"B" is for Bazaar . . .

"And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi,

Let me now go to the field,

and glean ears of corn after him

In whose sight I shall find grace.

And she said unto her, Go, my daughter."

Ruth 2:2  KJV



Welcome Table -
just inside the door

"B" is for 'Bazaar.' Now I hadn't planned on including 'bazaar' in my Quaker Alphabet blog, but last week as I was writing my post on 'appleblutter' that little voice in my head strongly suggested that I do so, and I've learned to listen to that voice . . . as I didn't want it to start screaming at me, and writing about our 'Bazaar' seemed appropriate, since I did mention it in my last post on 'applebutter.'



'Bake Shop'

I attended my first Bazaar at Mooresville Friends in October of 1984 - just a few months after meeting my husband and I have attended or worked during the bazaar up until the last few years when I started having a conflict with a Girl Scout training event held the same day and time. In the past I have enjoyed baking banana bread (hummm, now I could have written about banana bread for 'B') & a coffee cake from my mom's recipes, painted ceramic Quaker dolls - something I miss doing and seeing at the bazaar, as well as a number of stitchery projects - folded star hot pads, gift card holders, Kleenex box covers, small gift bags, fabric necklaces with marbles inside the fabric and pony beads on the outside in between the marbles, just to name a few.



'General Store'

The USFW (United Society of Friends Women) from Mooresville Friends Meeting uses the funds raised during our annual Fall Bazaar to support missions of the USFWI ('I' being International). In the past there have been local needs of the Meeting and community that have come up that the USFW has also supported - such as some of the decorating for the new parsonage that was built in 1991 (for our Pastor) and the new carpet for the Narthex & Sunday School hallway - just this last year, to name a few. While this is a huge fundraiser for our USFW, it is also the only fundraiser we do.



'Miscellaneous'

The whole Meeting gets involved - not just the ladies or members of our USFW, from the Young Friends to those 90+. Members of the Meeting help with all sorts of tasks from making the applebutter, baked goods, crafts, rugs, gift baskets, scrubbies, lunch - cooking/serving/clean-up, cheerfully greeting customers the day of the bazaar, cashiers, advertising, set-up and clean-up. Many hands do make light work!





'Rugs'

In the 'bake shop' you will find a nice variety of items from fresh baked breads, rolls, cakes, cookies and candies of all shapes and sizes. On the 'stitchery' tables you will find a large variety of handmade items for the picking - machine & hand embroidered items, knit & crochet items, jewelry, paintings, baskets and lots of items that have been lovingly stitched by the members of our sewing & quilting groups. These two areas, lunch and the applebutter table are the busiest.

 

'Stitchery'

Lunch, ever since I can remember, has been 'Hot Crunchy Chicken Salad' - the recipe came from a member of the Meeting, a very popular dish. This recipe has been in several of the cookbooks that our Meeting has published. This is served with a variety of 'set salads' (Jello), a roll, dessert and a drink. We get quite the crowd during the time that lunch is served. As you could imagine lot of fellowship happens around the lunch tables. Friends from many of the other Meetings in the area come over to shop and have lunch. That evening, Fairfield Friends Meeting, just up the road and around a few corners, has their Chicken & Noodles dinner with a craft sale. Local Friends have been known to go from one to the other!
 



'Gift Baskets'

I mentioned fellowship around the lunch tables, but the fellowship and conversations happen throughout the entire bazaar and at various areas around the Friendship House. With Friends who are working with visitors and amongst themselves and sometimes amongst the visitors - who happen to run in to old F/friends.

 

'Applebutter & Scrubbies'

I've got a lap quilt/wallhanging that I have all ready to quilt that was a group project - I did a crazy quilt block with our quilting group and after I collected the blocks from the others I sewed them together and added a couple of borders to it - now I just need to do the crazy quilt embroidery stitches between all the pieces and add the binding . . . I hope to be able to get that done before this year's bazaar, I was way too busy this last year to get to the quilting part. I'll be using a lot of the fun stitches on my sewing machine to do this, so it really shouldn't take too long - except I plan to keep changing stitches and thread colors a lot along the way! 




'Fellowship'

Mooresville Friends Meeting's Fall Bazaar goes back quite a ways, and is currently the first Saturday in November in the Friendship House.



