JENELLE JANCI | Staff Writer
Every Christmas Eve, I watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” with my parents on broadcast TV, eagerly awaiting the “Buffalo Gals” scene and the opportunity to practice my poor Jimmy Stewart impression while yelling “Clarence!” (I usually miss the part where George Bailey builds Bailey Park, though, because we often left for church before that scene aired.)
On Christmas Day, we’d visit my now dearly departed Great Aunt Ronnie. We ate stuffed cabbage and kiffles (Hungarian pastries) while listening to my dad and his brothers play Christmas carols, including a few original tunes. My Uncle Jimmy still commits fully to singing the “hula-hoop” high notes of “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late).”
As an adult, one of my greatest joys of marriage is gaining another family. We gather with about 50 of my husband’s relatives in the afternoon on Christmas Day, pushing his cousin’s countertop to its limits by filling it with slow cookers bubbling with savory delights. There’s usually a themed dress code, too. (Luckily, this year’s is easy: Christmas socks.)
These are just some of my holiday traditions. But the best part about traditions is that no two families celebrate exactly the same way.
In that spirit, we asked LNP | LancasterOnline readers what holiday traditions they cherish revisiting during the holiday season. Thank you to the readers who opened their hearts to us by sharing stories, from cookie baking to hanging treasured ornaments.
And from all of us at LNP | LancasterOnline, we wish you a holiday season of peace, health and happiness.
Church, then cheeseburgers
Our family tradition has been to attend the Family Christmas Eve service at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Lancaster and then go to McDonald’s for supper. This started when our son and daughter were young and participated in the sermon for the two family services at St. Peter’s. One year, we switched it up and took them to Wendy’s!
– Kim Sterner, Lancaster
Remembering Dad with an ornament
When my late husband was born, his mother had a commemorative Christmas ornament made. David’s name and the year of his birth, 1948, were boldly painted in thick white paint on the surface of the steel-blue glass ball.
When David and I married in 1977, my mother-in-law gave us the special ornament to hang on our first Christmas tree. Since we were newlyweds on a limited budget, the shiny ball was the featured ornament among a few cross-stitched decorations and threads of silver tinsel.
In the years that followed, Dad’s Christmas Ball was always the first ornament placed on our holiday tree. The special orb maintained a perpetual front and center position. When our son and daughter were old enough to help decorate our tree, they took turns lifting the cherished ornament out of the original cardboard box and placed it in their specially chosen spot. Year after year, the tradition continued.
In 1993, when David succumbed to injuries from a car accident, the ornament took on extra special meaning. It was still the first ornament to be placed carefully on a limb at eye level. But now, the Christmas ornament was a bittersweet reminder of a wonderful father and husband.
Kim Kluxen Merideth of East Hempfield Township remembers her late husband with her children by hanging a special ornament prominently on their Christmas tree.
Years passed, but there was never a Christmas without Dad’s Christmas Ball. The children went off to college but they always came home for the holidays. The ornament patiently waited for them in the yellowed tissue paper.
After 12 years as a widow, my heart took a chance on love again and I remarried. Eventually, my children also married and moved into homes of their own and they created their own holiday rituals. But, through all of the changes, the tradition of Dad’s Christmas Ball remains. Fortunately, both families live nearby so we can enjoy the holidays together. When we gather, my adult children seek out Dad’s Christmas Ball and point it out to their children. The circle of life continues with another generation and along with them, the tradition of Dad’s Christmas Ball endures.
I am the keeper of Dad’s Christmas Ball. This year will be the 46th December I will bring out the worn cardboard container with the treasured ornament. My hands are no longer smooth and supple. Creases of age crisscross my knuckles and the bluish tint of bumpy veins below my thin skin reminds me of the passage of time. When I hold Dad’s Christmas Ball, a familiar warmth fills my heart as I reflect for a brief moment on past Christmases and the joy of the magical season.
– Kim Kluxen Meredith, East Hempfield Township
Keeping the family close
My name is Shelva Shives, I am 68 years old, and I wanted to tell you about my family’s get-togethers. When I was a child in Bedford, Pennsylvania, my grandparents started this tradition. We would have Christmas, Easter and a summer family reunion each year at their house. We quickly outgrew their house and had to rent a facility or an outdoor place to have our get-togethers.
