How it was when I was a little girl

Somehow, I have abandoned my Norwegian childhood Christmas traditions; cast them aside like used wrapping paper. Because he was the child of immigrants, my grandfather Virgil (Papa) had a very specific (and Norwegian) way of observing Christmas Eve, and my grandmother Lucille (Nana) had devoted her life to doing things his way.

The day started in Claremont, South Dakota, with waking up too early and lying in bed with a stomachache, knowing that you had, oh, maybe sixteen hours to go before you could get your hands on a present. Food was out of the question, as was anything fun, because all you could do was exist in the gloomy half-life of painful anticipation. They didn’t have DVDs back then, or even VCRs, and the networks (there were three) didn’t feel the need to assuage children’s suffering by ordering up anything for us to watch. So we just suffered.

Eventually, after what felt like hours and hours of waiting, walking around aimlessly, pining and stressing and checking the clock every minute or so, my mother (Mom) would announce that it was time to go to our grandparents’ home. So we’d drive the forty-five minutes from Aberdeen to Claremont (population 53), and the additional few miles to the farm. Then it was time to start waiting it out over there.

Out on the farm

In general, I found my grandparents’ farm to be a magical place. Part of it was my grandmother’s devotion to the domestic arts. She’d long ago raised her own children, and though she watched us often, her home reflected her personal values. It was arranged and spotless. We amused ourselves with the limited toy options she allowed in the home, but nothing could distract us from the agony of anticipation we felt on Christmas Eve.

First, Nana would set the big oak dining table with the good dishes and the sterling silver flatware. We were not allowed to help, as we might drop a piece of the good china (Adams & Son, Sharon) or smudge the carefully polished silver (Wallace, Grand Baroque). There would be cooking going on in the kitchen. When those mysterious preparations were complete, we would all be called to table.

The adults sat down to oyster stew. As a child, I couldn’t account for the oyster stew. I can give you the recipe, which was, no lie, cans of evaporated milk mixed with cans of oysters topped with pats of butter. That was it. They’d float some oyster crackers on there and call it Christmas dinner. This was a delicacy. My distaste for it was so strong that I thought the reason it was served was probably that it was so revolting that no one could stand to eat it more than once a year.

Luckily, my sister and I were served Campbell’s cream of potato soup in lieu of the stew. This was possibly a matter of economics (canned oysters were expensive) or possibly done in consideration of the fact that oyster stew made us gag.  We were also allowed some oyster crackers to float above the chunks of potato, impervious to the sogginess I loved in Saltines. Everyone also had dinner rolls.

After we ate the soup, we would have bowls of vanilla ice cream. My sister and I would beg a little Hershey’s syrup to liven it up a bit. Our grandmother was abstemious with it for reasons known only to her.

Do you sense a theme, here?

Is it a Norwegian tradition to serve an all-white dinner? I’m not sure. I only know I could hardly stand to choke this down, because it was so featureless. As an adult, I understand at least one reason for this menu. It required little to no labor in comparison to a turkey with all the sides. My grandmother had just done all that for Thanksgiving. We could have had a roast beef, but my grandfather ran a feedlot, so roasts and steaks were on the table at almost every single dinner. The rare appearance of something from the sea must have been a low-labor treat for both grandparents.

So after this bland extravaganza was consumed, the table needed to be cleared, but not by us kids. Those were the good dishes and flatware. We might have damaged something on the way to the sink. We didn’t even have that small task to use up any time. We waited in the living room for Mom and Nana to do the dishes.  By hand, of course, because even if there had been such a thing as an automatic dishwasher back then (I don’t know if there was or not), Nana would never have put her fine china and sterling silver in a dishwasher. It all had to be hand-dried and carefully put away.

My brother and sister and I lingered by the tree, throats closing, stomachs churning with anticipation. My grandparents had an artificial pine trimmed with ropes of gold glass beads, gold satin balls, red velvet bows, and spun cotton birds with real feathers. I found it unspeakably elegant, but at that point, I was long past being enchanted. I was dying inside. We were all three dying. We’d been dying all day, and dying all through dinner, what was a little more dying? Why not keep the agony up for as long as humanly possible?