And now, for those who might be a bit disappointed that I didn't include the applebutter recipe with that post, I'll include one of my favorite childhood recipes for you here - one that I've made a few times in the past for the bazaar, but more often for our Easter Breakfast. So here's my mom's recipe for 'Quick Coffee Cake.' I know it starts with a 'Q' but I've got other ideas for 'Q,' when I get there.

 Quick Coffee Cake

 

1 1/2 cups flour                              1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder             1/3 cup white sugar

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg           2 Tablespoons oil

1 egg, large                                    2/3 cup milk

Preheat oven to 375˚F. Grease 8x8x2” pan.

 

Measure and sift together dry ingredients. Beat egg till light and add milk and oil. Mix together quickly and spread in pan, it will be a bit lumpy and that's OK.

Mix topping:

3 Tablespoons white sugar               1 Tablespoon flour

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon        2 teaspoons oil

Combine sugar, flour and cinnamon; add oil and mix. Crumble over mixture in pan.

Bake 25 minutes, toothpick will come out clean.

Can easily be doubled, and baked in a 9x13x2” pan for 25 minutes.

 



 

 

 

"A" is for Applebutter . . .

"And the Moabitess said unto Naomi,

Let me now go to the field,

and glean ears of corn after him

In whose sight I shall find grace.

And she said unto her, Go, my daughter."

Ruth 2:2  KJV





Cooking the apples

"A" is for 'Applebutter.'  And as a member of Mooresville Friends Meeting I just have to include 'applebutter' in my Quaker Alphabet!

September is applebutter time at Mooresville Friends! The smell of apples and applebutter fills the air from the basement up into the Meetingroom, Sunday School rooms, library and offices. This sweet aroma lasts for weeks. During the month members and a few attenders, both ladies and men, spend time down in the basement of the Meetinghouse making applebutter and sharing in fellowship.





USFW ladies cutting apples

For the last several years our work days have been Saturdays and Mondays for two weekends. At times in the past this group of dedicated workers have worked three or four - three day weekends to get enough applebutter made. The first group begins arriving about 7am on Saturday morning. Jars need to be washed, the apples rinsed, cut and cooked down - we'll have up to three large pots cooking at one time. Everyone has a job to do - some come early just to cut the apples, others come later to help with the canning and processing, some only on Saturday as they work during the week.

Mixing





Saucing

Once the apples have cooked down it's time to sauce them. Thanks to Kenny, one of our members, this part of the process was made easier when he added an electric motor to it (Kenny also added a motor to his ice cream maker - now that was fun to watch!). The sauce for each batch is measured out and put into a five gallon bucket where the spices are then added and mixed . . . thanks goes out to Phil who came up with a way to do this mixing with an electric paint mixer. Once the spices have been mixed in the sauce, the mixture is poured into one of the cookers where it cooks for several hours until it thickens. A normal Saturday has us using four cookers with four or five cookers going on Monday.

 

Unloading the canner

When the applesauce has reached the right consistency, and that isn't always an easy consensus to reach, it's time to start the canning process. A bit of tasting happens around this time - each cooker full needs to be tasted, by more than one Friend of course, for quality control! Time to get the applebutter ladled into the jars, clean the tops of the jars, put on the lids & rings and process in a hot water bath. Once the jars have been processed they are lined up on the counter to cool down. The 'pings' that follow are music to our ears! 

 

We seemed to have had quite
a crew of the men this morning!

On a typical Saturday we will process somewhere between 6 - 6 1/2 bushels of apples, into sauce, and process about half of that into applebutter which nets about 100 pints. In addition, there are 4-5 buckets of spiced sauce that are put in the refrigerators for Monday. On Monday two workers will show up about 7am - getting the buckets out of the refrigerators and pouring the sauce into the cookers to begin cooking down. Other workers show up a bit later to help stir, can and process the applebutter. On Monday there's less work to do, so less workers are needed and we typically will can fewer jars, so we might only get around 80 pints. All total the last couple of years we've been shooting for around 400 total pints. Sometimes we will also fill about a dozen half-pint jars, some are given away and others might be found in some of the gift baskets at the Bazaar.

Usually the next day someone will come in and check to make sure the jars have all sealed, wipe them off, add labels and box them up.

