Remembering Christmas past

Ever heard of walking around a Christmas tree? Danish resident Astrid Petersen, 89, has done it most of her life as is her family’s custom.

Her parents came from Denmark in 1916 and brought their traditions with them. Every year, her family of nine wouldn’t decorate their young Christmas tree until Christmas Eve, when they hung it with homemade Danish decorations and candles.

“The Christmas tree was to always be in the middle of the living room,” she said. “And then we had to go around the Christmas tree and sing carols.” Then they read the Christmas story.

Petersen remembers one Christmas when she walked around the tree and saw a stuffed doll, something special as she was the only girl among her six brothers. “We didn’t have much,” she said, adding that it was during the Depression.

Additionally, food was an important part of the celebration. The always-famous Syrup cookie, the donut Klejner, fruit soup and Danish pudding, among other treats, were always served.

Petersen’s house reflects Danish culture as she enjoys decorating her home. “Of course, that was one thing that the Danish did a lot of,” she said. Dozens of angel figurines stand on a set of chested drawers. Antique Danish dishes hang on the wall. House figurines are lined up like a neighborhood in front of her window. And her Christmas tree holds dozens of Danish decorations, some of which she’s had since childhood.

Although she enjoys giving gifts, there are just too many people in her family now, so she just bakes her heart out, making traditional Danish goodies for them.

Christmas isn’t the same anymore. At 89, it’s no longer the excitement she once had as a child. “In a way it’s not exciting to me. I still like the Biblical side of it. I hope I can get over to the church for Christmas Eve,” she said. She’ll be spending Christmas with her relatives in Sidney, and you can be sure, her family will be singing Christmas carols around the Christmas tree.

An ailing Christmas

It may have been 80 years ago, but Richland County native Myrtle Sorensen, 88, remembers Christmas like it was yesterday.

“My uncle always read the Christmas story from the Bible and then we all said our Christmas pieces that we had learned in church,” she said, “and sang songs.”

Sorensen grew up in the Brorson community. She and her family lived a half mile from her grandfather Peter Hendrickson. Every Christmas they went to his house to have their own Christmas program, and then they opened their gifts.

Her family always had a Christmas tree in the living room. “In those days you just decorated it probably the day before Christmas, and we had candles on it,” she said. “Of course, we had no electricity.” Someone always had to watch the tree to make sure it didn’t burst into flames.

Sorensen’s favorite memory was not what one might expect – no lavish gifts or parties. Her favorite memory of Christmas was when she had the flu on Christmas Eve night. She had to stay home.

“At first my older brother stayed with me while my dad and mother went over and had a Christmas dinner at grandpa’s place. Then after that, my dad came home and stayed with me the rest of the evening. When the rest of them came home after the meeting, they brought my presents and that was a real joy even though I was sick in bed with the flu!”

Sorensen has two children. “If I could spend it with my two living children I’d like to,” she said. “I probably won’t. One lives in Lewistown and one lives in Beulah, N.D. They’re my two sons.” Her daughter passed away nine years ago.

With a smile on her face, Sorensen said she looks forward to celebrating the holiday. Now that she’s older, Christmas is more meaningful now then it was when she was a child. It no longer means presents. “Now I think of it as when Christ was born, and it’s a time to celebrate that.”

Cowboy holiday

When Gale Drewry, 73, was a kid his family had little as far as presents. “We never got much in them days, you know? Because times were poor then. You just came off of the 30s and nobody had any money.”

He and his four sisters usually received one gift from their parents according to what they needed and could afford. “It meant a lot. That’s about all you got in those days,” he said. The children received some glass candies, a handful of peanuts and popcorn balls and an orange, which “was the big thing” because that was rare.

His favorite memory of Christmas was when he was 10 years old and had finally received a pair of ice skates he’d wanted for years. “Mom was an expert skater,” he said. “We had all these clamp-on skates. That year I got a pair of regular skates, and boy was that something!” He took those skates out and used them on a dam his father built.

Drewry family’s Christmases consisted of a Christmas program at his school on Christmas Eve and a party on Christmas Day at his house hosted by his mother. Relatives and neighbors came every year to celebrate.

“Christmas time was kind of special because that’s when everybody came... and everybody brought a little something for food, and you could stuff yourself for three days!”

There wasn’t much for a Christmas tree, though. Imagine a sage brush in the living room. “The sage brush where I grew up were five or six feet high. You could cut a couple of them, put ‘em together and you have a big ol’ Christmas tree.” It was hung with homemade decorations. “Most of the time it was all paper mache things and stuff that we made,” he said.

Over the years, the meaning of Christmas has evolved for this cowboy. “It doesn’t mean as much except it takes on a new change, I think. When you’re a kid you’re lookin’ for the presents. When you get older you’re celebrating Christ’s birthday, and it takes on a brand new meaning.”

Sad Christmas

There are some families that just don’t fit the “It’s a Wonderful Life” image of the holiday season. That may be because of certain financial circumstances or the family just doesn’t celebrate it as much as others.

Evelyn Low, 91, knows all too well of what it’s like to have very little for Christmas. “My dad wasn’t a family man really, so he didn’t do much for Christmas. But mother worked hard, and she always tried to make something for us,” she said. “One year she made rag dolls for us girls, and then she finally got dad to make a little wagon for my brother and a little cradle for my sister to play with.”

They rarely had a Christmas tree, usually when her mother went to pick a cedar tree from the ground. They decorated with paper-looped garlands.

Evelyn’s best memory of Christmas came from when she was 5 years old. “This one Christmas mother thought she was getting us real good and she put a string [with a bell on it] in the window before supper time.” While sitting down to dinner, she and her siblings heard a bell ring and asked what it was. “Mother told us it was Santa Claus. So then we jumped up and looked at what we got for Christmas,” she said. “That was the only real Christmas we ever did have at home.”

In addition to the homemade clothes they received, special Christmases included fruit shipped from her aunt in Washington state. Whenever they had orchard-fresh fruit, she said, “we’d have a good Christmas that year.”

Now residing in Extended Care, she would like to spend it with her children and great-grandchildren, although many live too far away.

It wasn’t until later years, when she was married, that Christmas took on a whole new meaning. Christmas became very special and a holiday she eventually looked forward to.

Mulberry bush

As the oldest child in her family of 10, Verna Michelson, 90, took care of her younger siblings. Each year they made each other gifts. They couldn’t afford store-bought gifts.

“Pictures or something (homemade gifts). It was hard. During the Depression we never saw much for Christmas. It was awful,” she recalls. Of course, it was hard to buy things anyway when families were given stamps back then to be used for rationing food and clothing items in stores.

“Every year the kids set their plates at the table, and they always got their candy, nuts, and an orange and apple and stuff that we never had otherwise.” It was Santa’s job to fill the plates on Christmas Eve with treats.

Verna was raised north of Richey and for a long time her family had no Christmas tree. Her most memorable and perhaps most laughable Christmas was the first year her family actually had a tree. Well...sort of. “I’ll never forget that first Christmas tree we had. It was a Mulberry bush!” she said laughing as if it was yesterday.

She and her oldest brother chopped down the bush and dragged it back home, picking up rocks along the way to fill the pail for stabilization. “We laughed all the way home!”

There were no ornaments to adorn the “tree,” but, like many other families, made paper decorations. “It didn’t look too bad all decorated,” she says, adding that she looks forward to the holiday.

Verna says she would like to spend Christmas with her five children and dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The meaning of Christmas has changed over the years, but “it still has the same meaning (for her),” she says. “Christmas is a holiday everybody celebrates for Christ’s birthday.”

reporter@sidneyherald.com