Our grandfather’s last wish was that we continue to have the family get-togethers at least three times a year to keep the family close. My grandparents, my parents, some of my siblings and my spouse are all gone now. But we continue to have the get-togethers (in Bedford). There used to be anywhere from 150 to 200 people at our get-togethers. Now we are down to 50 to 100 on a good day.
I am looking so forward to going to the Christmas get-together this year. We all feel very, very blessed that our family has been able to continue the tradition that our grandparents wanted us to do. We don’t bring gifts anymore, but it’s just wonderful to get together. (We) sit around and talk to each other and reminisce. (We) bring a covered dish and have a lot of fun with each other, cousins, nieces (and) nephews! What a blessing that our family has given to us, because they knew this is what would keep us all together as a family. And we all feel very blessed to have a wonderful family to go to.
– Shelva Shives, Columbia
Making grandma’s fruitcake
Phil Fretz wrote a short story inspired by his grandmother. He says:
“I learned about baking from my grandmother, and although I was young when she passed, the sights, the aromas, the feelings of comfort and pleasure that resonated from her kitchen have stayed with me. The tradition of sharing the baked products was a given. Whether it was to neighbors, relatives, and often to shut-ins nearby, the passing down to me of the empathy engendered by the simple act of letting another family enjoy a holiday baked good was a lifelong gift from Grandma to me.”
The short story is as follows:
He looked at the empty kitchen, redolent of his lonely life since she left. It was the season when family meals and celebrations were commonplace. Well, he thought, what can he do? He could make something on his own to cheer him up. He knew how to bake. Fruitcake? Hmmm. The taste of his grandma’s baking came back to his memory. Grandma baked fruitcakes for family and others; he recalled eating them with relish every winter.
He turned on all the kitchen lights. The overhead spot lights filled the room with bright white. The under-the-counter lights lit up all the space he would soon utilize. The oven called to him: “Turn me on, make me warm, let my red light burst into this scene.”
He looked for and found his old red apron. The house was cool, but the kitchen would soon be heating his body, and warming his soul. He didn’t need the recipe. All he needed were the tools of a baker and the many ingredients that any good chef always had in the cabinets.
He opened the doors to each cabinet in turn as they revealed their contents. The pan to melt the butter, the cake pans to oil and grease, the saucepan to combine the warmed brandy with the flour mixture, the bowls, the wooden spoons, the whisk, the strainer, the pastry brush, measuring spoons and cups, a knife to slice the sticks of butter, and to cut large pieces of fruit.
The shelf in the pantry summoned him. Baking flour, golden raisins, dried apricots, brown sugar, dried figs, ginger, baking powder, pumpkin spice, vanilla extract and chopped nuts. That would do it.
The fridge always contained butter and eggs. The whiskey cabinet along the wall held two types of brandy. He wanted to use both to bake a cake he wanted.
His first smile of the day crept into his face. Even alone, here was a place of contentment, of peace, and of acceptance. He didn’t need to call Alexa to play a favorite tune. He hummed on his own, starting with lyrics from “West Side Story.” “Could be, who knows? There’s something due any day, I will know right away…”
Mixing came easily as he sang the words loud enough to resonate in his cooking realm. The aromas began to emanate from the mixtures warming on the stove. He breathed them in as he pictured Grandma in her own red apron.
Into the bowls went the warmed butter and sugar, then eggs, beating them on slow speed. The flower mixture, the fruit and nuts were the last to be added before he filled the two loaf pans. Just as Grandma baked for neighbors who weren’t able to, he would do the same. Sharing holiday goods echoed his grandma’s words from an earlier time.
Two hours of baking yielded the aroma-rich result. He brushed the tops and sides with additional brandy after the cakes cooled.
He didn’t hesitate to take one of the cakes to the local retirement community’s memory center, where he was hoping that some of the residents would embrace this holiday creation. At the front desk, he presented his baked product. The receptionist asked him to bring it to the common room, where the residents were finishing their mid-day meal. When the still warm fruitcake was unwrapped and the aroma caught their attention, one resident after another approached the table where the cake was set. Pieces were sliced and offered.
He watched as one woman inhaled the fragrance, closed her eyes, and smiled to herself. Another gentleman held a piece of the cake and silently shed tears as he must have reflected on his own memories of baking or being baked for.
The baker, too, felt incipient tears on his face as he ruminated back his own thoughts of his grandmother.
– Phil Fretz, West Lampeter Township
Cindia Rutt, of Ephrata, has dedicated a day to making cookies with her daughters since 2017. The culinary fun has since expanded to include other family members. This photo is from the first cookie baking day in 2017.
