Category: Family

Thoughts on family past, present and future.

Old Time Christmas

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Mine was fine. I wish we had taken more time to Thank God. Otherwise, I was so proud of my daughter.  She handled everything so nice. Even when two people and their baby came invited by my grandson who had forgotten to tell my daughter, she brought in another  table and placed it by our big table just as if she had planned it that way.

I will be writing my blog about Christmases from the earliest one I remember to the latest on the weeks before Christmas..We didn’t have electricity yet in my little northern Minnesota town. The church had a big tree every year and I waited eagerly for the candles to be lit. We had a pageant complete with Mary,Joseph, baby, shepherds, wisemen and angels. I was an angel. I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful as that lighted tree. I stared at it until the men used a tall basket to put the candles out.

We lived next door to the church. They called our house a parsonage because my dad was the pastor. We had a Christmas tree but not one like the church. We had no candles in the tree, but Mama  had two tall candle holders that she placed on each side of the tree. The next year Mama and Daddy told us to stay in the kitchen with the door closed. My brother, sister and I stayed as close to the door as we could. It seemed like a long time before we heard Daddy’s voice calling us to come in. Each of us tried to be first so we just tumbled over each other, but we finally made it and we stood, not talking at all, just looking at our tree covered with red, green, blue and yellow lights. We couldn’t believe it! Even though we had seen electricians drilling holes in our walls! I thought we must be very rich to have lights on our tree. We didn’t have electric lights in our house yet, just our oil lamps but Daddy talked to the electrician and he put one extension cord in our house just so his kids could be surprised by having lights on our tree!

I write most of all today about lights on the Christmas Tree, but our Christmas was more than that. A few days before Christmas Day a group of people came into our house dressed like scary folks. They came every year after that first year I remember and they called themselves Yul’e Boks. (I’m not sure I spelled that right). All I remember was how scared I was! I ran and somehow got under Mama’s dress. They brought a food basket which was full of good things to eat. I enjoyed them in other years but that was a tradition in our town. Of course we had Christmas programs in school and church but it was much more simple way back then. Everyone celebrated the birth of Jesus. I don’t  remember any talk about Santa Claus at all. Boy! how things have changed! One thing we did have was plenty of snow and we kids had fun making tunnels and snow people. Our moms made lots of things before Christmas, such as lefse, cookies, cakes and lots of bread things. I don’t know where the money came from. It must have been saved penny by penny until they had enough. But I remember Christmas as being fun and inspirational way back then.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where Are You, Mr. Rain?

I feel sure that we, in the Pacific Northwest, don’t often pray for rain, but this year we have had quite a shortage of rain. My ferns are have trouble standing up  and I’m beginning to think yellow is the regular color of lawns and green lawns look strange.

However, I will tell you a story I read somewhere that made me sit up and take notice, The story was about a man whose name was Homi. He lived in Israel  quite a long time before Jesus was born. The prophets had all died and the people were living without God most of the time. It had not rained for a long time and people were worried, Homi was considered an odd fellow who still believed in God. He came into the town one day and said, “I will pray to our Father God for rain”.

He sat down in the dirt and started drawing circles around himself and said,”I will stay here in this circle until it rains.” and he started to pray.

The people were laughing and making fun of him but after awhile it began to rain. Everyone was dancing around and the kids were screeching and hollering around him. but Homi only prayed for more rain. The rain came hard and full. People were beginning to worry about flash flooding but Homi continued his prayer, “We need a softer rain. One that feels good on our skin and will soak into the ground.”

The rain changed to a steady soft shower and Homi got up from his circle of prayer and went home, but the people always remembered him and God too.

Perhaps we, too, should remember that all things are in his control and maybe we should begin praying, not only for rain but for everything. How about it?