I sat down with a couple of Friends over lunch this last Wednesday and had a bit of a phone conversation with yet another Friend this afternoon,  and asked some questions to help me fill in some of the blanks in this post - these were interesting conversations which maybe raised a few more questions than they answered. Hard to answer questions for things that happened 'before your time.' So many of the Friends that may have been involved in this project, and know more of the beginning history of it, are no longer with us to ask, and there would be a lot of digging to do to try and get all the answers. So, here's a bit of what I did find out:



We try and have
a bit of fun

Applebutter has been a project of the Mooresville USFW (United Society of Friends Women) since the late 1930's or early 1940's. So there is a lot of tradition behind this project.

 

Originally it was cooked in a big black iron pot over a fire out in the parking lot and stirred with a big wooden paddle. Very limited quantities were made at that time and everyone came to help.

 

The applebutter is made in September and sold at our annual USFW Fall Bazaar the first weekend in November.

The proceeds from the applebutter, and Bazaar, have been used by the Mooresville USFW to support missions/projects of USFWI (the 'I' being the International Society) and some local missions/projects of Mooresville Friends Meeting USFW over the years.
 

I really wanted to know "how" the  USFW got started making applebutter, specifically. That question really involved some best guesses. The thought is that at that time members of the Meeting owned a local apple orchard, so apples were easily available. Another thought that came up in our conversation was that making applebutter is a rather labor intensive process and does require some special equipment that not every household, then or even now, would have. So applebutter seemed like a good project.
 

It's a multi-day, multi-week effort to produce hundreds of pints of this yummy topping . . . good on a slice of fresh bread, toast or biscuits (muffins perhaps for my European Friends?). Once you've tasted this yummy treat you'll be back for more.

I personally started helping make applebutter seven or eight years ago now - and I've done just about every job except cutting the apples . . . I just don't get up that early! I can tell you that once you've helped it hard not to go back year after year and help again.

It's truly a labor of love!

Some of the workers

'This Is The Day . . .'

"And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi,

Let me now go to the field,

and glean ears of corn after him

In whose sight I shall find grace.

And she said unto her, Go, my daughter."

Ruth 2:2  KJV

 

"This is the day, this is the day

that the Lord has made,

that the Lord has made;

We will rejoice, we will rejoice

and be glad in it, and be glad in it.

This is the day that the Lord has made;

We will rejoice and be glad in it.

This is the day, this is the day

that the Lord has made." *

As I stood and sang this song this afternoon with one of our third grade Weekday Religious Education classes, the fourth and final class of the day, I had to pause a moment. Yes, this is the day that the Lord has made, and we/I should rejoice in it, BUT . . .

 

That's tough to do that today . . . you see it's 29℉ outside, the wind is blowing and it's snowing . . . again, AND . . .

 

When I arrived at the little white Baptist Church on the corner across the street from the school, where we hold our classes, at 9:00am this morning it was cold inside, 52℉ to be exact, and I turned the heat up to 75℉. I realized after several minutes that I wasn't hearing anything, you know the blower wasn't coming on, it was too quiet! So I walked back over to the thermostat and hit "SCHEDULE" and then cranked up the temperature again - it click on this time, yeah! We, the Weekday Religious Ed teacher and I, then walked over to the school and pick-up our first class.

 

On the way over to the school I slipped and nearly fell on a patch of ice, I didn't see, on the sidewalk in front of the Church - made note to self to grab the jug of salt inside the front door of the Church when we get back with the students and salt it good! After we crossed the street and entered the school property, through the drive, lots more ice! Nothing I can do about that, but be careful and warn the students to walk carefully and NOT slide on it. When we got back to the Church I did grab the salt and laid down quite a bit of it - and when we left about 35 minutes later the patches of thin ice were nearly melted, and what hadn't quite melted yet wasn't slick!

 

By the time we had finished our second morning class and were heading out for our 2 1/2 hour lunch break, not what it's cracked up to be, I looked at the thermostat . . . it had hit 53℉, and this is nearly 2 hours later! YIKES!

 

When I came back from lunch the thermostat was still reading 53℉! Hummmm, kids, keep your coats on, sorry. After our fourth class, nearly 6 hours after I had turned the heat up it had only reached 54℉, and that was after I noticed, during the first afternoon class, that in the bottom left corner of the thermostat it said "LONG TERM HOLD" What does that mean? I've never noticed that wording before. So I clicked on 'SCHEDULE" and then "HOLD" and then cranked the heat back up to 75℉.

