THE BEST KIND OF CHRISTMAS

By

Gerry Niskern

I had two Christmas celebrations as a child. My sister and I woke up on December 25^th to the smell of pine. Santa had brought presents and a beautiful sparkling tree too. What more could a kid ask for; but to be honest, I don’t remember what we had to eat.

But on January 6^th, at my grandma Gunto’s house, we had our favorite Christmas. We looked forward to Grandma’s Orthodox celebration because we were with our many cousins. Mom came from a family of l3, so there were a lot of them. There were no presents exchanged, just the joy of the whole family being together.

My grandma’s living room was cleared of furniture and long tables and chairs were set up. The tables were groaning with food. After a prayer by one of the grownups in my Grandmothers native language, my little Austrian grandma would always say, “Now Geddy, you say in English”. She could never pronounce Gerry. I don’t know why she always chose me, out of all the kids, to say the blessing. I was painfully shy so I guess she thought it would be good for me!

We had Hulupkis. They were boiled cabbage leaves filled with browned ground beef and spices and rice. The cabbage was then folded like an envelope, rolled up and placed in a large kettle and covered with the savory brown gravy made from the browned beef. They were delicious.

There was Perogies too; my favorite. After making the dough, it was rolled out and cut into 3 inch squares. Then a mixture of mashed potatoes and chunks of yellow cheese was spooned out onto a square and folded over into a triangle and the edges pinched with a fork. The pockets were then dropped into boiling water for a few minutes to cook like a noodle. Then they were lifted out and plopped into a large skillet sizzling with chopped onion browning in butter.

There was always a bowl of stewed apricots, and fruit pies from the summer’s canning; cherry, peach and berry. The only cookies were plain round sugar cookies with a spoonful of jam in the middle and another round of cookie on top, with a hole in the middle for the jam to bubble thru.

The most important dish of the evening was a platter of round cooked noodle balls covered with honey and poppy seed.  Everyone had to eat one in order to have good health in the coming year. I dreaded that tradition, but I was always required to choke one down!

The evening was concluded with polka dancing with the music provided by my Uncle Paul from Italy. His sparkling blue accordion shimmered as everyone, young and old danced. My grandma’s house vibrated with fun. Then, of course, my Uncle Walter, from Russia, gave a command performance dancing the Mazurka. He crouched low, with arms across his chest and his boots kicking high into the air. Everyone tried to imitate him, but no one else was strong enough.

I ended up on someone’s lap in the living room in front of the fireplace watching the coal fire hiss and spew out plumes of yellow, red and purple flames. I was always surprised to find my self in my own bed the next day!

MY FIRST GIG AS A CHRISTMAS SUPERSTAR

The scraggly line inched slowly forward as the first grade girls scuffled and stretched on their toes to be the tallest in our class, but I won hand’s down. That time was my one and only life time compensation for being the biggest girl in every class I was in throughout school.

As I bent over the baby (really my Dionne Quintuplet doll named Annette) my long brown hair hung down around my shoulders. At the request of my teacher, I was allowed to take my tight braids out and brush out my long hair, something I was never allowed to do at home. She obviously didn’t think that Mary would have had long braids. Thank you, Mary Jane Crowe!

Joseph was there too, I’m sorry to report. If wouldn’t have minded sharing the spotlight with the baby’s father, but not red haired Dickie Henderson, of all people! He was the “bad” boy of the class. How humiliating! I kept asking myself, ‘Why did teacher choose him?’

Looking back, years later, I realized she chose him because he would be a mischief maker among the shepherds, but as Joseph, he was right up there in front and had to behave himself. I would have enjoyed my starring role as the mother Mary, if he hadn’t kept winking at me.

There was a great light glowing from the manger (courtesy of the large spot light that my first grade teacher had placed underneath). I did my best to ignore Joseph as I knelt on the rough stage in prayer by the baby lying on the sweet smelling straw, with my glorious long hair.

mas Tree Up Yet?

By

Gerry Niskern

When I was a child, the Christmas tree magically appeared in our living room each Christmas morning. It stood in glorious splendor in the corner complete with twinkling lights, shiny ornaments and tons of icicles.

The minute I opened my eyes, sometime around dawn, and sniffed, I knew it was there. The pungent pine aroma filled the chilly air. My sister and I raced barefooted down icy cold stairs. Sure enough, Santa Claus had come down our chimney with presents and…. a tree.

“How did my parents do that?,” I used to mutter every year as I dragged down the boxes of ornaments, untangled the lights and start trimming the tree. The last few years I’ve vowed to give it all away after the holiday season is over. I’ll just pick up one of those tiny trees to arrange on a table.

I remember the our first Christmas after we became  parents. We set out to buy our baby daughter her first tree. The Dairy Queen owner on West Van Buren always filled his empty parking lot with fresh evergreens. All the young couples in our crowd were on a tight budget and our friends warned us, “Be firm, don’t pay the price on the tag.”

Imagine our shock when we approached the vendor with our chosen tree and asked if that was the best he could do. “If it’s for that tiny baby girl, there’s no charge… and Merry Christmas to both of you.”

The next year we took our toddler to see the huge tree in downtown Phoenix like the ones we had always enjoyed as kids. The city workers placed the magnificent fir on top a large box-like platform in the middle of the intersection of Washington and Central Avenues. The trolleys that traveled Washington passed by on either side.

We have had all shapes and sizes of trees while our kids were growing up.  One year we bought all unbreakable ornaments when our son was an aspiring, two years old  Mickey Mantle. When our daughter went to first grade, she brought home a paper angel with shiny blue wings. The holy lady was too large to hang on the tree; the young artist laid her on one of the branches.

As the years passed, her younger brothers brought home their own works of art. Our older son brought a clothes pin wise man, complete with cotton beard and a ric-rac desert headdress. Most astonishing of all was the bright green snowman.  He was made of numerous round parts all taped together in a long string. I was just about to compliment my youngest son on the cute caterpillar, when he said, “ Mom, how do you like my snowman?” and he laid him it across the branches of the Christmas tree.

The more willing helpers I had, the slower the job of decorating the tree became each year. We reminisced as we stopped to examine each work of art and look for names and grades on the back.

When the grandkids came along, I started hanging my Christmas cookies from the boughs. Of course, that brought lots of willing helpers.  After a few years,  we purchased  an artificial tree. And our color scheme gradually changed from red and green to mauve and silver to purple and teal and then gold and blue. However, somewhere along the way, the willing tree trimmers grew up  and  became busy with other activities during the Yuletide season.

Believe me, I really planned to go with the little tree some day.  The problem  is, we never know when there will be another grandbaby or great-grandbaby bringing us his own unique works of art.

The more I think about it, maybe we had better keep the old tree a few more years. Who knows? Someday we might get a red snowman.