite dish, there was likely to be grumbling, and if someone dared to alter a recipe, it would be noticed.

Yet, if you watch television today, you would assume that those old traditions have passed...that everyone today is flying to some beach resort or traveling to the mountains to ski. 

Out of curiosity, I went online to see if family Christmas dinners are out of fashion.  The results of my research are inconsistent.  I found that between December 23rd and January 2nd 112.7  million will travel 50 miles or more for the holidays.  Another site said 113 million would be away from home.  Another said one in three would travel for Christmas.

However, a survey of 2,000 people found that 73% spent time together, and that was true of Christmas more than any other time of the year.  Another survey found that 82% try to be together every year.

My conclusion...spending the Christmas holiday is not out of fashion, but what people consider spending it together is not necessarily like their Grandmother's Christmas.  It may not be on December 25th, it may be at a resort, it may be virtual, and it may be a bit of fibbing if asked by an interviewer.   But, apparently most families do have traditions that are significant to them, even if their family group is a family because they choose to be, not because they share the same mother or father.

I love Christmas traditions, but because we often lived far away from family at Christmas, many of our Christmas memories are of time spent with friends.  I love decorating for holidays, and this year when I got out some of our Christmas decorations, I discovered some that I had not seen for quite a while.  If you look very closely at the stockings, you may remember the people whose names are on those stockings.  Maybe those two people will be with us this year for Christmas!
     

 

Merry Christmas from My Friend Mary Ann

Photo credit:  Lyn Fenwick

I know that Christmas letters are often the butt of jokes, but they would not be if they were all written by our friend Mary Ann Marko!  She has given me permission to share her 2020 Christmas letter on my blog, and you are in for a treat!  (Only the images are mine.)

What to Make of a Covid Year

From January whisperings about a strange disease in a faraway land, to March when things began to look ominous, to the present, which finds us engulfed in a world pandemic, we have all taken a ride through some kind of a Sci-Fi horror movie.  Now we come into this season of gratitude and try to conjure up something we can to be thankful for.  No matter what, I will always be grateful for the moon, elephants, and cottonwood trees.  I am also grateful for the optimists who try to fill our cup at least half full with their postings of stunning sunsets, blooming flowers, jokes that force a smile, and photos of happy days.  We long to be with family and friends during this season, but are thankful for our warm, safe house to weather out this virus storm.  We are grateful, too, for Zoom that lets us at least see the faces we long to touch--to hold their hands.

Photo credit:  Lyn Fenwick

Sheltering at home has brought its own set of challenges.  Those dreams of long ago, when life was a frenzy of even a few hours alone with my sweetie, have turned to accusations of stalking.  (He says he was just trying to put the clothes away.)  We stop.  Regroup.  Find ways to make space for each other, seal the deal with a kiss, and carry on.

When the news unnerves us, we remember we have Netflix, with the Tiger King and that chess girl, and The Crown.  We open another puzzle; read another book.  Our yearning for sweets triumphs over any resolution to eat healthy.  Kale and carrots do not do what Twin Bings and Blue Bell ice cream can do to tamp down the stress and sooth the spirit.  

We stay up late and get up late.  We bring in the paper with its predictable bad news, drink coffee, scroll face book, and now it's noon.  Lunch.  I need a nap.  Billy Collins reads poems to us in the afternoons and Heather Cox teaches us history lessons.  OLLI offers courses on line--very good ones--and I remember to tune into about half of them.  I have learned about flying buttresses, Neanderthals, viruses, crocodile, and all manner of animals and insects, how my brain functions, and how Google plays with it.  I have learned more about the constitution, and how, like the Bible, it can be manipulated to fit most anything one chooses to believe.  In searching for truth, I have learned to question everything I ever thought I knew.

Irregular adherence to safety measures keeps us home from church, grocery store, and everywhere else.  And so, we watch Mass on television (with coffee and cinnamon roll), order groceries, and everything else on line--staying safe, we hope.