 

The Weekday Religious Ed teacher left a note for the members of the Church telling them we were finally back, after an extended Christmas vacation and the trouble we had with the heat. I happen to know that one of the owners of the Church property, it's rented, also owns 'Daniel's' the neighborhood market on the other corner, and said I'd stop over and see if she was in. She was, and just about to leave for the day, so I was able to talk to her. She called her brother (co-owner) and let me talk with him - seems they had a problem late last week with the heat not working and someone came and fixed it. They're coming back out this afternoon . . . so I hope we have heat tomorrow morning when we are there with our four fourth grade classes.

 

So why am I blogging about this?

 

It's all about the words to that one song we sang with the third grade students today . . . "This is the day the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it." How many times have I sung that song, or any number of other songs for that reason, before and I've never stopped to think about the words I was singing and what they meant? Note to self - stop and think about the words I'm singing/saying and what they mean. Yes, I have much to rejoice and be glad about today . . .

1. School is back in session, after being closed all last week due to extreme cold temperatures, over a foot of snow and dare I say poor job of snow removal by local and state agencies;
2. Thankful that there was a jug of salt at the Church that I could use to melt the ice on the sidewalk;
3. We are blessed to have a Church just across the street from this elementary school in which to have our classes;
4. We are blessed with some wonderful teachers and staff at this elementary school who work with us on days like this;
5. The third graders who came to class today were still thoughtful and considerate . . . many still thanked me when I gave them their folder and sticker for saying their memory verse - their teachers and parents have taught them good manners;
6. Thankful to have this opportunity to work with these and so many other third & fourth grade students and the Weekday Religious Ed program;
7. Thankful to know and be a part of this community and know that the owners of this Church also own the market across the street and if we've got a problem all I need to do is go over and talk with them and they will take care of it;
8. Thankful that I had put on extra layers this morning which kept me warm inside the Church and a nice new winter coat with a hood & scarf and two pairs of gloves for my hands when we were outside.

Today was truly a day that I needed to stop and rejoice and be glad for everything that God provides for me and to know that sometimes when He makes me uncomfortable for a few hours or a day it's His way of getting my attention . . . to stop and think about what I have to be thankful for, instead of complaining about the heat not working and how cold I am! And He certainly got my attention today, not with the cold inside the Church but with the words of a song I've sung so many times before!

 

For some reason, as I finish typing this, I'm being reminded of my Friend Ross, a member of Mooresville Friends Meeting who is no longer with us. I'm hearing Ross in my head singing this song . . . loud and clear. This wasn't his 'signature song,' that would have been "How Great Thou Art," but Ross is singing this song loud and clear in my head right now none the less. Maybe it's because I'm talking about Weekday Religious Ed classes, after all, it was Ross that took me under his wings 14-15 years ago and started taking me to the Weekday Religious Ed Board Meetings as the new Representative from Mooresville Friends Meeting to the Board. Twelve years ago, last fall, I was appointed by the Board to fill a vacated Directors seat on the Board, and was elected at the Annual Meeting that next spring to fill that seat. So, I've been an elected Director on the Board for 12 years now, served as Secretary for four of those years and have been an assistant teacher in the classroom for 12 years - over half of those as a volunteer. I'm blessed and thankful for the memory of this dear Friend and for his bringing me into this program.

 

Oh, and what was today's lesson to the students??? Well, today we talked about one of the heroines from the Old Testament . . . RUTH! Need I say much more? Have you noticed the name of my Blog? Have you noticed the scripture typed at the top of each of my posts? I love the story of Ruth and it seems to me anyway, that it went well with all of the troubles we had to deal with today with our classes.

What is it that maybe made you a bit uncomfortable today? What made you stop and pause what you were doing to thank God for what He has given/provided to you?


* Words and music by Les Garrett - Scripture reference Psalm 118:246

 

"A" is for Academy . . .

"And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi,

Let me now go to the field,

and glean ears of corn after him

In whose sight I shall find grace.

And she said unto her, Go, my daughter."

Ruth 2:2  KJV

 

OK, I'm gonna join in on the "2014 Quaker Alphabet Blogging!" I hope I can do this justice! I'm planning to put my own crazy Quaker spin on this series of blog posts, so here goes . . .

