Remembrances of Christmases Past Cheryl and Gary Stene: “Opposites” agree that Christmas is about family

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By LeAnn R. Ralph 

COLFAX — One grew up in the country. The other grew up in town.

One came from a family of 15 children. The other came from a family of two boys.

One had lutefisk at home for Christmas. The other did not have lutefisk at home.

But even though Colfax residents Cheryl and Gary Stene experienced very different childhoods at Christmas, they agree that Christmas was — and is — about family and love of family.

And also lefse. And fattigman. And sandbakels. And rosettes. And krumkake.

For those who are not familiar with it — lutefisk is a Norwegian delicacy that translates into “lye fish” or fish preserved with lye. 

Lefse is a Norwegian delicacy that is a very thin potato pancake served spread with butter, sprinkled with sugar and rolled up into a log. 

Fattigman (pronounced futty-mun), sandbakels (pronounced sun-buckles), rosettes and krumkake (which translates into crumb cake) also are traditional Norwegian baked delicacies. 

“We didn’t have a lot of money, but we had a lot of love,” Cheryl said.

“Mom made the best lefse ever. She sold lefse too, because people wanted it,” she said.

Cheryl grew up in the Ridgeland area, the daughter of Ellen and Marvin Moen.

Gary grew up in Colfax, the son of Virginia and Manley Stene. 

Cheryl is 75. Gary is either one or two years older — depending upon the time of year when you ask.

“We always had lutefisk and lefse at Christmastime,” Cheryl said.

“We never had lutefisk at home. My dad wasn’t big on it. My mother didn’t like the smell of it,” Gary said.

“I think back, and we didn’t have much. But mother always had dinner on the table. She baked a lot. And we had a lot of love,” Cheryl said.

Not only did Cheryl’s mother do the traditional Christmas baking, but she also would bake 12 loaves of bread twice a week, with cinnamon rolls on Saturday.

Gary’s mother did not do a lot of baking, but she would buy the traditional Christmas goodies, such as fattigman, sandbakels, krumkake and rosettes.

“She’d store it on the front porch because there was no heat out there. My old man would be in the habit of sneaking out there. Then my mother get after him. ‘We’re not going to have anything left for Christmas!’” Gary recalled.

Both of them also remember paper bags of peanuts in the shell and ribbon candy and an apple at Christmas — treats that were received at school or church or when Santa Claus came to visit.

Christmas tree

Cheryl recalls that her dad would go out with the older boys in the family a few days before Christmas to cut a Christmas tree.

“We left it up for about a week. We burned wood, so the tree would dry out,” she said.

Cheryl also remembers sledding with her brothers and sisters at Christmastime.

And caroling in the neighborhood with the horses and a wagon.

“Then we went back to the church (Hay River Lutheran) for hot chocolate,” she said.

“We always had a great meal made by mother … we raised chickens and hogs and had a big garden,” Cheryl said.

Cheryl’s mother and father had 11 children. Cheryl was about in the middle. And Cheryl’s dad had four children with his first wife. 

“She died shortly after the fourth child was born … we always all stayed sisters and brothers,” she said.

Gary had one brother, Ron. 

Cheryl attended country schools, including Blairmore and Plainview, and then went to high school in Colfax. 

Gary attended school in Colfax.

“I remember when I was very young, we had candles on the tree,” Cheryl said.

“As I got older, me and my four sisters, we were a lot of help with the next (younger) ones,” she said.

“We lived off our big garden. We had a couple of cows. We butchered pork,” Cheryl said.

Cheryl and her sisters would help weed the garden, but only after the vegetables reached a certain height.

“Carrots were so hard to distinguish if it was a carrot or a weed,” she said.

“I would wake up some mornings, and Mom wasn’t in the house. I’d look outside the window, and then I could hear her singing in the garden,” Cheryl said.

“It was probably peaceful, with no kids around,” Gary commented. 

“Her mother was remarkable. When we first got married, it was the Kragnesses, us, Molly and Jerry and Pat and her husband. And we’d all go to Ellen and Marvin’s on Sunday. I don’t know how she did it,” Gary said.

“I don’t care if it was one family that came or four, but she always had enough fried chicken. I don’t know how she did that,” he said.

“We always went there on Sunday,” Cheryl said.

Men first

Although Gary had only one brother, he recalls large family Christmases as well.

“I can remember Christmases when at one time, there were a lot of Stene men around. Grandma Gunda, we would always go to my dad’s mother’s place, to Gunda’s,” he said.