Yesterday on my walk, I saw a neighbor's yard strung with bedding, and chairs sitting outdoors with a basket of disinfectants beside them.  My husband tells me there was an ambulance there when he came home from PT.  We hunker down even tighter.

Photo credit: Lyn Fenwick & Emy

If we travel next year (a vaccine and a thumb's up from Dr. Fauci being the key to our traveling), it will be to memorial services that are increasing, as is the pain of not being able to share the grief with family and friends in real time.

The giant poinsettia gifted us by a friend to usher in the season will be all the decoration we need for this year.  I am eagerly waiting for the stores to stock candied fruit so I can make fruitcake--I'm ready to open that apricot brandy.

We will spend Christmas home alone, happy in the knowledge we are protecting our families, and they us.  We await the Baby in a Manger to lighten all our burdens.  And when this year comes to a close, we will celebrate its departure by stomping on something and then banging pots and pans while demanding a new and vastly improved 2021!

My thanks to these special friend of ours, Mary Ann, for sharing her humor and wisdom, and to her husband, Gene, for providing her with such great material.  May the Holiday Season bring all our friends and blog followers the grace and humor of this message, and may the new year bring us kindness and health.   

Yes, it is Special!

Christmas Day?

Last week I posted what I called "a special Christmas" blog, but one reader inquired on face book why I thought it was a special blog post for Christmas.  Here's my answer, and I consider it such an important Christmas reminder that I am keeping this week's post short to encourage readers to scroll down and read last week's post!

Christmas is a time when families often come together, young and old.  Because my father had inherited the family home built by his grandmother and his father, our home was the family gathering place, and I have wonderful memories of aunts, uncles, and cousins filling our home for the holidays.

How I wish that my memory contained all the family history shared during those holiday gatherings!  Last week's blog, which I hope you will scroll down to read if you missed it earlier, shares the importance of teaching young people their history--family and American.  I am fortunate that my mother chose a genealogy book with blank spaces to fill in family history as a shower gift for me when my husband and I married, and because of her unusual gift, I asked questions in order to fill in the spaces in that book.  (By the way, that was a wonderful gift for a young couple merging two families by their marriage.)  Yet, I wish my memory still contained all the family stories shared over the many holiday gatherings of my youth.

I suspect the picture above was taken on Christmas day when I was the little girl on the left and my cousin Anne was the taller girl with the hooded jacket.  The picture was taken in front of our farm house on an obviously cold day.  Anne's doll might have been a Christmas gift.  (The doll still had both shoes--and it seemed like doll shoes were often lost quickly.)  I appear to be holding something small that I cannot identify, and my guess is that we were told to select a favorite Christmas gift and to go outside to pose together.  Unfortunately, that is one of those family memories that I no longer remember. 

I hope all of you are having a wonderful winter holiday season, reminiscing and creating new memories!

Happy Holidays Around the World!

Christmas 2014

I realize that the holiday season is not a happy time everywhere in the world this year.  Perhaps it rarely is happy everywhere.  

Yet, I want to use this post to send holiday greetings to the many followers of my blog around the world.  It has been a surprise and a delight to me that readers in other countries enjoy my blog.  I cannot discern which blogs appeal to particular nationalities, but the popularity among countries fluctuates.  It pleases me to see that at least some of my blogs have a universal appeal.

"Christmas Guests," 12-13-2012 in blog archives

 

 Buone Feste, sretni blagdani, Joyeuses Fetes, Frohe Feiertage, felices Fiestas, Boas festas, Sarbatori Fericite, Priecigus svetkus, bayraminiz kutlu olsun, Glad helg, Wesolych Swiat, Selamat Bercuti, Selamat Hari Raya, and Happy Holidays to all those for which my key board could not provide symbols (and my apologies for my poor script and for the lack of proper accent symbols for some of the greetings given.)  I appreciate your following my blogs!

 

As past blogs have indicated, remodeling has kept us from putting up a tree this year.  (See "Collections and Creations," 12-4-2014 to read about our Angels and Ancestors Tree at the Vernon Filley Art Museum during the 2014 holidays.)  

