Christmases in Wisconsin
Dear Anna, thank you so much for asking me to contribute a story to your share our stories holiday campaign. This turned out to be a very happy thing for me to do, Reviving old memories of Christmases past, and for just a little while, getting away from the difficulties of 2020. I realized my story maybe longer than you expected.
Once I got remembering, I found it difficult to rain back. I hope you enjoy my writing and learn how we celebrated in the olden days. I didn't write it out in longhand because it would have taken too long and I don't print very often. I wasn't sure if you've been taught to read cursive.
By the time you get this, it will almost be the new year. 2021 holds much promise, but we'll have to be patient for everyone to get their vaccinations so covid-19 will go away and our country can start to mend. So for this New Year I hope you will wake up happy every morning stay healthy and continue to grow smart and strong. Give my love to all my Bozeman family. August from Aunt Mary from Wisconsin
Christmases is in Wisconsin
The 1950s were a wonderful time to grow up following World War II, the country was prospering, families were growing and our celebrations were joyous, noisy and thankful. Because of that, the memories are almost too numerous to choose from. Everything we did seemed to revolve around family, music, food and snow. There seemed no room in our lives for any emotions except happiness.
As children, we approached the holidays with so much bound up excitement that we often thought we would burst, anxiously waiting for Santa to come, practicing our songs and parts for the Christmas Pageant at school and church, and helping Mom make cookies and other traditional holiday delicacies. We whispered with our friends about what we hoped would be waiting for us under the tree on Christmas morning and worked diligently on gifts we were making with paper and glue for parents and siblings.
Christmas Eve was always church services, dressed in our best clothes to stand in front of the overcrowded Church, doing our best to please our grinning parents. Huge Christmas trees twinkled behind us and there were poinsettias and every window and on each flat surface. Best of all was lighting our candles and singing Silent Night in the dark and church.
Christmas morning was a mad dasg to the tree to see that Santa really had been there while we slept and left so many brightly wrapped boxes with our names on them. The excitement was overwhelming, which meant jumping on our parents bed until they groggily robed and joined us. I was five before my baby brother joined me followed later by my two sisters spreading over 14 years, so I had quite a few years of experience with Christmas mornings before I had to share with the little ones. Our presents were not expensive or over-indulgent, but we always seem to get just what we dreamed for, wondering how could Santa ever keep all the children in the world straight. One thing we almost always had in our stockings with a big juicy orange and a shiny, crunchy apple.
Arranging holiday visits must have been a real challenge for my parents, because we always fit in half to full day visits with two sets of grandparents and all those associated cousins, aunts and uncles, as well as three great-grandmothers and even more extended family. Somehow we trotted it off to each of these happy and overheated houses, every inch seemingly stuffed with people, food, music, love and lights. Everyone we knew and loved live within 10 miles of Waupaca, and we wouldn't have even not celebrating with them.
At each home, the coats of every family were piled high on one of the beds with sleeping babies tucked in like nuts on a cake. Real spruce trees, cut on the farm, were pressed into corners, covered with tinsel, very breakable glass ornaments, bubbling candle lights and sometimes even real candles. Children hurriedly opened presents in the center of the living room while mothers and grands sat and dining room chairs and couches circling the walls. The men crowded around a table in the den playing sheep head and smoking cigars with much laughter.
The dining room table was opened to its longest and piled high with sliced ham, steaming bowls of potatoes, sparkling pickle dishes, warm fresh rolls, wiggly red jell-o's crowned with fluffy whipped cream and trays and trays of cookies. I am of mixed heritage, so ethnic specialties always included steamed English Christmas pudding, oyster stew, pickled herring, rolls of buttered lefse, crispy rosettes, finskbrod, sandbakkels, krumkake, fattigman, and kringla. I can smell it all now just thinking about it.
When we kids, celebrating on a sugar high, became too boisterous for indoor play, eager moms buttoned us into warm woolen coats and rubbers or plastic bags covering our best shoes, shooed us out into the crisp, snow blanketed lawn where instant snowball fights crisscrossed the driveway. We made snow angels and built fat snowman. Every one of us might have been wearing matching stocking hats, mittens or scarves that our grandmother had lovingly knit that year for every one of us, or the littlest girls clutched their new dollies and the oldest boys compared their new pocket knives.
And when it was time for each family to head back to their Farms, because the cows always needed to be milked even on Christmas, hugs and kisses were shared by all as Grandpa gave each grandchild our very own silver dollar. The next day, everything was repeated at each grandparent's home, with different cousins, more food, more laughter and more happiness than I can describe. Some people say that memories are often better than the real thing but I don't agree it really was the BEST!!
Mary Hansen Mathwig
12/24/20
