REMEMBRANCES OF CHRISTMASES PAST: The Klatt Sisters: Shirley, Sharon, and Joyce recall the joy of Christmas on the farm
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By Missy Klatt
Shirley, Sharon, and Joyce grew up south of Downing on Irish Ridge Rd. Their parents, Arnold and Margaret Klatt started farming there in the 1930s. The farm is still in the family with the third and fourth generation living in the original farm house today.
With Shirley the oldest, Joyce the youngest and Sharon stuck in the middle between two older brothers, David and Wayne and two younger brothers, Gary and Eugene and sixteen years between the oldest and youngest their memories of Christmas time vary greatly.
Shirley
One thing that her mom baked at Christmas that Shirley remembers is date filled cookies. That along with coffee cake, cinnamon rolls and her famous rice pudding that her mom made for a lot of the family get-togethers are a few of the treats that she remembers at Christmas.
For their Christmas tree they decorated with glass ornaments that her mom had as well as lights.
Shirley stated that they never went to church on Christmas Eve because their church was in Menomonie and back then there was often a lot of snow and the roads weren’t plowed as well as they are nowadays. Besides, there wasn’t much time after all the chores were done to get there any way.
They would always open their gifts on Christmas morning and then they would head over to Grandma Gesche’s house. They would go to Grandma and Grandpa Klatts’ the Sunday after Christmas. The only special gift that Shirley can remember getting for Christmas was some perfume when she was a teenager.
Shirley attended the Maple Ridge School which was just down the road from the farm. Her relatives like to tell of the time before she was old enough to attend school, Shirley would sneak off and walk down the ditch to the school when she was supposed to be napping. When she was in school, Shirley recalls having Christmas programs where they would sing songs and the older kids would put on a play. Santa would come and give everyone a bag of candy.
Shirley married Melvin Bird at a young age and had four children; Carla, Marlin, Melody, and Robin. Shirley said that they didn’t do much at home with the kids because they always went to the Bird’s on Christmas Eve and then to her folks on Christmas Day.
Her mom always did stockings for her kids that would have candy and little trinkets in them. Melvin’s mom would have plastic cups filled with gum drops and caramels for the kids. They would also do a gift exchange at the Birds’.
For a while later on Shirley’s family would do Christmas in July with a gift exchange because they had so many family members it was hard to get together around the holidays. Shirley boasts that she has seventeen great-grandkids. Sadly they haven’t done this for the past few years.
Sharon
Sharon’s first memory of Christmas as a child was going to bed at night, “you hear the wind blowing, waiting for Santa Clause to come.”
When she got older she decorated the living room with red, white and green crepe paper streamers hung from the ceiling with a red bell hanging down in the middle.
They always decorated the tree. Sharon recalls having glass ornaments on the tree and homemade ones that they made in school. She also remembers the cat digging around under the tree and breaking an ornament or two.
“One time I got a gift from mom and dad, I had a maroon colored coat and snow pants that went together and I got this box in the morning, Christmas morning, and I open it up and here was a gold hat. I can’t stand gold. It had a couple of colored feathers hanging on it. I thanked mom and dad but I didn’t tell them I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to hurt their feelings,” she chuckles.
Sharon recalls going to church on Christmas day. Mom was always busy the night before, wrapping gifts and baking to try and go on Christmas Eve.
Usually they went to Grandma Gesche’s on Christmas day. Grandma and Grandpa always gave them a little trinket and she still has some of them. One was a little chair with a poodle on it and another was a puppy holding an umbrella. She said they probably only cost ten cents apiece back then but it’s a real remembrance for her.
“At Christmas Grandma would have so many things in her pantry that we would just go in there and get what we wanted.” Different kinds of cookies, that is.
Sharon remembers her mom making cookies, breads, bars and things like that for Christmas and popcorn balls.
Sharon attended the Downing school for elementary school. One year for the Christmas program she recalls being the narrator to tell about the meaning of Christmas. When she was smaller she remembers her mom making angel dresses out of crepe paper and they would have silver tinsel around it. “Then we would take a flash light and wrap that in tinsel and we would walk in.” She chuckles at the memory and said there was a bunch of the girls that had them on.
Santa Clause would always come at the end of the program and give everybody a bag which contained candy, peanuts and an apple.
Grandma and Grandpa Klatt would always give them clothes for Christmas and when they would get home they would have to switch amongst themselves to get the right sizes.