"Isaac & the Wizard of Oz," 12-15-2011 blog archives

Our decorating for the holidays this year has been confined to the poinsettia plant my husband gave me and one lonely black haired angel.  When I was a little girl, I noticed that most pictures of angels depicted them with golden hair, and my little friends with blond hair were more likely to be chosen as angels in school and church programs than I was.  So, if I have a choice, I enjoy adding brown and black haired angels to my collection.  I also enjoy seeing angels with different skin colors and eye shapes for sale today, because I remember my own feelings as a child to never see angels who looked like me.

Our red & gold tree in 2011

For our first four Christmases after we married, college expenses allowed no spare money for a tree, nor did our tiny living quarters offer any room.  My father went into the tree belt at the farm one year while we were home for Thanksgiving to cut a cedar tree branch, which my mother secured in a coffee can wrapped in tin foil, loaning us a few Christmas balls from their own decorations.  That was our only holiday "tree" while we were in college.  When we could finally afford a tree we chose a color scheme of red and gold.  We bought a box each of red and gold balls, two gold plastic angels and one red hobby horse.  Over the years afterward, at least one holiday ornament was purchased whenever we took a trip, and more ornaments were added from the various places we lived.  Each ornament was documented on the bottom or back with the place and year it was acquired.  Putting up the tree was an opportunity to recall fun vacations and former homes.

Our Wizard of Oz tree with dolls I made

After we began the collections for the Angels and Ancestors Tree, the gold and red ornaments were ignored for a few holidays.  In 2011, we decided to display our collection of red and gold ornaments and other decorations.  It was fun to remove each one from the box and revive the memories.  (You may visit my Christmas blog "Happy Holidays," at 12-12-13 in the archives, which shares images from Isaac's era.)

Last week's blog, "Flour Mills on the Prairie," 12-18-2014, shares my Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz dolls I made one Christmas.  Obviously we enjoy decorating and entertaining during the holidays, and the Wizard of Oz tree is always fun.

For us, the holidays are about family and friends.  We look forward to cards from those who live far away, and we love seeing friends and family nearby, especially sharing the food and spirits of the season.  To all of you who follow my blog, "Thank you!"  I hope you have become fond of the old Prairie Bachelor, Isaac B. Werner, and I also hope the New Year brings me time to turn my attention back to Isaac in order to find a publisher for the neglected manuscript.  Happy Holidays!

Collections & Creations

Isaac B. Werner was both a collector and a creator, for at the time of his estate sale there were several framed etchings among his collections, and his journal is lined with margin sketches of his inventions.  He would have enjoyed the current holiday exhibition at the Filley Art Museum in Pratt, KS, where collections from local supporters of the museum are shared with the community, along with  many local artists' creations of a wide-ranging variety.  Visitors will be amazed by the taste and talents of those who have loaned objects to the museum, as well as by their generosity of loaning holiday objects that would normally be part of  displays in their own homes during the winter season.

My own ancestors, including those who were friends and acquaintances of Isaac, are having quite an adventure this December, for our Angels and Ancestors Tree is among the holiday collections on display at the museum.  (See "Christmas Guests" at 12-13-2012 in the blog archives.)  You can see our tree in the background of the photo at right.

As you might expect, there are many Santas on display, as well as several nativity figures.  Several of these nativity groups represent the work of artists from foreign countries, and one nativity has a historical appeal for Pratt residents, having been purchased from the old Duckwall's store on Main Street in the late 1940s or early 1950s.  

There are also fiber artists whose work is on display, the work including quilts, cross-stitch, clothing for the Santa's, needlepoint and ornaments, as examples.

There are ceramic pieces, such as the beautiful example at right, as well as 2-dimensional objects on the walls of the museum.  The pastel painting in the image at right is my work, which was used as our Christmas greeting in 1989.  There are two beautiful photographs by Pratt's own Stan Reimer, and an unique example of paper cutwork, among many other wonderful things.  

