Memories of Christmas when Growing Up on a Kansas Family Farm

Treasured Family Memories

Our family has many treasured memories of Christmas time when growing up on a Kansas family farm near Iola in southeast Kansas. The memories of Christmas as a child are much different than Christmas today as an adult.

Selecting the Christmas Tree

The mid-December Saturday morning to pick out the family Christmas tree was a day of excitement on our farm. Winter mornings in Kansas in the 1950’s and 1960’s were often very cold and snowy days. A choice cedar evergreen tree in the pasture was always picked out by my dad beforehand for the right size and shape to fit into our living room window. My mother had all six of us kids accompany our dad in the truck for a ride to the pasture. That way she had some peace and quiet for a while!

We looked at many of the small cedar trees growing in the pasture. We always wanted to pick out a tree that was too large for the room, but dad helped us to select one just the right height as well as a nice round shape. He left the final decision of the right tree to us six kids. Before he owned a chain saw, he would cut down the small tree with a few swings of his axe. We were all excitedly talking and anticipating how nice it would look in the front window of our house.

The smell of fresh evergreen is a wonderful memory. The sticker branches of the cedar tree made decorating the tree with glass ornaments and fake icicles a time to be very careful. The tree had to be watered each day. It could not be cut down too early in the days before Christmas or it would be so dry that my parents were fearful it might become a fire hazard with the lights on the tree. We never had a tree fire, but the tree was often thrown out within a couple days of Christmas being over. We had to be careful in our stocking feet to not step on dry tree needles that fell on the floor.

We also had a small Christmas manger scene that we played with each Christmas season. We moved the figures around. Our mother never said a word about us playing with Baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the animals of this Nativity set.

Hiding Christmas Gifts on the Farm

My mother secretly wrapped Christmas gifts while we were all at school during December. She would then hide them in the closet of our parent’s bedroom and lock the door. We would sometimes sneak into the room when the door was not locked and look at what was in the closet. Sometimes, we would see the gifts before being wrapped. I never unwrapped my presents, but my brothers did this a few times and then re-wrapped them-but not as neatly as before! Some years, we didn’t find any gifts in the closet. My dad hid the gifts in the cold unheated hayloft of the barn those years and we never did find these gifts ahead of time.

Midnight Mass

We got to stay up late on Christmas Eve. My sisters and I wore our new Christmas dresses and my brothers wore new pants and shirts to Midnight Mass at St John’s Catholic Church in Iola, KS. I remember my legs being so cold when walking from the car to the church for Midnight Mass. This was before girls and women wore pants to Mass. If we were sick, we watched the Midnight Mass presided over by the Pope from St Peter’s Basilica in Rome on the television.

When we got home from Midnight Mass, we unwrapped our Christmas gifts! My mother made a coffeecake with apple slices earlier in the day and this was eaten after Midnight Mass along with drinking fresh hot chocolate.

The Christmas Meal

A choice pumpkin was saved from the fall harvest for Christmas pies. This whole pumpkin was first baked in the oven. Next the seeds were removed and later toasted in the oven. Then the pumpkin flesh was scraped out, pureed and made into fresh pumpkin pies. Black walnut and pecan trees grew nearby and we picked up nuts from the ground in October and November. We gathered buckets of nuts to take home to be shelled. We all helped to hand-pick the nut meats. My mother froze these nuts for use throughout the year. Pumpkin and pecan pies were made a couple of days ahead of time for the Christmas meal.

During December, my parents planned the Christmas meal days ahead of time. A cured ham from one of our butchered farm hogs in September was retrieved from the local meat processing storage locker. My parents bought a home freezer later and stored the frozen beef, chicken and pork at home then. I realized many years later that all this meat was free-range and so healthy for us.

Both white and sweet potatoes dug from the family garden in the Fall were stored in an elevated wooden grain bin with a door to keep these vegetables from freezing. The canned peaches, pears and tomatoes were brought out of the root cellar. Corn on the cob from the summer garden were frozen and saved for the Christmas meal. All of these foods were used for the Christmas meal. Mother would make melt in our mouth whole grain rolls to accompany the meal.

Christmas Day

My parents sometimes invited our grandparents for the Christmas meal at our house. My maternal grandparents from Yates Center arrived with presents in their car for all of us. We were laughing and showing them our new toys when they arrived.

We enjoyed a large meal prepared from much food of our own garden and pork at noon-time. We then snacked on the left-over food the rest of the day. Sometimes, the adults played card games in the afternoon while the kids played with their new toys. As dusk approached on Christmas day, my grandparents drove back home.

We were so tired by the end of Christmas day that we usually went to bed early on Christmas. What wonderful dreams we had that night about all the fun activities and preparations leading up to Christmas Day that year!


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