Garden View residents reflect on childhood Christmas memories
By Audrey Posten, Times-Register
Lovingly decorated trees, hearty meals with family, church services and programs, playing in the snow—What are considered traditional staples in today’s Christmas celebrations aren’t so different from how people enjoyed the festive season decades ago.
“We always had a tree,” said Marilyn Hemesath, who was among a group of residents from Garden View Place in Monona that shared some childhood Christmas memories during a recent Zoom interview.
“It was a lighted tree of course,” she reminisced, “with those bubble lights. I just loved to sit by that tree and smell it.”
For Masa Bunting, who grew up on a farm with her three siblings, the Christmas tree was always cut down.
“It came off the farm,” she said.
It was much the same for Mary Lou Thompson.
“We lived on a farm and had a lot of woods. It was four of us girls and two boys and, at Christmas time, the older ones would get to go with my dad to the woods and pick out the Christmas tree,” she recalled. “Decorating it was mostly homemade—no bought ornaments at all in those days. We strung popcorn, cut construction paper in different colored rings and glued them together, then got to put those on the tree.”
Mary Lou’s favorite addition to the tree, though, were Christmas candles that belonged to her grandmother.
“We didn’t get to light them,” she said, “but we had a little holder we’d clip on the tree. Then the candles were on the tree, even if they weren’t lit. It was a remembrance of my grandma.”
Unlike the other interviewees, Ruth White grew up in a city. She was raised by her grandparents, who she said purchased the family’s Christmas trees at a lot. But the decorating experience was no less special.
“I remember they brought in a tree and put it in a certain place—a new room that was added on to the house. It took center stage, this tree,” Ruth shared. “There were some bulbs, but there was lots of tinsel to make the tree look shiny. Almost too much in some places, because it was just thrown on.”
For others, Christmas programs were an important lead up to the holiday.
“We didn’t have special church services, but we had our Sunday school program,” said Shirley Seitz. “I think we practiced all day for about four Saturdays. So they must have figured we’d probably had enough church for awhile.”
Donna Thompson said the Legion Auxiliary, of which her mother was a member, used to organize a local program.
“They always had a big Christmas doing for all the kids, and Santa Claus would come. One year, somebody found this poem and my mom brought it home and I had to memorize it. I didn’t want to do it,” she said. “But, needless to say, I had everyone in stitches.”
Donna couldn’t recall the title of the poem, but said it was about Santa Claus coming, and he got stuck.
“The only line I can remember was that his stomach was full of feathers—and it broke and they all came out,” she said, laughing. “To this day, I wish I had a copy of that.”
LaVonne Benzing said Christmas services at church were one of her most important childhood memories.
“We’d all do little parts. And then we all got a bag with an apple and some nuts and some candy,” she remarked. “That was very important to me,” especially coming from a large family where Christmas was often limited.
She also loved the music, a tradition she carried on with her own children and grandchildren.
“I told them they could not open a gift before we sang a couple of carols,” LaVonne said. “We always sang ‘Away in a Manger’ and ‘Silent Night.’ Those were the two special ones.”
Church services were important for Marilyn Lamker’s family too.
“Christmas Eve was the big time when we’d go to church,” she noted. “Then Santa Claus would come while we were gone.”
Marilyn Hemesath said her family wouldn’t discover gifts until Christmas morning.
“My brother and I, we’d get up, and mother would already be doing the turkey. We had a big family, so aunts, uncles and everybody else would come,” she shared.
As an only child, Donna said she’d get up as she pleased, and her parents would follow. When she was around 10 or 11, she learned the importance of being surprised by gifts.
“I was kind of a snoop. I liked to go around and look in closets and under the bed before Christmas, thinking I could find my present,” she admitted. “One year, I asked for a doll, and my mom said she thought I was getting too big for a doll. She never said anything more, but then I snooped around and, low and behold, under the bed in the spare bedroom upstairs, I found this great big box. I opened it and there was the prettiest doll. But I learned my lesson because, on Christmas morning, of course mom and dad were all excited because I was going to get that doll. I had the hardest time being excited because I already knew.”
“Later, I told my mom,” she continued. “It really made me stop and think after that. Leave the boxes where they’re hidden.”
Donna wasn’t the only Garden View resident who enjoyed receiving a doll.
“When I was little, I wanted a Black doll,” said Marilyn Lamker. “That was my baby.”
“I only remember one doll I got,” LaVonne recalled, “but my dad had sisters who would always send us a box of fruit, and I thought how good that was for us.”
Ruth said the goodies found in her stocking were some of the most treasured gifts.
“Do you remember the long, brown stockings we had to wear over our long Johns when we walked to school in the snow?” she asked. “Those same brown stockings were the ones that were hung somewhere and always stuffed with peanuts in the shell, fruit sticking out the top, and maybe a small gift of some kind.”
Later, she made felt stockings for her own children.
“I put their names on them, and every Christmas they were hung somewhere,” Ruth said. “They were filled with just candy and fruit—that sort of thing.”
Marilyn Lamker said Christmas day was always a fun time to try out new games the kids received. They also enjoyed long-time favorites, like Chinese checkers.
Outdoor activities were a popular past time as well.
“As soon as I could, I learned to ice skate,” said Masa.
Children enjoyed snowball fights, skiing and sledding.
“There was a lot more snow then,” quipped LaVonne. “It would be as tall as the school bus.”
According to Donna, Dr. Kettelkamp created fun for Monona kids all winter long thanks to a team of Shetland ponies.
“He’d hitch the ponies up to a big sled. We would hook our little sleds behind it and he’d drive us around town. Three or four sleds at once, but we’d lots of times put two people on a sled. If there wasn’t room one way, we’d lay on top of one another,” she shared. “That used to be really fun.”
Another key part of Christmas traditions was, of course, the food. For Mary Lou’s family, the focus was meat—ham and either turkey or chicken—along with potatoes and gravy. Donna said her father always had two requests: goose and mince meat pie.
“My mother made this with ground up meat of some sort,” she recalled, but she wasn’t a fan.
Shirley also disliked her father’s Christmas favorites.
“On Christmas Eve, my dad liked oysters, but my mother and I didn’t care for oysters,” she said. “So dad would eat oyster stew, and mom and I would have oyster stew without oysters.”
On Christmas day, the family would go to her mother’s side for a meal, then to her father’s side for lutefisk.
“My dad volunteered to let it hang in our kitchen to let it rot a little more. Ugh!” Shirley added. “Everybody liked lutefisk except my mother and I. So she made us hamburgers.”
Marilyn Lamker said desserts always included pumpkin and pecan pie. Donna’s mother would make two kinds of cookies—refrigerator cookies that were made in logs and sliced up.
“The first one was a roll up one with a date filling. The other she called just a butterscotch one,” she stated. “Then she made the white divinity. It had to be a really sunny day because she said, if you make divinity on a day it was cloudy, it’ll be sticky. That’s very true I think.”
Recalling these memories, and thinking back to previous years with their children and grandchildren, the ladies admitted this Christmas will be hard, with families not gathering due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’m the happiest in my life when my children are all gathered around me. That’s not necessarily a Christmas tradition—any time it occurs,” Ruth said.
LaVonne agreed: “I just love Christmas with my kids and my grandkids and great-grandkids. And we won’t have that this year. We’ll probably Zoom, though, like we did at Thanksgiving.”