Ron Peterson: Christmas meant “Jule Bokk” and caroling and football in the snow

By LeAnn R. Ralph

COLFAX —  When Ron Peterson was growing up in Colfax 70 years ago, what he remembers is the spontaneity at Christmas time.

“We always did a lot of Christmas caroling. We kids would do that, kind of spontaneously sometimes. Or if the Methodist choir was going around, and there were a few people out singing, we’d join them. Our church choir did that too, a couple of nights before Christmas,” Ron said.

Peterson graduated from Colfax High School in 1951.

“We had a lot of hay rides in those days, too. There was a guy out in the country who loved to come into town with his tractor and sleigh. We’d get him officially for Luther League events. But a lot of times, he’d say, ‘You kids going to have a hay ride sometime? How about tomorrow night?’ That’s how much planning went into it, he said.

After Ron was an adult and out on his own, he helped with youth programs at Colfax Lutheran.

“We’d have a lot of kids on those hay rides. This was in the 1960s. We had a large group of kids, one time, I remember, and they had to bring two tractors. We had over one hundred kids on that hay ride … it seemed like it was half the high school. Word got out. So instead of meeting at the church, we met at the high school,” Ron said.

“It was mostly a lot of spontaneous things. Kids were always out and about,” he said. “The feeling. The togetherness. The total community involvement. You could hear singing around town. We’d be out skating, and you could hear people singing. It was good. I’m glad I had that experience.”

When Ron was growing up, the ice skating rink was behind the school building, about where Colfax Elementary is now. In fact, there were two skating rinks on the school grounds, and there was a warming house too.

“There were areas where kids could play hockey. There were areas where you could show off your ice skating. And no one ever had to worry about hiring someone to remove the snow (from the skating rinks). We’d go over there, all of us kids. I remember Leon Turner (a teacher at Colfax High School). He would go up there, and we knew when he was there. He had keys so we could all get in and get shovels and clear off the ice rink. Nobody asked us to do that. We’d have 15 kids up there sometimes, shoveling snow. Leon would get the fire going, and we’d be out there clearing the snow so we could skate,” Ron recalled.

“During Christmas week, we were out all of the time, ice skating and tobogganing,” he said.

Jule Bokk

Although Ron says he had not thought about one Christmas tradition in years, a cousin of his, Vickie Hendricks, recently reminded him of it.

Adults “would dress up real crazy, almost like Halloween and go from house to house, usually the relatives, for coffee and cookies and cake. They would knock on the door,” Ron said.

The tradition was practiced among people of Norwegian descent and was called “Jule Bokk” — or “Christmas fooling.”

Hendricks, whose maiden name was Iverson, grew up on a farm west of Colfax in the Norton area.

“I can remember when (Vickie’s) dad and his two brothers and their wives knocked on our door in Colfax. I was just a little kid. I opened the door, and I think it took one second to get from the door to my dad’s lap. I think was six or seven years old. They all laughed and laughed. Then they came in and had coffee and cake,” he said.

“I can remember, around Christmas time, when we were having snowball fights or going ice skating, we saw those adults walking around, going door to door … it was very unique, I thought,” Ron said.

Whether serving coffee, cookies and cake to guests also was uniquely Norwegian could be a point of debate, but serving refreshments to visitors often was part of social gatherings in those days as well.

“Sometimes we’d stay after (the candlelight service at church on Christmas Eve) for coffee. It would be midnight. Everybody would go to the church basement for coffee and cookies. The sociability was phenomenal. It was a good time to live,” Ron said. 

“The traditions of Christmas — there was always the candlelight Christmas Eve service,” he said.

The Christmas Eve candlelight service continues at Colfax Lutheran today. 

“I remember my dad made brackets for the end of the pews so you could put a candle in it. And everybody had their own little candle. And we sang Christmas hymns. We’d get to stay up late,” Ron said.

Coffee and cake was a tradition on Sunday afternoons at church too.

“We used to call it Fireside Hour at the Lutheran church at 4:30 in the afternoon. It was brief because farmers would come into town for it. We’d have coffee and a few pieces of cake before they went home to do the chores. It was a Sunday afternoon gathering,” he recalled.

Christmas football

“We always had family gatherings on Christmas Day. We would always go to somebody’s house. We sang a lot of songs. We were a singing family. Every Christmas we got together. We’d draw names. And of course we had tobogganing and ice skating and all of that,” Ron said.

“Everybody has family traditions. All we did at Christmas was play football, eat and go tobogganing. What more could you ask?” he said.

Tobogganing was an extra-special event when Christmas was at the farm.

“Out on the farm (where Vickie Hendricks lives now, west of Colfax about six miles), and the uncles had cut a ten-foot wide path down the hill so you could take your toboggans up there, and you could slide all the way down, and you could around and go down the other hill, almost to the railroad tracks. And man, was that a ride!” Ron said.

“We’d play football games in the deep snow, too, when I was a kid,” he said.

Ron’s uncles were the Iverson brothers. Ron also remembers spending summers on the farm, helping with the farm work.

Music was an especially important community activity at Christmas back then, too.

“We used to have cantatas. We had up to 100 choirs. Every church choir in the area came. It was really fun,” Ron said.

“One year, we all decided to have an ecumenical-type of service, and we all decided to sing ‘Ave Maria.’ It’s a beautiful song. Muriel (Gehring) had a beautiful soprano voice. She and I sang a duet of ‘Ave Maria’ with a choral background,” he said.

Ron paused.

“I was told it really went well. I was scared out of my britches. We had a huge crowd. Everyone in town showed up. It was at the high school. We’d go up and practice on Sunday afternoons. We had a tremendous choir concert. It was really something,” he said. 

“It all had such an impact when I think back on it. And hardly any of it was planned. It just happened. No committee meetings. Even the church choirs. ‘Why don’t we go caroling tomorrow night?’ Or ‘let’s go caroling after rehearsal.’ So we did,” Ron said.