Tales from Christmas past

We invited several Calvary women from different generations to share their Christmas memories. We hope you enjoy their nostalgic stories!

Angie Weins

On Christmas Eve, my family would attend a Christmas Eve service at our little country church. The children’s Sunday School classes performed by singing Christmas songs and reciting Christmas poems. After the service, the children would receive a paper bag filled with candy, peanuts and an apple. 

Returning home after the Christmas Eve Service, my parents would put our presents under the tree. Oh how excited I was to know that we could open those packages Christmas morning. A gift that was especially exciting to receive was a purse that I had wanted and asked for from my parents. I was so proud to carry that purse to church. 

One of my family’s Christmas morning traditions was to enjoy a delicious waffle breakfast. The waffles were topped with what we called “white sauce”. The white sauce was made of milk, sugar, vanilla and thickened with cornstarch. To this tradition from my childhood, I add strawberries which I freeze during the summer to have on our waffles Christmas morning.  I also make fruit cups and ham to complete our Christmas morning breakfast. 

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Sandy Schwering

I have wonderful memories of Christmas as a child, of Family, Food, Fun and Church! It would start on Christmas Eve, where we typically would go to my favorite Aunt & Uncle’s home (she was my mom’s sister – he was my dad’s brother, so I had what is known as “double cousins”).My siblings and I were spread out in age, with my oldest brother 18 years older, down to my youngest brother, who was 7 years younger.  My maternal grandma was always there, enjoying family times as well.  

We would start out with my least favorite Christmas Eve tradition, Oyster Stew!  I could handle the broth and oyster crackers… just not those oysters!  But there was always a LOT of cookies, candies, cheese & crackers to go with.  Spritz, date filled cookies, fudge and peanut clusters were always in abundance. 

We would generally draw names for a gift exchange.  I remember vaguely a couple gifts that I received, but I remember fondly the year that someone forgot my little brother’s gift!  No problem!!  My uncle went out to the barn and picked out a kitten, brought it inside and tied a big red bow around its little neck!  I thought that was the best gift ever, even if it wasn’t mine (the poor traumatized kitten made it’s way back to the barn eventually… or ran away!!).

Santa would come, but after the party my parents, little brother and I would usually make our way to Christmas Eve candlelight service.  Our church sanctuary was huge, with stained glass windows, cathedral ceilings, a pipe organ and was always decked out for Christmas.  Some of my favorite memories were as a teenparticipating in the choir and bell choir. It was beautiful.

After our celebration, Christmas Day was often back at my aunt & uncle’s place, where there was always a HUGE formal dinner, and lots of snacks and leftovers through the day. The guys watched football and napped all over the floor (while the women did the dishes!)  Kids were everywhere, playing together either inside or outside, followed by adults playing cards and eating some more!

Today finds most of my family as a child either deceased or many miles away.  I am now, it seems, the matriarch of our family and the one who tends to try to pull us together.  It is hard this year, as I have changed my eating habits and do not want the temptation of making and baking all our traditional, delicious, sugar-laden foods.  But what I hope and pray will never change during our Christmas Season is sharing love and joy with family and friends, gathering and celebrating our bonds, and above all putting Christ first.  After all, HE is the Reason for the Season.

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Jenna Daire

When I was a child, our family would attend Christmas Eve service, where for many years I remember receiving a brown paper bag with an apple, an orange, peanuts in the shell and a few pieces of hard candy. I have read many interpretations of the symbolism behind this gift, but don’t remember learning a specific reason our church gave these out to the children.  The music of the Christmas Eve service was always grand- an organ filled the space leading the voices of the congregation to sing of the night so long ago and the Christ child’s birth.  Upon returning home we opened presents as a family. On Christmas Day we had stockings to look through and presents from Santa. 

I recall receiving a special gift when I was 9 years old…my first camera- a Kodak Disc.  It recorded memories for me all the way through middle school. I took that thing everywhere and still have those gloriously grainy photos.

We moved around a bit when I was young. The first meals I remember had ham as the main dish, with whatever fixings those we were gathered with decided to bring.  Once we moved to Minnesota where we were closer to family, I was introduced to oyster stew as a traditional Christmas meal.  It was not my favorite dish as a child, but it has grown on me.  I now help my uncle prepare it each year.

As a special tradition, I have taken over making the pressed spritz cookies for my family, just like my mom made when we were young.  A new tradition that I hope to keep alive is ringing and singing at the Salvation Army’s Red Kettles the weekend before Christmas, which we have done since our youngest was born (14 years and counting!).

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Olga Hassan

Christmas traditions from Uganda

For me and my family, Christmas was like the magical day that almost everything we dreamed came true. For example, when Christmas was close, our parents saved up the money so that they could buy new clothes for us from the mall, and some Christmases, my dad would sew for us the Christmas cloths from the African traditional materials which had beautiful patterns and came in a variety of colors and designs. Our parents would decorate the house with lights and other decorations, and if that year they didn’t have enough money, my dad made sure that at least we had a Christmas tree with delicious food to celebrate, and that was enough for us.

Since we didn’t have a lot of family in Uganda, some of our family friends would come over and celebrate with us. But wait, the best part of Christmas was in the morning for me when we would go to church and there would be a lot of praising music, and every one would dance like there is no tomorrow! It was incredibly joyful and was one of the most beautiful moments ever.

In our family we didn’t have a tradition of exchanging gifts, but there was one Christmas when I was 7 or 8 years old, that we went to church and there were white Christians who gave every single child a well-wrapped Christmas box. The one that I received had toys, scarves, colorful ropes, a very beautiful barbie doll with her suitcase of cloth, and so many other fun things in it. That was my favorite gift that will always stay deep in my heart because it was given to me in a time that I wasn’t expecting, and I had never seen or had beautiful gifts before. I had only seen them on television or in movies. I was so grateful and happy that my joy would fill the oceans! It might seem like a very small thing here in America, but for me it is one of my most precious memories, because I felt so much love that someone who doesn’t know me would think of me, and buy me all of those gifts. I will always thank God for blessing them to bless me and so many other children who were like me.

In Africa, another exciting part was the food. On Christmas Eve before church, me, my mom and some of my sisters went to the markets to buy food. We always bought a big chicken, a lot of rice to make fried rice known as Pilau, and our traditional food called Sobe, which is cassava leaves that are pounded and have palm oil… so delicious! We still celebrate Christmas to this day by cooking our traditional food and praising God for his endless grace and love.