Memories and Cousins by the Dozens!

'Twas the night before Christmas, and long we will treasure,

the times spent with family, and love we can't measure.

 

It has been a full day.  Actually, a full two days.  It is the year my daughter and her family will celebrate Christmas with her husband's family, so they decided to come spend the night in Crosby to enjoy an "early Christmas" with us.  They arrived yesterday just in time for our traditional Christmas meal of Cornish Game Hens stuffed with rice.  

 

We then proceeded as if it were actually Christmas Eve.  The Christmas story was read by our granddaughter, her three brothers joined her in passing out the gifts, we offered a prayer of thanks for our blessings, and then the gifts were opened.  Starting with the youngest, and rotating to the oldest, we took turns opening our gifts.  We shared lots of laughter, and a few confused looks when Uncle Ryan tricked his older nephews by replacing Lego pieces with books inside the Lego boxes he gave them.  In the end, they did get the Lego pieces, too, but he had them wondering!  The night ended with four kids in new pajamas, and hearts filled with love and thankfulness.

 

This morning, we pretended it was Christmas Day, and woke up to stockings filled with small treats.  First priority, however, was working on getting the Lego sets assembled.  Since one of the items in our granddaughter's stocking was a pencil covered in snowflakes, she got inspired to write a story.  The "rough draft" was on copy paper, and the final print done typing on Grandma's phone.  I do believe we have another little author on our hands!

 

When afternoon rolled around, more children started arriving with their parents and grandparents.  We have a tradition in my husband's family of having a "Cousin Cookie Bake" sometime shortly before Christmas.  It began with our daughter and two of her cousin back in 1981.  Two of them were not yet 3, and the other was 4 1/2.  Three little girls, and two mothers.  Over the years, however, the group expanded, and today the bakers included ten of their children!





Perhaps some of my favorite pictures taken over the years came from the year 1991, so this year we tried to take a similar picture of the second generation cookie bakers.

 

                                                           1991 Cousins

 

                                                   2017 Second Cousins

My daughter and I took turns rolling the dough, and my husband was the one manning the oven.  Over the years, he has perfected the art of knowing just how long to leave them in the oven!

 

We learned today the second generation bakers prefer a heavier coating of sprinkles on their cookies!  Everyone got to enjoy a cookie or two (or three, or four!) and were given the option of taking a small plate of cookies home with them.

After a visit at Great Grandma's house, we headed out of town for a gathering with another set of cousins.  My brother and his wife had invited us, our son, and our daughter & family to a delicious meal of baked potatoes and taco toppings.  Adding to the crowd were their six grandchildren, along with their daughter and husband.  It was fun to see the second cousins interact, as they aren't together very often.  The evening included sled rides behind the "Ranger" in the dark.  Thankfully, everyone returned safely indoors!  We couldn't pass up the opportunity to snap a few pictures.

At the end of the day, there was just a small amount of cookie dough left, so this collector of Nativities finished it off the best way she could think of!  Merry Christmas to all, and cherish those precious memories!

Three Wise Women

It's the time of year we often read stories about three wise men who followed a star to find the Christ Child in Bethlehem.  Mind you, the Bible doesn't specifically say there were three wise men.  It only specifies they brought three gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  It just works best to line up each gift with one wise man for the ease of casting Christmas programs and depicting Nativity scenes.

Today, however, I don't want to focus on three wise men, but instead on three wise women.  All were a part of my heritage, and all had a significant impact on my life.  And, coincidentally, they all had December birthdays.

The first was my mother's maternal grandmother.  I don't remember a lot about her, due to the fact I was only 11 years old when she passed away.  The things that come to mind are her visits to my grandmother's home, hearing them converse in Norwegian, and seeing the colorful pillows she knitted to pass the time. 

More of the lessons I gleaned from her life came after she passed away at the age of 101.  Coming across a newspaper article written for her 100th birthday, I found she had four things to which she attributed her long life.  These were keeping calm, taking things as they come, working hard, and staying close to God. 

She obviously passed this wisdom on to her children, as four of them lived past the age of 100, and two more into their 90's.  There were an amazing bunch, and naturally I feel my grandmother was the cream of the crop!  She was interviewed by our local paper for her 100th birthday, and gave these words of advice. . . ."Read the Word, and stick to it!"  So simple, and yet how many of us take the time to heed her wisdom?