“Her tradition was Glenard and his family, Elmer and his wife, Norville and his wife. Ingvald. Stanford Barstad and Eunice. She was my dad’s baby sister. I always remember in the old, old house (by Norton School) she would always serve the men first,” Gary said.

“She and her daughter, Mildred, and the wives would serve the men first,” he said.

“We’d have sot suppe (Norwegian sweet soup made with dried fruit). We did not have lutefisk. But we had meatballs, mashed potatoes, rutabagas, the whole deal,” Gary said.

“When the men got done, then the women and the kids ate,” he said.

“We did that for years, until the families got bigger and then there just got to be too many people. The house was just packed. And it wasn’t a very big house,” Gary said.

“Grandma did it until she was just too old to do it anymore. Then we started going to the other houses,” he said.

“We’d have Christmas Eve (dinner) at Grandma’s. Then we’d open gifts on Christmas Eve (at home). And then Santa would leave something overnight,” Gary said.

“Me and my brother would be up at the crack of dawn and finding out what Santa left,” he said.

Frozen

And then there was the Christmas that Gary did what most children had probably done.

“I remember one Christmas we went to my mother’s (folks). To Grandma and Grandpa Hegna’s. I did something I think just about every kid did,” Gary said.

“I put my tongue on a steel wheel on a milk cart. Then I got scared and ripped it off. Bled all over. It’s the holiday, and I’m bawling. Just blood everywhere. And a wet washcloth for my face. I’ll never forget that,” he said.

“My brothers did that a couple of times on the pump handle,” Cheryl said.

“I remember staying (at Grandma and Grandpa Hegna’s house) when I was little. They had a pot-bellied stove that burned coal. My grandma would lay out some quilts, and I’d sleep right by the pot bellied stove,” Gary recalled.

Mogen David

And then there was the Mogen David wine.

“Both my grandmothers, who didn’t drink that I was ever aware of, but at Thanksgiving and Christmas, you had to have some Mogen David wine,” Gary said.

“My Grandma Hegna, she’d say, ‘Mogen Davis.’ She never could get it right,” he recalled with a smile.

“The kids always got a little sip too,” Gary noted.

Santa Claus

And there was always Santa Claus.

“I can remember in town, the Christmases. It could have been Mike Flynn was Santa, or sometimes Julian Logslett was Santa. And we’d go to the auditorium and get a sack of peanuts, hard candy and an apple. And then Santa would be there. That was the big deal in town,” Gary said.

“Mike Flynn was a good guy,” he said.

“He was the janitor at Plainview for a while. He’d sing, and he’d get us laughing. He’d do the polka with us kids in the cafeteria in the basement,” Cheryl said.

“His was quite a story. He came here on a ship when he was 12. Him and his brother. And I don’t think he ever saw his brother again. Mike lived to be a good age,” Gary said.

“And one year, Julian Logslett told me, in the late 40s or early 50s, there were a lot of planes around here, people who had planes. He landed in the field at Henderson’s, and he was Santa Claus,” he said.

“I can remember one time, I got a set of six guns, two holsters. So that was a big deal. And one year I got a BB gun. In the wintertime, we went skating almost every night,” Gary said.

And then there were the Christmas programs at school and at church.

“It seems like you had to take your turn being up in front reciting something,” he said.

“When your kids are little, you’re a nervous wreck. You think they’ve got to behave, and they’ve got to do this and this. Kids are kids. Every kid dreaded being up there in front for the Christmas program. Now Cheryl and I go to church, and we see kids being kids, and their mom and dad are mortified,” Gary said.

But even though the Christmas programs could be a little nerve-wracking, Christmas at church was also something to look forward to.

“Christmas was always so nice at church. We had the big decorated tree. I was a kid. I didn’t realize the mothers had to do all the work and make everything look so nice,” Gary said.

Shopping

Nowadays, people don’t seem to think anything of driving to Eau Claire, Menomonie, Chippewa Falls or even the Twin Cities. 

And maybe sometimes all in one day.

But it was not always that way.

“When we were kids, it was a big deal to go to Eau Claire. Now, you might go twice in one day,” Gary said.

“I can remember in town, we had the grocery stores. We had Solberg’s. We had the hardware store. We had everything you needed here. Maybe seven or eight gas stations, a couple of restaurants and six or seven taverns. There was the Farmers’ Store that sold everything, even furniture. And years back, cars, too,” he said.