A cookie baking party
One Christmas season, December 2017, my two adult daughters and I decided to take advantage of this huge island in my kitchen and make Christmas cookies together. Since then, our family has grown and evolved and every Christmas since that first season, we get together and make cookies. This annual tradition now includes my sister, my two daughters, my daughter-in-law, my niece and all their children … everyone participates. We make a mess, but sure have fun doing it!
– Cindia Rutt, Ephrata
Kay Collier, right, reads the Walter de la Mare poem “The Cupboard” to her son Ron, left, and granddaughters. The poem is part of a special, interactive book she created. Reading it has become a holiday tradition.
Reading with Granny
“Granny, is it time to read the ‘Big Surprise Book?’ ” This request has been made every Christmas Eve for the last 55 years.
The ‘Big Book’ was lovingly constructed by me when David was 4 years old, and Ron and Susan (twins) were 3. I had salvaged the huge stand-up “Dick & Jane-See Spot Run” reading chart from my primary teaching days. I glued a foot-tall fern decorated with sequins and sparkles on page one. That fern Christmas tree is still beautiful, though a bit faded, after 55 years.
The story is Clement Moore’s “A Visit From St Nicholas,” with real sugar plums taped to the dream clouds over the children’s heads as they lay sleeping snug in their beds, and real miniature stockings hung by the chimney with care filled with tiny candy canes, one for each child present for the reading. Santa sports a soft rabbit fur beard. He can be pulled down the chimney on a pull tab to land on a tiny log among real ashes. On one page, Santa is held slightly aloft with a thick square of foam. When bobbled by small fingers he jiggles “like a bowlful of jelly.” Some of the fur and material is now yellowish with age, but everything is still intact and still moves, when gently wiggled by small fingers. The candy canes, lollipops, and sugar plums are added each year at the time of the reading, so the children can remove and enjoy them while listening to the story.
The last half of the big book has favorite nursery rhymes and poems. “Simple Simon” has a tiny plastic pail full of silvery, foil fish with a removable fishing rod so the listener can go fishing. “Ole King Cole” has a fiddle that plays when rubber band strings are plucked. “Baa-Baa Black Sheep” has real black lamb’s wool to touch and feel.
A favorite is Walter de la Mare’s poem, “The Cupboard”:
THE CUPBOARD
I know a little cupboard
With a teeny tiny key,
And there’s a jar of lollipops
For me, me, me
It has a little shelf, my dear,
As dark, as dark can be
And there’s a dish of Banbury Cakes
For me, me, me
I have a small, fat grandmamma,
With very slippery knees
And she’s Keeper of the Cupboard
With the key, key, key.
And when I’m very good, my dear,
As good as good can be,
There’s Banbury Cakes and lollipops
For me, me, me.
Of course, each Christmas the 3D cupboard is replenished with miniature lollipops, and Grandma has an actual, tiny key in her apron pocket.
Another favorite is The Magic Mouse, a poem I wrote about each of our children, the ones the book was originally written for. By turning the wheel on this page, each child finds his/her photograph and the verse about him/her. Now, with my grandchildren at my knee, the listener finds the picture of his or her parents. The first verse is about Ron, who disliked spinach, the second verse, about Susan who did not like to have her hair washed, the third about David, and the last verse is about all of them.
THE MAGIC MOUSE
by Kay Collier.
Wouldn’t it be funny
if a little magic mouse
would eat up all the spinach
in the garden and my house?
I wish when Mother calls me
and wants to wash my head,
the little mouse would whisper,
“You can wash my head instead.”
When my toys are scattered
where I left them after play,
I’d love to have a magic mouse
to put them all away.
And wouldn’t it be wonderful
if Dad and Mother said,
“You may stay up ‘til midnight.
We’ll put the mouse to bed instead!”
This book has been lovingly read every Christmas Eve for the last 50 years. Now my daughter or one of my grandchildren help me replenish all the “goodies” and read it.
– Kay Collier, Willow Street
And, a Thanksgiving tradition
Once our five children were grown and had children of their own, we began hosting our Thanksgiving meal on the eve of the holiday at our home. That way they could enjoy Thanksgiving with their in-laws. The family grew and grew and did not fit comfortably in our home any longer. We now rent a venue and have the dinner catered, but I still make the pies because my family loves my pies. We will entertain about 40 family members this year.
– Claire Storm, Columbia
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ERIN NEGLEY | Staff Writer