When it came to gifts they would go through the Sears- Montgomery Ward catalog. “We wore the thing out. We got to pick one toy and we usually got it.” Of course Sharon says that us kids knew mom and dad didn’t have a lot so their requests were usually reasonable. “We were just happy to all be there with the family. They were wonderful, mom and dad.”
Sharon recalls one Christmas her brother Wayne got a toboggan and made a ramp out of straw bales that they would try to go over. “We made our own fun back then.”
Sharon married Bert Lansing in 1964. After the kids, Jodi and Bret, came along Sharon would buy socks for them and fill them with treats.
The kids would help decorate the tree. “They would put things here or there, probably not where I wanted it but later I’d change it.”
Christmas day they would go to her mom and dad’s and Bert’s mom and dad’s, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. “That was always fun.”
Joyce
Her mom loved decorating, “and so do I” comments Joyce. “I remember when we would go to decorate the tree we had to clean the mop boards, the archways. We had to spring house clean the living and dining room before we could put decorations up.”
“When I got older we had to wait for dad to come in from doing milking and chores before we could decorate the tree because he always had to put the lights on, that was his job. Then we hung those little icicles (tinsel), one by one.”
She doesn’t remember having a stocking and her sisters don’t remember having them either, but Joyce said that her mom did start doing some stockings for the grandkids. Joyce still has the ones she made for her kids. They were made out of blue felt.
Joyce recalls making decorations out of tin foil that hung from the ceiling. A star burst. “We did a lot of homemade decorations.”
One Christmas present that she got when she was little was a light green doll crib with wooden wheels that she still has and her youngest grandkids play with now. She also still has a couple of dolls that she got at Christmas when she was little.
When talking about gifts, Joyce states, “We didn’t get a lot. We were lucky if we got one or two play things.”
She recalls one of the school Christmas programs at the Downing school was ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’. She was the Queen and John Larson was the King. They would have the Christmas program at the Civic Hall in Downing, up on the stage. “That was really a big thing.” She thinks she was probably in the fourth grade since they only went to the Downing school first through fourth grade.
For the program they also had a choir and they wore white capes that she thought were homemade.
Of course they couldn’t open presents on Christmas morning until after chores were done. When she was older Christmas Day was usually just her mom and dad, Eugene and herself unless Sharon was up visiting from Illinois.
Unlike her sisters she doesn’t remember going to her grandma Gesche’s. But she does remember going to Grandma Klatt’s. Although she doesn’t really remember Grandma Klatt (who died when she was fairly young) but she remembers Grandpa Klatt.
When asked if she remembers any other Christmas activities, she laughs and says “eating and fight with Eugene.”
She does remember playing hopscotch in the winter time down in the basement by the old wood stove. They would use rubber jar rings to toss to their squares. Eugene and her and Carla and Marlin (Shirley’s two oldest who were like siblings to Joyce).
Joyce said that her Mom was the one that started making slush for their family get togethers, making it with Brandy or vodka. She made some with the alcohol and some without for the kids. She also started the marshmallow popcorn balls.
At Christmas after having grandkids and great-grandkids she would have bags, that Joyce would help her put together. She would fill bags for everybody. She would put an apple, a popcorn ball and things like that in them and she made sure all of the family got those bags that was a big thing for her mom.
Joyce has continued the tradition of making slush and popcorn balls. When she got older she helped her mom with these and then eventually she took it over. She makes them for the big Klatt get together which is held in January. Joyce states that they all look forward to that. She makes about 120 popcorn balls every year for the Klatts because she said you never know how many will show up. Her nephew, Eric is always glad when she has extra.
After she married Dan Hellendrung and they had kids, Angie and Tony, they would go to Christmas Eve service at church and then when they got home the kids were allowed to open one gift.
Christmas Eve they went to Dan’s folks, Ken and Rose. “We would always have oyster stew and lefse. Then it got to the point where a lot of us didn’t like oyster stew and she would make meatballs as the family got bigger.” After a while the kids started taking turns having Christmas Eve but now they have pushed that back to the middle of January. And now there is talk of having Christmas in July instead so more people could come.
Despite their age differences, the Klatt sisters remain close and always celebrate their birthdays together. Unfortunately this year that hasn’t happened due to Covid 19 but they hope to take up this tradition again as soon as they can.