But eventually the dishes were washed and dried and put away in the big hutch. The silver was washed and dried and returned to fuzzy pouches with slippery ties and stashed in a special drawer, not to be touched until the next big holiday. Mom and Nana would settle on the couch, and Papa would settle into his recliner. Oh, wait, he was already in that recliner. In fact, he inhabited that recliner for all parts of the evening that didn’t involve the table. We’d find our places and someone would put on some Christmas music and fuss a bit and then call for Santa’s Helper.

The job no one wanted

Santa’s Helper was usually my older sister. My brother, while older than her, was deemed too clumsy for such a job, and I couldn’t read the gift tags. But I could help pass out the presents. Each gift had to be taken from under the tree, the tag read aloud, and then delivered to the recipient. This took a bit of time, even though my sister and I worked in harmony to get those presents stacked at the feet of our family members as swiftly as possible. And then, finally, when all gifts were distributed, the Ceremonial Opening of the Gifts could commence.

We practiced a ritualized taking-turns system. Youngest to oldest, one at a time, everyone staring at you, watching you, measuring your response to the present. My sister and I generally got good stuff, but our brother was just old enough to be trapped in that post-toy span of years, with board games and clothing in many of his boxes. He’d open socks or a sweater and have to pretend to be excited because everyone was staring at him.

Around and around we would go, one at a time. The adults ran out first, of course. As a child, I was surprised by how little attention they paid to their own gifts. Their bottles of drugstore scent, copious pairs of socks, and crocheted potholders seemed completely beside the point, though Nana really liked a recipe card holder I made for her one year from a wooden spool and a clothespin. The adults just watched with smiles on their faces, beaming with joy. And for the most part, it was a joyful event. The present opening was prolonged and yes, somewhat excruciating. But it was handled with decorum and patience.

How it was when I became a mother to my own little girls

As strange and torturous as this could be for a child, it was what I knew. It’s what I expected, and what I missed when I married and had kids of my own. My ex-husband was a Christmas morning person. In his house, you just woke up and tore in. No watching, no turn-taking, no full day of tortured anticipation. I found it barbaric, that early morning wrapping paper carnage, that free-for-all. The opened presents were placed back under the tree, and it was not crowded. No one thought about gifts after the initial opening of them. But that left the rest of Christmas day. What would they do for the rest of the day?

My mother-in-law had been up since the very early morning, cooking herself into exhaustion, filling the table with her favorite dishes. There would be a turkey, a ham, and a roast beef. Imagine my horror that we ate on paper plates. All day long, people came by and fixed plates for themselves, ate and visited, then filled another plate and topped it with foil to take home. There were stories to tell, laughter to share, and cocktails to drink. It was wildly different than the Christmases of my youth.

I quietly mourned my Christmas Eve torture, the genteel all-white dinner, the routinized, scrutinized way we opened presents. When we decided to stay home on Christmas so the kids could have it by their own tree, we had to make decisions about how we’d be observing the holiday. I lobbied for opening presents on Christmas Eve. Like Nana did with Papa, I deferred to my husband and set aside however I’d done things. His traditions won.

After we divorced, our traditions were scrambled. He had the kids over for dinner on Christmas Eve, and I had the kids on Christmas morning. I felt aimless and alone on Christmas Eve. What had been the most anticipated holiday of the year was spent wrapping last-minute presents and preparing for dinner the next day. No more Christmas Eve, Norwegian style.

How it is today

Change is the only constant. My kids have grown up, married, and had children of their own. They have in-laws to visit, and their own trees full of gifts on Christmas mornings. Every single year is an improvisation, a Tetris-style game of who-will-be-where. Celebrations can take place over the course of several days to fit us all in. We have had Christmas dinner days later to include my younger brother and his family as they return from his mother-in-law’s Christmas. Some years, it’s New year’s Day when the big holiday happens.

There is no such thing as a tradition in this new incarnation of the holiday. I understand that we are in the time of life that calls for constant flexibility. I go with it. Now, instead of the torture of waiting to open my own presents, I watch the window for my grandchildren’s arrival so I can watch them open theirs.

It’s agony to wait, but so worth it.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL!