Christmas Memories

When I think of Christmas Past I generally think about the whole day, the events and the food, rather than the gifts.  The truth is that most of the gifts were not terribly memorable, just ordinary gifts of dolls, trucks, games and pajamas.  As we got a little older Farmor would send Jeanette and I pieces of jewelry, or a jewelry case (that was really special and I still have the black leather case with red velvet interior – real velvet not that cheap stuff you generally see).  One year I got a brownie camera as well as a tape recorder, the kind that had two wheels and real tape.  I still have the recording of us singing “Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore”. 

            Over the years we have eaten a lot of ducks.  As the family grew to included grandchildren my mother was up to four ducks in the oven which entailed her moving them up and down the rack in the oven to ensure proper browning.  A few days before Christmas she would chop a huge head of red cabbage to stew in vinegar and cranberry jelly.  About ten days before Christmas she would begin to bake Danish cookies and she would have to bake for several days because we would eat them up so fast! 

            Christmas Eve day I would help set the table, taking out the fine Danish silverware and the best china.  As I got older and started collecting ornaments I would decorate the table with some of the Danish elves (nisser) or bits of evergreen.  I’d fuss with the Christmas napkins, search for fresh candles and hope that I could get a picture of everyone around the table before we dived in like starving cannibals to the poor little ducks!

            My brother John lives on a creek and when the nieces and nephews were old enough to skate (and some not) he would get the creek cleared and ready to play hockey.  We were a sight to behold as we marched down to the creek, some victorious ones with a real hockey stick, the rest of us using rakes and shovels as our weapon of choice.  I generally opted out of the game almost immediately and just skated up and down until my feet got cold.  John had bales of hay set along the banks so we could sit there and watch the “game”.  My brother Erik has no balance at all on skates and was more fun to watch than the children.  After a while we’d stagger back up the hill to the house and Mom would have hot chocolate with real whipping cream ready for us.

            Best Christmas fun ever?  The year we got our skates.  I think I wrote about this last year but I’ll tell it again.  They had wrapped the boxes up beautifully and we dived for those presents first.  We were so excited when we saw the skates on the box and then we opened up the box to find a toothbrush and a couple of candies.  Jeanette started crying right away as Dad said “You get the box this year, next year you will get the skates”.  I was holding it together despite the disappointment but John had already figured out the cruel joke and dived for the rotten gift wrapped up in newspapers and shoved way in the back.  There they were beautiful brand new skates.  Jeanette and I had beautiful figure skates and John had genuine hockey skates.  We could hardly wait to get out on some ice but we had to wait until the next day to go down to the school where an outdoor rink was set up.

            John jumped on the ice and sprawled all over the place but bounced up, sprawled again and just kept going up and down like a jack-in-the-box.  Dad said it was one of the funniest things he had ever seen.  John thought he could just go out on the ice and become a hockey player!  He was maybe r 7 at the time.  That was one of the best Christmases ever.