Most of my Christmas memories and
stories have been shaded white and green and Santa Claus red. I
remember deep snow, buckle down overshoes, wet mittens, Flexible
Flyers, school parties, cut out snow flakes, the music at church, the
Saturday afternoon Christmas movie at the Cass Theater and Santa
Claus handing out a bag of treats afterwards. (My dad was even Santa
one year.) The family get togethers seem epic in my remembrance.
Grandma and Grandpa Potter's small farm
house was filled with Koelkers, Elskamps, Minks, Leesers, and often
others. I remember the aromas of roast beef and gravy and potatoes
and Grandma's homemade biscuits mingled with tobacco smoke and beer
and cedar. I remember the laughter and the card games. At Grandma
and Grandpa Koelker's, we had lots to eat with presents around a
frosted Christmas tree with red lights along side a long dining table
set up for the occasion. We had family from California and Illinois
some years. There was always sports on the black and white TV and
Miller High Life in the snow outside the kitchen steps. One year
Grandpa gave me a toy barn he built for me that had my name painted
across the roof. A lot of farming got done with that barn by me and
my brother and friends and then Ben and Mark before it got so
dilapidated that is went out to the burn pile - just last summer.
I loved to help get in the Christmas
tree out on the farm. (I still do.) Sometimes the whole family
would bundle up and go down in the woods together with a saw and sled
and finally decide on a cedar tree that had good color and the right
proportions and then drag it back up to the farm where my Dad would
grump through having to get it into the little red and green stand.
(It may be genetic, because to this day, putting the tree in the
stand is the only thing I don't like about Christmas trees.) As I
got older, I often cut and brought in a cedar tree for my folks and
grandparents by myself. It was different but still a good memory of
quiet, gray air near sundown with silent footsteps in soft snow as I
dragged the tree back up to the farm.
Ellen's family used to get in a big
cedar tree too. I remember my first couple Christmases as a member
of the family where on Christmas Eve the welcoming scent of wood
smoke wafted from the chimney when you got out of the car. Inside
the warm farm house was filled with hugs and the rich fragrance of
cooking and baking and cedar. The rooms were filled with brothers
and sisters and and in-laws (like me). The place resounded with
cheerful laughter, joking, teasing, and hearty “Merry Christmas!”
to newcomers. (Before my time in the family, when the kids were
little, Walt would load the whole gang up in the station wagon and go
for a drive. Miraculously, Santa would come while they were gone.)
When the kids got older, we would all crowd into the living room and
the youngest, Bill and Bob and Lori and Kathy, would head for the
colorful present mountain under the shining tree in the corner and
start handing out colorfully wrapped presents. The floor would end
in chaos with a carpet of wrapping paper, tags, and boxes. Santa
Claus also showed up in person one year! (I think it might have been
Joe Kremer in disguise, but who knows for sure.) Afterwards, most
would head out for Midnight Mass and then come home for tom and
jerrys.
At my house there were only five of us.
We opened gifts on Christmas morning. I was usually the first one
up. I have memories of red bicycles, electric trains, BB guns,
books, race tracks, and games. One year I got a brick of .22 shorts
rifle shells. I was perplexed and held it up as I didn't have a
rifle. My dad just shrugged. (Later I got a .22 single shot at
Grandma Potters.) When I was in college, I got an Air Force parka
with a real wolf fur collar. I wore it for years to school and ice
fishing.
Ellen and I began our own Christmas
traditions like picking out a cedar here on the farm for our living
room and fixing a venison steak dinner on Christmas Eve if we were
home. Ben and Mark learned that they got three Christmases some
years as there was “down home” at their grandparents for two and
“up home” for our family Christmas. I remember one year we
enlisted the aid of our neighbors, Dick and Judy Swantz. While were
were gone south, they brought over the presents we had stored in
their barn including two new bicycles. They had set it all up under
the tree. On our way north, we heard Mark say to Ben (who may have
become a non-believer by then), “If there are presents under the
tree when we get home, there really is a Santa Claus!” We will
never forget the look on their faces and talk about it every year.
One of our best Christmas memories is the Christmas Eve surprise when
Ben drove home from Colorado. He got here just in time to ride to
Cassville with us.
Anyway, life happens to all of us. I
will probably be the oldest person at the Hauk Christmas Eve this
year, and then only outdone chronologically by my mom at the Koelker
family Christmas. The children there will be my nephews and nieces
and their kids and grandkids. As this is the time to make a living
in skiing country, our mountain kids will spend Christmas with each
other and their friends. There are nearly 60 Christmases I remember
in one way or another. The standards set by those yuletides past can
be pretty high, but I wouldn't trade the memories and stories or the
ones to come for anything.
Until next time, get out - to our
friends who have lost family members this year or whose family
members can't all be home at Christmas this year, maybe you can take
some time to quietly remember other Christmases when you were all
together and happy or perhaps share a good story with those who can
be there. To all of you from Ellen, Scout, Gypsy and I here at
Grouse Hollow, may you have a Merry, memory making Christmas and a
great 2015. Enjoy.
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