An example of living art in the form of a Magnolia Topiary by Lou Lynne Moss centers a table of figures.  In the background of the image below you can see a beautiful carousel horse, hand carved and painted by Jon Hartman, who has carved enough full-sized figures of different animals to fill a carousel!  Some of the needle work can also be seen in the distance.

These images represent only a tease of all the wonderful things to be seen in this exhibition!  I cannot credit all of the artists and collectors, but when you come to the exhibition you will find carefully prepared information accompanying each object

The exhibition extends only through December.  The opening reception for members is Saturday evening, Dec. 5th at 7:00  p.m.  The exhibition opens for the public at 1 p.m. Dec. 6th, and because that is the First Saturday of the Month, there will be a Docent Tour starting at 1:30.  No reservations are necessary for the 1st Saturday Tours, and we hope people in the region are getting accustomed to those regular docent tours held each month.  I will be the Docent doing the tour Dec. 6th, so I hope to see some of you who follow this blog at the tour!

Do you know what a Tomtegubben is?  If you come to see the special holiday exhibition at the Filley Art Museum you can find out, and for those who come to the 1st Saturday Tour, remind me to show you a tomtegubben!    

Christmas Guests



Angels & Ancestors Tree

Every holiday season I invite our relatives for a visit to the Beck family ancestral home that my husband and I have restored.  They all arrived last week, both of our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.  Because so many elderly unmarried aunts are forgotten at the holidays, we invite them too, as well as some of our young nieces and nephews.  With all of our pets scattered among them, it is quite a crowd.  I've never actually counted, but there must be fifty or more. 

 

In case you haven't guessed, our holiday guests arrive as photographs, and rather than finding beds for everyone, I find the perfect place on our Christmas tree.  When we restored the Victorian farm house built in 1899 by my great-grandmother Susan and her son Royal, I decided it needed a Victorian Christmas tree.  I was lucky to find some Victorian picture frame ornaments perfect for what I had in mind, and that was the beginning of our "Angels & Ancestors Tree."  The Victorian theme was enhanced by candle lights and cut-glass globes, and I planned a color scheme of crystle, gold and silver.  Then I began collecting beautiful angel ornaments. 

 

Aaron & Susan Beck w/ daughter Anna at upper left



 

The tree goes up as soon after Thanksgiving as I can convince my husband to help me assemble it, and it remains well into the New Year.  Every ancestor from six generations of whom I have a photograph is on the tree, along with other special relatives and all of our past pets.  Our young nieces and nephews are among the relatives on the tree, in hopes that discovering their pictures will encourage them to ask questions about their own ancestors. 

Royal & Lillian Beck w/ Geo. & Theresa Hall upper left

 Although he is not a relative, I wish I had a picture of Isaac to add to the tree.  I would hang his ornament near my Beck and Hall great-grandparents so these old friends would be nearby.  Someplace not too far away I would hang the pictures of my paternal grandparents, both of whom Isaac knew.  In his journal, Isaac wrote about how efficiently young Royal Beck handled a transaction at the post office when his father, the postmaster, was away the afternoon that  Isaac needed to mail important documents.  The only family to whom Isaac mentions having loaned some of his precious books and stereoscope views was the Aaron Beck family.  Isaac was also close friends with the George Hall family.  In his final illness, Isaac stayed with the Halls for a time and would perhaps have been cared for by my 15-year-old paternal grandmother, Lillian Hall.

 

 



Larry & Lyn Fenwick

The farm house is filled with memories--not only my own memories but also the memories shared with me by my parents, my aunts, uncles, and cousins.  My genealogy research sometimes makes it seem as if I knew ancestors who died long before I was born.  Even Isaac added to that store of memories in his journal entries about my ancestors. 

 

I don't really believe in ghosts, but I do like to imagine that the family and friends who shared important events at our farm over the years, both happy and sad, might somehow know that we have rescued the old farm house in which dinners, parties, wakes, holidays, announcements, romances, loud laughter, and shared secrets occurred.  There may not be ghosts in the old farm house, but at Christmas every year, their spirits are remembered.