“The village would be decorated for Christmas. I’m a kid. I’m not going to get to Eau Claire to Christmas shop. But I can go to Solberg’s and get my mother a blouse or a scarf,” Gary said.

“We never had presents. I didn’t think it was different than any other household at the time,” Cheryl said.

“We shared gifts,” she said.

Christmas later

“We’ve had nice Christmases with our children. We’d try to not make it so commercial, although it ends up that way,” Gary said.

“One of the things we always used to do is take our girls out to Jake’s (Supper Club on Tainter Lake). They’d have a driver bring in a team of horses, and they’d have a sleigh,” he said.

“They’d go around Jake’s and over the bridge into that little park and back. That was every Christmas. It was something to look forward to. Some years it was snowing or really cold,” Gary said.

And Cheryl shared a tradition with their two daughters as well.

“She’d take one or both of the girls and go shopping and have lunch. That was a big deal,” Gary said.

Leslie, who lives in West Bend, has three children.

Anna, who lives in this area, has four daughters and three grandchildren.

“We’ve got seven grandkids and three great-grandkids,” Gary noted.

“And they’re all coming for Christmas,” Cheryl said.

“We like family. I’m a huggy guy. I like to hug the little ones,” Gary said.

“When I was younger, I probably didn’t have a lot of patience. But as you get older, you change,” he said.

Cheryl agreed.

Lutefisk

Cheryl’s family always had lutefisk at home for Christmas.

Most of Gary’s lutefisk was consumed at lutefisk suppers at Holden Lutheran Church.

“I loved the lutefisk suppers. I don’t really like lutefisk … it’s an acquired taste. And you have to make it right … but there’s all the other food that goes with it,” Gary said.

“I can remember the lutefisk suppers at Holden. I can remember Alvin Kragness, and John Kragness, and Dewey Kragness and Dave Kragness. We’d be sitting there. That plate of lutefisk would be wiped out by two guys. And then would come another plate. Then the next two would wipe it out. You’d be waiting and waiting,” he said.

“I’d only eat a little bit of it. Some guys just loved that. If you make it right, with butter, it’s super-duper,” Gary said.

He noted that many people object to lutefisk because of the way it smells, but he pointed that there are other aromas associated with Christmas that help make the holiday.

“There’s something about it when you open the door, and there’s that Christmas smell. The pine tree. The baking. If you’ve got the turkey in the oven for dinner,” Gary said.

“I just went and got some evergreen spray,” Cheryl commented.

Nowadays Cheryl and Gary have an artificial Christmas tree. But that doesn’t stop them from appreciating the smell of evergreen.

“Our pencil tree here doesn’t take up much room. We have a bigger one we put up downstairs for the kids to open their presents,” Cheryl said.

How tall?

And there is something else Cheryl and Gary have observed about Christmas over the years.

“Me and Cheryl used to go out somewhere and get a Christmas tree. When you’re in the field, it doesn’t look that big.  But when we’d get it home, I’d be ripping it through the door, trying to get it in the house,” Gary said.

“Then I’d have to cut off some here, and more there (to get it to fit). I didn’t have much patience back then … the girls would be hiding,” he said with a laugh.

“In my family, with two boys, my mother would have us help, but I think girls are probably better at it,” Gary said.

Cheryl recalled that she and her sisters would help their mother decorate the Christmas tree. They also used to string popcorn to use as a garland on the tree.

“I like the holidays. I like the camaraderie. I like to eat. There’s something about it. It’s comforting,” Gary said.

“We’re not going to have a traditional meal this year,” Cheryl said.

Instead of a sit-down meal, the Stene family will have cheese and crackers and vegetable trays and other munchy or savory foods — and lots of Christmas baking. Fattigman. Krumkake. Sandbakels. Rosettes. Lefse.

“She gets them from the Bloomer bakery,” Gary commented.

Cheryl noted that while it might seem a little expensive to buy all the Christmas baking instead of doing it herself, by the time she purchases all of the ingredients and then spends the time baking, she has quite an investment in it as well. 

“We never have Christmas without lefse,” she said.

“My son-in-law from West Bend has a German background. Lefse was a foreign entity to him,” Gary said.

“The kids — we’ve got ‘em now so they like rutabagas too. Cheryl is a good cook,” he said.

The first time the grandchildren tried lefse, however, they were not convinced it was a delicacy.

“They weren’t too sure that first year. Then they tried it again the next year, and they really liked it. Then they couldn’t get enough lefse,” Gary said.