For the letter "A" I have chosen 'Academy.' Now, if you're from Mooresville, Indiana, USA, or close by, enough said - you know exactly what I'm talking about. For the rest of you, I've got some explaining to do . . . trust me 'Academy' has a Quaker meaning, at least around Mooresville!

I guess I should go ahead and give you the full name before I go any further . . . Mooresville Friends Academy Building, most locals will just call it the Academy Building. So will this count for A & B???? Just kidding, I've got another idea for B! So, on with some local Mooresville Quaker history . . .



Mooresville Friends
Academy Building
(front view)

In 1860 a five acre track of land was purchased on which a school would be built, I assume the land was purchased by White Lick Monthly Meeting of Friends. The Academy Building was built by members of the Religious Society of Friends in 1861. It was the first high school built in central Indiana, and became the beginning of what is now the Mooresville Community School system.

 

In the beginning it was a boarding academy, with students renting rooms from area residents - I expect many of those may have been Quaker families. The Academy was used for students of all grades through 1971.

In 1870 the Academy Building and land was sold to the town of Mooresville for $5,000, which I'm sure was quite a large sum of money at the time. And interestingly, this was refunded with interest to the town! Now who does that? At this point the Academy became Indiana's only privately funded school open to public education.

On May 12, 1975 the Academy Building was placed on the State AND National Registers of Historic Places.

In 2000, the Academy Building was restored and rededicated by the Community Foundation of Morgan County with a grant from Eli Lilly (yes, the pharmaceutical company) and donations from the community.



Mooresville Friends Academy Building
(north side)

Today, the 'Academy of Hoosier Heritage' museum can be found on the second floor of the historical Academy Building (three windows on the left) showcasing exhibits on Mooresville and Indiana history. The museum hosts special exhibits from time to time - several years ago they had a special exhibit on Girl Scout history. A fun part of the museum is the full-size historical classroom (two windows on the right) complete with antique desks, books and toys. Every Spring I know that at least the 4th grade students in the Mooresville School Corporation take a field trip over to the Academy Building, Indiana 4th graders study Indiana history, they attend 'class,' visit the museum and participate in several pioneer games and activities outside, weather permitting. Many of the students enjoy 'dressing up' for their visit to the Academy Building!

 

The Community Foundation of Morgan County's offices are located on the first floor across the back of the building (two windows on the right). The majority of the first floor is the Emily Carolyn Mills Room - a good size community room (three windows on the left). The Emily Carolyn Mills Room is endowed for use by local non-profits and charitable organizations. I'll note here that Emily was a member of Mooresville Friends Meeting and an attorney, working in the Morgan County Prosecutors Office. So a Friend that I knew rather well. A group of local quilters, not the quilting group from Mooresville Friends Meeting - to which I belong, meets in this room on a regular basis.

 

There is also a basement to this building, I don't believe I've been down there. The area to the left, on the side view photo) with all the brick is where the front stairways are - one off to the left and one off to the right. If I remember right one was up and the other down - rather narrow stairway with shallow steps going to the second floor. One stairway going down to the basement. There is also a back stairway that goes from the Community Foundations office up to the classroom area.

 

The Academy Building is about a block and a half north of the Mooresville Friends Meetinghouse, which was built in 1870.

 

* In 1997 the Meeting officially changed it's name to Mooresville Friends Church/White Lick Monthly Meeting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blessings From The Number 13 . . .

"And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi,

Let me now go to the field,

and glean ears of corn after him

In whose sight I shall find grace.

And she said unto her, Go, my daughter."

Ruth 2:2  KJV

 

Ever get one of those odd thoughts in your head that you just can't shake? That happened to me last night as I was working on my latest quilt project and watching TV, but it wasn't just one thought it was four thoughts and all four revolved around the number 13.

Now the number 13 tends to freak some people out, but I've never felt that way, and I'm now thinking that 13 may be one of my lucky numbers. I've been blessed on the 13th and during 2013 . . .

The first thought that came to my mind was that today, January 11th, my granddaughter would be 13 months old. Hardly seems possible that she turned one last month, but now she is 13 months old. She is growing so fast and is quite the center of attention everywhere she goes. And dare I say has the sweetest personality!

The second, ties in with the first, as my granddaughters' mother, my oldest daughter was born on the 13th - of November that is. And yes, she was born on a Friday! She shares her birthday with one of her Grandpas (my father-in-law) and one of her Great-Grandmas (his mother), neither of whom were born on a Friday, but both born on November 13th. Oh, and our Pastor at the time, Dennis, also was born on November 13th! A lucky day, as I had two sons at home and now had a daughter!

