Christmas is a time for making traditions. These might be passed down through generations or they may be made up on the spot, making a family memory.
The Mail took some time to talk with the members of the Pioneer Trail Centre right after a choir practice to learn more about what Christmas was like years ago.
Jean Naegeli, nee Bailie, grew up on a farm near Morrin and while today so many people worry about getting the perfect gift, she says they had everything they needed.
‘I don’t think we had anything we really didn’t need…everything was homegrown,” she said.
One present she remembers was a toy piano she received one year.
“My mother said I drove her crazy. I was singing and pounding on the piano,” she laughs.
She adds her mother was a musician and had a beautiful voice however in the depression the family home burned and her mother lost the family piano.
As she got older the family moved right into Morrin and she remembers the Christmas concerts.
“We would practice for months to sing and perform plays,” she said.
Jane Katan has been in Drumheller about a year but grew up near Olds. She remembers performing in the Junior Choir at the United Church.
“We had a high school teacher who was a very talented singer, she led the choir. We learned to sing parts and from her patience and love of music we gained a real love of music,” said Katan. “Before Christmas as we put on a concert that was half sacred and half secular and that is truly my happiest Christmas memory.”
George Cels said Christmas presents weren’t often toys, but essentials.
“We got what we needed, clothes, socks that my mother knitted. We never got what we wanted,” he chuckles of his memories growing up near Kamsack, Saskatchewan.
JoAnne Cunningham grew up east of Rosebud, she has a sister who was nine years older who was in university. She recalls her sister would come home from the city and she would have a new outfit for JoAnne.
“She was in Edmonton and we were home on the farm so she was so cosmopolitan,” she laughs.
She recalls attending services at the Rosebud Church and as she got older music became a big part of the tradition.
“One time we joined with Rockyford, and Carbon to have a mass choir and we attempted to sing the “Hallelujah Chorus,” which is quite challenging,” she laughs. “Sue Coles was the organist.”
She recalls because her father was of Danish descent, they would celebrate with her Danish grandparents on Christmas Eve.
“There would be 50 or 60 family members in my grandmother’s house. Just about everyone would open their gifts, but my mother was not Danish, she was Canadian, so we did not open any gifts on Christmas Eve,” she said.
“My cousins were there, so were my second cousins. There were babies all over the place. We were up in the attic, we were on the main floor, we were in the basement and we all ate there.”
She recalls the treat of eating aeblerskiver. These were like a small puffed pancake, they would dip in icing sugar. She still has the special pan to make them, but as traditions change she no longer makes them.
