REMEMBRANCES OF CHRISTMASES PAST: Carlotta Anderson remembers making fudge and candy on Christmas Day
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Carlotta Anderson
By Missy Klatt
Carlotta Anderson (nee Hartman) grew up the eldest of three children. She lived the first three and a half years of her life in the Philippines where her dad taught English. However she was so young that she doesn’t remember anything from that time. The family then moved back to the states when her dad was hired by the United States Indian Service during the depression and they lived on several Indian Reservations where he worked. The longest was on a reservation in Idaho when she was in third through seventh grade. When she was twelve the family moved to Kansas back to the homestead family farm.
In those early years when they were away from family, it was just their immediate family for Christmas so they would always celebrate Christmas Eve. They would go to church and then come home and open the gifts from relatives far away. Then Santa would come during the night and leave the presents under the tree, unwrapped notes Carlotta, “makes it quite a bit easier on mom.” Later when she was married and they moved to Glenwood, they kept that same tradition as they were once again away from relatives.
Another Christmas tradition that Carlotta’s parents did was to make candy, like fudge on Christmas day. Carlotta said that she didn’t help though because she would be outside playing with the neighborhood kids and her new toys. “We were pretty well off” remarks Carlotta because it was a government job and this was towards the end of the depression.
One early present that Carlotta remembers getting in the first grade was a Ditty Doll, a doll that wet. She actually got two of them, one that her mom had given her and one that an aunt had mailed her. She remembers them because she ran to the door and showed a lady that came her ditty dolls and they “wet” all over her. She said that with the early ditty dolls, the water just ran out. She said that by the time her kids came along they had perfected them.
One time when Carlotta was in the fifth or sixth grade he mother had ordered her some long stockings, a blue pair and a red pair which she wasn’t too keen on. “Nobody else had red.” At Christmas the girl who was supposed to play the angel in the school play was gone and she had to substitute for her, wearing her red stockings. She laughs and “I wasn’t much of an angel either.”
They would have a real Christmas tree every year with electric lights and they would string popcorn to put on it. Her mom made stockings but she doesn’t remember what if anything special she got in them. Her mom also made stockings for all of her children.
In 1952 Carlotta married Leonard “Doc” Anderson who she called Andy. They moved to Glenwood City in 1955. They were blessed with five children; Holly, Rhonda, Robin, Lance, and Brett (sadly Brett just passed away on November 21st).
Reminiscing about those Christmases in Glenwood Carlotta recounts; “The big thing every Christmas was to go to church at four o’clock and then when we left church we would drive all around town and see the lights and Murthas always had pretty lights. Their lights were special. Then we would go home and have our bigger meal of the two days, kind of a buffet that I could do ahead of time.” She notes that after they ate, the kids then had to get the dishes done before they could open presents. She remarks “that was a bone of contention.”
One memorable but perhaps not the happiest Christmas happened one year when Carlotta’s parents came to visit. They hadn’t been able to visit previously at Christmas because of the farm so Carlotta wanted to do things up right. She had been hearing that a lot of people in the area had oyster stew on Christmas Eve. Even though they had never had oyster stew, she thought that’s a tradition with people so we’ll have oyster stew…”my mother was of the school that you don’t leave the table until everybody has eaten everything and nobody wanted to eat their oyster stew,” chuckles Carlotta. Her kids thought that was the worst!
When discussing this upcoming interview with her daughter Holly, this was one memory that Holly brought up. Holly also commented that she could never figure out how Rhonda got by with giving her oysters to the dog, “how could she do that? when dad was right there.” All her kids remember that grandma wasn’t going to let them leave the table until they had eaten all their oyster stew.
“It was special to know that we were going to go to church at four o’clock” Noted Carlotta. Before Holy Cross it was Our Saviors that they attended.
Another tradition that she partook in involved some of the ladies at church; Betty Lee, Roberta Graese, Phyllis Lundeen and herself. She said they would each bake three dozen cookies of our kind for each person. She said they did that for many, many years. She goes on to say that I think we all had this happen: you put them in the freezer or cupboard and you go to open the can and some kids had found that can. Carlotta said she’s not a baker so she would make the corn flake Christmas wreaths.
Moving to Glenwood City there was another Christmas tradition that she never knew about and that was lutefisk. She said that the church used to put on a meatball and lutefisk dinner and the men took care of it. She said the first time that she went to the dinner she was pregnant and the smell of it was not good as she chuckles at the memory. She said that Andy was a waiter and the people would ask him for some of the traditional Norwegian desserts, like krumkake and he had no idea what they were asking for as there weren’t any Norwegians in Kansas or Nebraska (where he grew up).
In 1960 Carlotta and Andy planted three acres of pine trees in their woods and when they got big enough they would go out and cut down their own tree for Christmas. However Carlotta noted that when they got bigger and bigger Andy would go out and just cut the tops off. She tells of the last year they had gone out, saying that the trees had grown a lot and there was at least a foot between the branches. “That last one he wanted me to hold the tree on the four wheeler while he drove home.” She laughs and told him “I’m going to get killed if I try to hold that tree”. He wanted her to hold it across her lap “and it was big and it was horrible.” She goes to say that they had to find the biggest ornaments to hang on it to fill up the space between branches.
Christmas decorating was a big thing but she never started until after Thanksgiving.
Now a days the whole family of about 40 will get together before Christmas. Then on Christmas Carlotta has her choice of where to go as her kids all live close except for Lance who lives in Madison.