Now it was on Friday the 13th of April, in 2007 that I first met several members of Friends Committee on Scouting, an amazing group of Scouting & Guiding Friends, that I ended up joining that weekend! I have learned so much from these Friends and not just about Scouting & Guiding but about being a Quaker. Something for another post? Maybe.

However, those thoughts didn't stick around too long but this one did . . .

So the last '13' that came into my mind last night, and really stuck, had to do with the year 2013, last year, and it's this thought that brings me to writing this post. For me 2013 was an absolutely amazing year and I have shared so much of that with you in my previous posts and with some of you in conversations - in person or on the phone, emails or on Facebook.

But this '13' thing that came to me last night, well it had me going back through all of the blessings that God gave me last year. It made me stop what I was doing, tune out the TV and put aside my quilting for a while and focus, really focus on where I was (at the beginning of 2013), what happened and where I am now as 2014 begins because of all of that. All the experiences . . .

The old F/friends I spent time with, some of those times in new ways and in new places and the new F/friends I met and got to know and spend time with.

The places I went, the places I've been before - Friends Committee on Scouting Annual Meeting and Quaker Haven Camp. And the new places I went - USFWI/QMI Triennial (United Society of Friends Women International/Quaker Men International), Western Yearly Meeting and the Pilgrimage to Ireland & Northern Ireland just to name a few.

I'd have to say that the two that made the biggest impact on my life in 2013 would be the USFWI/QMI Triennial and the Pilgrimage to Ireland/Northern Ireland.

USFWI/QMI Triennial gave me the opportunity to meet not only new Friends from around the US but a lot of new Friends from Kenya as well. It was during the conversations with several of the Kenyan Friends that I learned a bit about their culture that helped prepare me for my upcoming Pilgrimage to Ireland & Northern Ireland.

The Pilgrimage to Ireland & Northern Ireland was an opportunity that took me way beyond my personal and spiritual comfort zone. International travel and going overseas for the first time, the language - although that was more dealing with the accents, the cultural and theological differences. I have said that I never felt like an outsider or visitor, I felt right at home as we traveled and during Ireland Yearly Meeting sessions, and I was at home . . . I was home among Friends!

Both of these experiences allowed me to meet so many new Friends and the conversations and Friendships I made have blessed me more than I could have ever imagined. I will treasure these new Friendships always!

All of these experiences made an impact on my life, some the impacts were small and others huge and in turn I hope through them - the F/friends and places, I've made an impact on the lives of others along the way.

I'm feeling extremely blessed today as I think back to the thoughts that came to my mind last night and as I write this post to share them with you. Blessed by God and so many of you this last year and I thank you for that and for being a part of my life.

I know that each of you reading this has in someway also been blessed by God and others this last year. Take time, right now, to sit in the quiet and reflect back on the blessings that you gave and received in 2013. And then remember this year to be a blessing to someone else and remember that God will continue to bless you in 2014!





 

T'was The Night Before Christmas, When I Was A Child . . .

"And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi,

Let me now go to the field,

and glean ears of corn after him

In whose sight I shall find grace.

And she said unto her, Go, my daughter."

Ruth 2:2  KJV



Memories of Christmas past have been filling my head for the last couple of weeks . . . more specifically of Christmas Eves spent with the Jena family.



1055 Riverside Drive

Jena family tradition had us gathering at 1055 Riverside Drive in South Bend . . . this address will be well known to my family, for the rest of you this was Grandma and Grandpa Jena's house, aka my dad's parents. Those attending would be Uncle George & Aunt Caroline, Brenda, David, Scott and Bruce; Uncle Max & Aunt Sue, Michelle, Vicky, Penny and Debbie; my dad & mom, my brothers Tom & Doug and I. It would be a treat if Aunt Nancy & Uncle Bob, Karen Sue and 'Little' Max were able to join us. My dad's younger sister, Aunt Carol & Revered Uncle John, Tammy and Tim didn't come since Uncle John had to be at his Church for services, since he was the Pastor.