My mother wasn't blessed with longevity like her mother and grandmother, as she died of a brain aneurism at the age of 68.  One piece of wisdom she left me was the encouragement to make every day one in which Jesus is invited in, striving to follow His example with our lives.

Doing the math, Great Grandma Christine would be 152 this year on the 13th, Grandma Ellen 121 on the 15th, and my mom, Della, 94 on the 30th.  Who knows if we continue to count birthdays when we get to heaven?  There is one thing for sure, however.   December is a great month to look back and remember the lives of these three wise women.  How blessed I am to have them in my bloodline!

 

Christmas Senses

Today I have been baking.  With an open house coming up in a couple of days, I wanted to have on hand some of the goodies I remember from Christmas in childhood days.  My first choice was to make ginger cookies, as I had seen a fun way to decorate them on Facebook.

As I stirred up the dough, the smell of the spices reached my nose, bringing me back in time to my mother's kitchen.  Rolling it into balls, and then in sugar activated the sense of touch, and also, as I looked down at my hands, made me see my mother's hands lovingly preparing Christmas goodies to share with friends and the bachelor men of our neighborhood. 

In the background, an Anne Murray Christmas CD was playing, bringing to mind memories with each song sung.  It made me thankful God gave us ears to enjoy the sounds around us.  Suddenly, it came to mind Christmas is a time when all the senses are activated.  Smell, touch, sight, sound.  The only one left is taste.  Once the cookies are cooled, I will get to appreciate the fifth sense.  Hopefully you can join me for the Christmas Open House on Thursday afternoon and sample some, too! 

 

Unique and Bittersweet

Another season of chorus has come and gone.  Starting the middle of September, practices are held every Tuesday night.  Then, on the first week-end in December, two concerts are performed, one in Estevan, Saskatchewan and one in Crosby, North Dakota.  The set-up is a unique one with a little over half of the choir members coming from north of the Canadian border in the southeast corner of Saskatchewan, and the rest from various small communities in northwest North Dakota.

Adding up the numbers, I found there were 29 Canadians and 24 Americans in the choir.  The interesting thing, however, was breaking it down by sections.  In the soprano section, the Canadians dominated 13 to 6.  The altos were closer to even with a 10 to 6 mix.  Moving to the men, it was the Americans who had the majority, with tenors and basses each having 6 Americans and 3 Canadians.

From this analysis, I found the representatives from each side would have a hard time making up a full choir on their own, with the Canadians lacking in men, and the Americans lacking in women.  Perhaps this speaks to what makes the chorus so special.  "Hands across the border" united in their common love of music.  Friendships formed over the years become special, even though for 9 months out of the year we rarely see one another.

Each year, when the concerts are over, there is a bittersweet feeling in the air.  Perhaps much of it is looking back over 47 years and realizing the many faces which are no longer there.  The chorus originated in Crosby as the brainchild of a Lutheran pastor having a desire to hear Handal's "Messiah" performed.  He recruited the talents of a local dentist to lead the singing, and the high school music instructor to direct the orchestra. They, in turn, reached out to around 100 area singers and musicians, and orchestration was supplemented by a group of stringed instrumentalists from Williston, ND.  It was a huge undertaking for a small community, but impressively, they made it happen.

After a few years of performing the "Messiah", the chorus branched into other types of music, and the Canadians came on board.  The original director led the group for 25 years, followed by a second director who put in 20 years.  This year, and last, the directing duties have also been a joint effort across the border, with one being a farmer from south of Crosby, ND, and the other being a music instructor from Estevan, Saskatchewan.

Between the two concerts, we perform for somewhere between 400 and 500 people.  That is a lot of people receiving the blessing of hearing the message of Christmas over and over again throughout the lyrics of the music.  Because of my love of music, and my love of Jesus, I always wish more could hear it.  Yet, in the days leading up to the concerts, I prayed God would draw those in need of hearing our message, and I must trust He did.

Since holiday schedules fill up fast, think ahead to next year. Mark the first week-end in December, reserving it to take part in this welcome beginning to the Advent season.  Better yet, come September, think about joining us as we practice for another round of sharing the "reason for the season" in song.  We'd love to have you!