CHRISTMAS PREP AND PLANS

Here at our house we have been working on special traditions in cooking and planning, not to mention cleaning and decorating.

My husband preps his fillings for Pierogi for days, cooking potatoes, sautéed onions and grating cheese. He makes a mashed potato filling and stores it in containers. He also fries bacon and chops the crisp bacon finely to add later. Another day he makes a sauerkraut with chopped sautéed mushrooms and onions filling. Then on another day he makes a sticky dough, kneads it and rolls it out. He cuts out circular pieces and puts a small amount of filling on each piece and folds it over, sealing the edges with a fork pressed around the edges. They will be boiled and served hot on Christmas Eve night with sour cream at our big dinner along with prime rib, potato cream cheese casserole, veggies, salad and homemade apple pie for dessert.

I love sending and receiving cards over the holidays. I mailed 60 photo cards this year of our family pose taken on Thanksgiving. Many people sent cards back. We received an interesting one yesterday from Cousin JEFF H. The letter was a holiday quiz with descriptions about each person in his and his wife’s family with a letter given next to each. Then blanks were typed where you could match descriptions with names. A tiny paper was enclosed separately with the answers! Clever and unique idea. Most people sent cards with short messages about how they were doing. I save the cards for sharing with my kids or just rereading later to make me feel the happiness again.

We did not decorate much at all. Getting lazy in old age. Just put out a few poinsettias and little tree. Our two sons arrive today so I make beef stew and cornbread which has been a tradition since they were kids. A few gifts will be passed out this weekend. One fun tradition is seeing the two dogs rip open their gifts! They each get a toy and a special treat. Funny seeing them go at it. So we will enjoy chatting, a movie maybe and some walks downtown, but the joy of the holidays will surround us and being with family is the best part. Happy holidays from our house to yours.

We hope you enjoy viewing this as much as we did recording it. Merry Christmas from Pat and Jerry and Kip and Mary

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There is nothing that Yram Sicnarf enjoys more than cooking up a holiday feast for her family. Here she shares one of her most talked about recipes. Yram’s main goal in life is to make it into Jones County’s next Treasured Recipes Book. The last one was printed in 1976 and will surely be reprised and updated in 2026…Right? Yram still has her copy of the Bicentennial Collection and also the copy she inherited from her mother. (Loretta had not one, but two recipes in the book.) Yram has tried repeatedly to make her mother’s recipe for lemon bars, but they never quite seem to come out the way her mom’s did. Could she have possibly left out a key ingredient? An ingredient lapse can flat ruin a delectable dish.

Let’s put our hands together and welcome, Yram Sicnarf (stage name) who has invited us into her home for this one of a kind pumpkin biscuit demo.

Spoiler alert! The bracelet Yram proudly displays in the video belonged to her Aunt Irma Sanderson. Thank you, Cousin Mark for the best Christmas surprise, ever.

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Baba’s riveting Christmas cooking video makes news!!! She discloses that she has a fatal flaw. You heard it here first, folks!!! She is Con-de-sending, which in layman’s terms means she cons de people into sending her recipes. YeaH!

Following her cooking segment, Baba invites us to take a short walk with her while she tries to snag a short interview. I’m happy to say the interviews are short…er the interviewees are short. Or maybe they are short with her. IDK

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I went to see my friends, Pat and Jerry Davis, yesterday with the intention of recording Jerry reading a Grandma June and Grandpa Jim Christmas poem. After we completed that project, we started talking about other things and other songs. I think you will enjoy what I was able to record…

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On at least two occasions, Jolly old St Nicholas brought used merchandise to my house. I think I know why. He is a wise Santa and he knew the thing I just had to have was only a momentary desire that would pass in a flash…hardly worth the investment of the new version of whatever I had my heart set on.

There is a very good reason why I can’t sew, knit, iron, cook, or clean house. Murdo High School did not offer a home economics class. Believe me…the world is full of challenges if you are one of the unfortunate few like me, who was never availed the opportunity to take home economics.

The funny thing is…I wasn’t embarrassed or offended when I got something used. Once I got a pre-owned sewing machine. It was a real clunker, too. I remember setting it up on a big table in the open area of the basement house. I also remember sitting there with my dress pattern, my pink fabric and a zipper, wondering what to do next. Mom had asked me if I wanted some help. I soon regretted my impulsive answer. “I can do it by myself!! There’s nothing to it!”

After sitting there for a while and ripping out several misplaced rows of stitches, I decided being a seamstress was not my calling. Mom made me stick with it and even got our neighbor, Roni Poppe, to try and teach me how a sewing machine worked. I think Mom was still smarting because Mrs. Theisen told my cousins and me that the Sanderson girls never did learn how to do anything useful. I finally finished the pink dress. I never could get one of the sleeves in correctly. I had to hold one arm back like I was about to throw a bowling ball for it to hang right.

Mom sold the pink bowling dress at a rummage sale.

Thankfully, I was able to teach myself how to make chocolate chip cookies.