When we arrived we'd carry in the gifts and put them under the huge tree, which was in the sunroom. There would always be piles and piles of gifts, but then again there were a lot of us gathered - at least eight adults and eleven grandchildren! My favorite ornaments on the tree were the old German candle holders with the candles, I don't remember ever seeing them lit, but I was fascinated with those candles! I don't know the history of those candleholders and candles, but expect they had been passed down through the family. And I remember the lights - the bulbs were huge and the color scratched off in places giving them some character and making them seem to shine ever so brightly!

Dinner was always delicious, seems that sauerbraten and spaetzle were on the menu. Dessert was some sort of frozen 'pink stuff,' can't tell you exactly what it was as I didn't like it, so I didn't eat it . . . but everyone had a serving of it - mine got passed around the children's table and my cousins enjoyed sharing it. After dinner the tables were cleared and for many years Grandma and the moms would put the leftovers away, wash, dry and put away the dishes and then join the rest of us in the living room. When us granddaughters got older we got to help in the kitchen!

Now, these weren't just any dishes that we ate off of during family meals, I found out when I was in high school or college that my Grandma painted all the china! Which maybe explains why there were so many place settings, seems never ending. When we were all together there would be twelve adults and fifteen grandchildren . . . that's a lot of dishes, cups & saucers, glasses and silverware not to mention serving pieces to go with!

When we were all in the living room we would sing several Christmas carols - including 'Silent Night' and 'O Christmas Tree' in German! Grandma and Grandpa both spoke fluent German. Grandpa would read the Christmas Story from Luke 2:1-21, King James version, of course! As the grandchildren turned 13 years old, Grandpa turned this reading over to us! When your turn came, Grandpa would pull you aside when you arrived, hand you his Bible and show you what he wanted you to read, so you had time to read it over a few times and ask how to pronounce some of the words. After the Bible reading there may be another song or two and then . . . it was time for the gifts!

I also remember back when we were really young, at some point, all of us grandchildren were taken into the room off the living room, behind the fireplace, as we had to 'hide' so that Santa could make his  special delivery! This meant that our dads had to quietly run upstairs - to the third floor, to grab all the 'Santa' gifts, bringing them down stairs, saying 'Ho-ho-ho,' and place them around the tree! The third floor was a safe place for these 'Santa' gifts as it was off limits 99.9% of the time! I remember this as the most exciting part of the evening!

OK on with it - for many years Grandpa would get up out of his chair and walk over to the tree, which was in the 'sunroom' just off the livingrom, and one by one would pick up a package call out who it was 'To and From' and the dads would deliver the gifts. At some point the dads took this over and if memory serves me right some of us grandkids got to do this in later years. NO gifts were unwrapped until ALL the gifts had been passed out and Grandma or Grandpa said it was time! Grandpa then went around and handed out our $25 savings bonds and Grandma would call all the granddaughters to come and get their little box with their Christmas 'Add-a-Pearls.' Funny as we all knew that once we looked at our savings bond we were to give it to dad, and once us girls opened our pearls and saw them that box went to straight to mom! Grandma and Grandpa sat in their chairs and delighted in watching us open our gifts, and it was only after we had all opened our gifts that they would open theirs.

We always gave Grandpa a dozen raisin cookies and his 'hard tack' (made from an old family recipe from Germany - his Grandmothers maybe, I don't remember how far back that goes) wrapped up in foil with curling ribbon on it and a picture of a telephone wrapped up in a little box - this was to remind Grandpa that my dad & mom were paying for the extra phone extention in his office at the photo studio. And for Grandma a nightgown and other assorted items.

Along with all the other gifts, each family took home a foil wrapped stollen and other baked goodies.

After this, it was time to clean up all the wrapping paper and put it in trash bags, gather all the gifts and carry them out to the cars and all head over to . . .

Zion United Church of Christ for Christmas Eve candlelight service. Lots of poinsettias and candles filled the sanctuary. There was lots of singing, scripture readings, a message and then lighting all of our candles, what an amazing site that was . . . all that candlelight as we all stood in a circle around the sanctuary with the choir in the middle isle!

After Church it was tie to head home and jump into bed and right to sleep . . . so Santa would come!

Memories of Christmas Eves from my childhood . . . feeling blessed!

Family Christmas Card
with my brothers
Tom - Doug - Luanne

This Christmas Eve I am remembering how things were back then and missing . . . Grandma & Grandpa Jena, Aunt Nancy, Uncle George, Aunt Sue, Karen Sue, my mom, dad and younger brother Doug.