I’m not sure about what happened to that used sewing machine. The table it sat on was in the way everywhere you went in the house. Maybe Mom sold it with the bowling dress.

The next used thing I got was a stereo. That probably should have been new, but at the time, I didn’t question why Santa decided to find me a good used one. I’m sure he runs across good used stuff all of the time. It only had a few scratches and it was on a new stand with rollers. I think my parents regretted Santa’s choice, because it was a year before I could afford to get any new albums. I got two from Billy for Christmas and I played them over and over again. One was the Kingston Trio and the other was Ray Charles. For some reason I really got attached to his song, “I’m Busted.” Not so long ago, I even sang it at Gus’ American Legion Club karaoke night. I knew the words, but apparently, they didn’t have the music in my key. You don’t get a do-over at the American Legion, anyway.

It’s been fun to reminisce about Santa’s second hand gifts. I guess I come by my enjoyment of shopping at resale stores, honestly. Mom used to bring me things she purchased at garage sales. She told me she only went to those in RICH neighborhoods. I appreciated that. It must be difficult to find people who live in RICH neighborhoods who feel the need to get rid of things for a dollar.

I vowed to write a first at last. I’d never done this in the past.

I thought there would be nothing to it. It seemed like anyone could do it.

I brought my family all together, so we could write a Christmas letter.

I read those I’d received from others. Written with love by grandmas or mothers.

I said,

“These can be a great example, but our own exciting times are ample.”

One friend’s son has lots of knowledge. He’s only ten and goes to college.

I asked.

“Who has something that compares?” All I saw were empty stares.

My son read,

“This mom said she lost a ton. Now she out-runs everyone.”

A daughter said,

“Mom don’t be sad. look at all the fun you had, eating donuts, pies, and cake.

Who needs to run for heaven’s sake?”

Ignoring her I forged ahead. “Let’s write about our trips instead.”

“Do I have a volunteer to highlight our time-off last year?”

“You said we’d soon be on vacation, and then you changed it to staycation.

Instead of seeing Disneyland and building castles in the sand…

We stayed right here in our own house and drew pictures of Mickey Mouse.”

Had I been overconfident? There must be one accomplishment.

“Did anyone get to school on time, clean their room or solve a crime?”

(They were reading others news and it was giving them the blues.)

I said,

“Let’s not continue this. We’ll send pretty cards this Christmas.”

“We should not antagonize all those with less exciting lives.”

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

As we have thought back over our lives, growing up with these aunts and uncles as our role models, our guide, our family, we wanted to share some memories of them. These write-ups have been a tribute to the six SANDERSONS all born during the early 1900’s – 1926. They lived through WWI, the Great Depression and the Dirty Thirties plus WWII. Talking it over, Cousin Mary said to me when she had the idea, “Their lives stuck in our minds. They dropped little jewels and stories. We learned from what they lived.” She wanted me to just write about them from my point of view. It would be a series, a story of growing up and learning from them. Maybe you have known some of them or had family members like them. They were pillars in their community. They were our family foundations. They came from strong, solid stock.

Uncle Wayne had a black dog named Smokey who chased cars and later a black dog named McGee. He worked hard all his life and enjoyed his farm on White River later in life, calling it Green Acres. He liked dancing also and attended several dances in his later years. I didn’t know until many years later, after he had passed away, that he and one of the family’s neighbors,Gene Thomas, were great friends. Uncle Wayne talked baseball with Gene who didn’t quite understand it all.

My mother, Ella, was the second born arriving on December 12, 1914, although Grandpa SANDERSON got the date wrong and she always had trouble with her birth certificate for some reason. The day she was born, the doctor came out to their rented farm with a team and sleigh riding up over fences on deep snowdrifts. There seem to be many more baby photos of the two first born than the other four which most new parents usually do. She was named after her parent’s mothers- Ella Elizabeth. She is a part of me now and always.

Melvin Eugene came next in 1916. He had his father’s same initials, but a nickname stuck and he was Jeff for life. He and his wife, our Aunt Irma, volunteered to help their community of Murdo unselfishly on countless projects and in many ways. Too many to list. They gave back in volumes.

Aunt Helen was born next and always loved life to its fullest seeing the glass half full. She loved children, having four of her own, the most of the six SANDERSONS. (When we got together for reunions, we other cousins thought Bobby and Blake were cute and world wise. They were cool.) I still have some of her recipes as she was a good cook. She always looked slim, trim and neatly dressed and coiffed. She was a selfless giving person.

Aunt Loretta came next and thinking that she would be their last born, Grandpa called her Babe. She could be fiery hot with a temper, or quietly contemplative at times. She intrigued me yet scared me. I had never known anyone like her. She was probably one of the first successful and unique business women in Murdo. Stories about her abound within our family. She kept cash in her refrigerator lettuce drawer, she kept family and cousins working at her motel, she called people with one line of gossip then hung up…”So and so is pregnant.” Boom.

Aunt Elna was born in 1926, last and certainly not least. The family came back from a trip to Iowa when Elna was small. Her parents gave her a gift when they got home. She opened the box and inside was a puppy. She got scared and cried. That gift didn’t work out. As she grew up in Murdo. Elna enjoyed driving uptown checking out the motels or going out for coffee. She would go into places just whistling a tune or humming a sweet song. Even into her later years, she worked, helping at the Range Country. She was a joy to know.

They aren’t gone. The SANDERSON cousins, 12 of us, and dear Stephanie in heaven, have them living with us, the good memories and some bad ones maybe, living inside our minds, our hearts, however, some memories slowly fading as we grow old, still a part of us. We come from good stock.

Below is a slideshow of some old family photos…

In light of the wonderful family stories my cousin, Valerie, has written and shared on our blog, I decided this would be a good time to once again share with you, Our Magical Christmas Eve…I hope it warms your heart and inspires you to reflect on your own favorite childhood Christmas celebrations. I intended to include the poem in writing as well as the recording, but I couldn’t find it.

The last child born on October 17, 1926 to ME and Mary SANDERSON was Elna Jeanette in Murdo, SD. She spent her early years on Horse Creek. She was talented from the start where she was drawn to studying music in school in Murdo.

She also clerked in the family general store selling dry goods and even shoes. Everyone in the family had to work. All six children were expected to help out. In old photos of the family, Elna is obviously much younger than the other kids seen wearing her plaid school girl outfit flashing her lovely smile. Her older sisters carried her around as a baby and toddler. My Mom remembers little Elna seeing her mother baking a cake and declaring, “Not nut cake but coconut cake.” The older kids cheered her on for speaking clearly as a toddler.

On September 29, 1945 – the same year my Mother, Ella, got married – Elna married Gerald R. Miller of Draper, SD. They lived in Bell Gardens, California for a year before moving back to Jones County in 1947. Two daughters, Andrea and Stephanie and one son, Greg, were blessed with a devoted mother. Andrea was born the same year I was. My Mom gave me a short version of Elna’s middle name Jeanette- my middle name being Jean. Elna was a natural Mom and housekeeper. I remember the orange nasturtiums she grew out front of the darling house in Murdo. She loved her family and neighbors. She helped with many church events and family gatherings.

My memories of Aunt Elna are deeply intertwined with my Mom, her sister, because they were close and kept in touch often writing letters every day to their siblings. Aunt Elna’s letters were written in small cursive strokes and often she would write along the edges and tops so as to get in one more thought on paper or cards. My cousin, Bill, would be handed a letter from Elna as he sat visiting my folks in California sometimes. He had a tough time reading Aunt Elna’s small handwriting and as he struggled he would turn the letter around to read the edges. Frustrated, Bill would say, “I can read Aunt Elna’s letters except when she goes along the sides and writes up over the top, I’m through!”

I would stop by Aunt Elna and Uncle Jerry’s house during the two years we lived in Murdo and she was always at work washing floors on her hands and knees, or cleaning something or ironing . She was also a great cook and baker. Her house was always tidy. She would chat about local issues or people and ask what’s new from uptown. Sometimes I would get lucky and she would play the old upright piano with a modern popular song or oldies from WWII or a Broadway musical. She had a real ear for music and was a beautiful singer, too. She had even played with a band at Westover Hall as a young woman.

Aunt Elna loved being with family and especially liked going out for pie and coffee with her sister, Loretta, and taking Grandma SANDERSON along. They would talk and laugh and as a friend, Elsa Peck, told me, “Those SANDERSON girls would get together and talk and tell stories, then slap their knees erupting with loud laughter. They had the most fun.” Aunt Elna’s laugh was the best. If you heard her giggle then break into a full laugh, you’d want to join in. It was infectious.

Later on in life Elna liked helping at the family’s Range Country Lodging. She would help sweep sidewalks and polish windows. The staff there had to stop her one day trying to sweep outside as winds gusted to around 50 mph.

Elna was always dressed smartly and had her hair done in a manner that complimented her face and blue eyes. There’s a photo of her in a sleeveless white top worn with a pencil thin skirt. I remember thinking how cool she looked and young. She seemed to like wearing bright colors as I recall. I mentioned how she worked hard and kept her household running smoothly but she also knew how to relax and I can see her now, sitting calmly lounged in a chair with one arm resting up around the chair back or stretched on the couch telling we kids to please keep the noise down since she needed to rest.

We were all lucky to have Aunt Elna in our lives growing up. As a role model, you couldn’t ask for a stronger, more feminine, kinder example to follow. All the SANDERSON girls were beautiful but more than that, they made you feel important and even as a kid you were included. Elna spoke to me like I was one of the adults and I talked to her like a friend, not just my aunt. She joked around with us and we laughed a lot. How much we miss her, the last born of the SANDERSONS, but one of the best. Thanks for the music and laughter, Aunt Elna, but mostly thanks for being you.