Genea-Resolutions

(Those last few Advent Calendar posts just didn't happen.  Sometimes living life in the present just has to take precedence over recording memories, and I was too busy enjoying Christmas with family and friends.  I'll save those last few topics for next December!)

Now 2010 is almost upon us, and I'm thinking about resolutions.  I have a long list for life in general, but there are a few things I want to accomplish in my genealogy projects, too.

1. Get the Moody County, SD, GenWeb site up and running again.  A couple of months ago the whole system was attacked by a hacker, and everything was lost.  I had only just begun to redo the site, but it was discouraging to be back to square one.  I need to regroup and start again.
2. Uncover Peter Scriver's roots.  Peter was my great-great-grandfather, and another researcher has some great clues as to his origins.  I need to verify these and discover more.  This leads to...
3. Write a rough draft of the Scriver Family History, starting with a series of posts on this blog.  It's time to share something, at least with the few people in the family who seem interested.  The Scriver family is my #1 focus this year.
4. Learn more about my husband's Jones roots.  I'm intrigued by the information I've learned from one of his distant cousins.  She gave me a fantastic head start.  Now I want to learn more.  The Jones family is my #2 focus this year.
   
5. Get involved in the local genealogical society.  I want to start attending the monthly meetings and go to some regional events this year.

Advent Calendar: Religious Services

Did your family attend religious services during the Christmas season? What were the customs and traditions involved?

My parents haven't attended church regularly since my brother was born twenty-five years ago. They have their own reasons that I won't go into, but my husband and I belong to an ELCA Lutheran church and try to attend regularly--though we don't make it as often as we really should. In the last couple of months we've made the decision to change from one church to another, and we've felt so much more comfortable and welcome. I'm looking forward to attending a Christmas service there.

We usually go to church on Christmas Eve, on the way to my husband's parents' home. I especially love the Christmas carols and the candlelight. This year, however, my husband has to work a half day and we're hosting both sides of our family on Christmas Eve. I don't know that we'll be able to get away for church that day without abandoning my mom to all the cooking... ;-) ... Tempting as that is, we'll probably just go to church on Christmas morning instead.

Advent Calendar: Christmas Shopping

How did your family handle Christmas Shopping? Did anyone finish early or did anyone start on Christmas Eve?

Last year was the first time I went out shopping on Black Friday, but I wasn't very dedicated about it. I slept until a reasonable hour and then went out to see what was left in the stores. This year I was all-out crazy, standing in line at a Toys R Us at midnight and arriving at Target at 5:00 AM. I scored a few deals for my efforts--enough to make it worthwhile, I guess.

I do remember several Dec. 23 (and even a Dec. 24th?) shopping trip to the mall with my dad, who did not think to finish such things early and needed a daughter along to help with his selection.

I always try to get the Christmas shopping done early, but it never seems to work out that way. I admire those people who do it little by little, throughout the year, but I've never understood how that works. I have enough trouble figuring out what people might like and not already have in November and December, without forecasting those needs and wants months before! So it turns into a mad rush in the last couple of weeks before Christmas.

I'm happy to report that I'm ALL DONE for this year, aside from having a couple of photos printed and put into frames. I'm so glad for that, because I don't want to go anywhere near that traffic this weekend!

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Advent Calendar: Christmas Stockings

Did you have one? Where did you hang it? What did you get in it? Do you have any Christmas stockings used by your ancestors?

My husband thought I was a little silly, but when we were searching for a new house earlier this year, one of the items on my wish list was a fireplace with a mantle. It's not that I particularly wanted to be able to sit by the fire. Rather, I wanted to hang our Christmas stockings from the mantle.


Our red stockings came from a Walgreens after-Christmas clearance sale a couple of years ago, and I love them. My mother-in-law added our names.

This year we have two extra stockings, for my friend Jody and her friend Jess. Jody is from Australia, and she and I have been pen pals since I was 15. Now we mainly keep up with each other's lives on Facebook. Jody and her friend are traveling across the US for 5 weeks right now, and I invited them to make their stop at my house over Christmas. I'm looking forward to celebrating the holidays with friends. The more the merrier!

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Advent Calendar: Grab Bag

Author’s choice. Please post from a topic that helps you remember Christmases past!

I was sitting here at my computer, trying to think of a Christmas-related topic that hasn't already been covered, and I looked down at my feet. Voila!


I know, that's just what you wanted to see today, right? But corny Christmas socks are part of the holiday to me, ever since my mom would buy them for me as a kid. This particular pair cost me a whopping $1 at KMart. I also have some fun glittery, striped socks and a pair of red ones with Santa's face prominently displayed. I wear them proudly, even to work, because who cares what Stacy London thinks? If your feet are festive, the rest of you will follow!

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Advent Calendar: Christmas at School

What did you or your ancestors do to celebrate Christmas at school? Were you ever in a Christmas Pageant?

Yes, I'm old enough to remember Christmas at school. We made little reindeer ornaments in kindergarten and did a Christmas play in 5th grade (I played a grandmother, but all I can remember is that I wore makeup to simulate wrinkles and spent most of my time on stage rolling out fake cookies). We sang religious songs at our school concerts--and they were Christmas concerts, not "holiday" concerts.

I'm a little nostalgic about that, though I appreciate the separation of church and state too much to argue for its return (after all, I wouldn't want another religion foisted upon my kid at school). For now, though, my daughter attends a preschool located in a church, so she comes home with lots of Christmas decorations. Today's project was a glittery construction paper Christmas tree, which is now adorning our fridge.

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Advent Calendar: The Holiday Happenings!

Often times December to mid-January birthdays and anniversaries get over shadowed by the Christmas/Hanukkah/New Year holidays. So we're going to shine a spotlight on those family members and ancestors this time around. Select one or more December to mid-January birthdays and/or anniversaries on your family tree. Write a short tribute to or memory of those birthday guys and gals and write a toast to the anniversary couples.

The timing of this topic couldn't be better: my grandpa was born 94 years ago today. He died in 1983, when I was only 5 years old, but I remember him clearly and still miss him. I catch glimpses of him now in my dad, especially when I see him interact with my daughter. My little girl has a wonderful grandpa because I did, too.

Grandpa's name was Howard. Most people called him Shorty, though he was well over 6 feet tall. I've heard that he got the nickname in high school, before a late growth spurt. To me, he was Grandpa Shorty. He was soft spoken and gentle. He loved his kids and his grandchildren. He worked hard to take care of his family. He died too soon, and I wish I could have known him longer.

Happy Birthday, Grandpa.

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Advent Calendar: Fruitcake - Friend or Foe?

Did you like fruitcake? Did your family receive fruitcakes? Have you ever re-gifted fruitcake? Have you ever devised creative uses for fruitcake?

Foe! But is the fruitcake tradition for real? I've rarely seen one around here. I've never received one. The only time I've had was in Germany, where they make Stollen. I can't say I like Stollen, either.

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Advent Calendar: Holiday Trips

Did you or your ancestors travel anywhere for Christmas? How did you travel and who traveled with you? Do you remember any special trips?

When I was in college, my mom decided that she wouldn't have many more chances for a family vacation before my brother and I were off on our own. She saved all year to take us to Disney World at Christmas. We drove several hours to my aunt's home in Minnesota on Christmas Eve, spent the night with them, and flew out of bitterly cold Minneapolis on Christmas Day. It was definitely a shock to the system to arrive in Florida, where people were complaining that it was "so cold," ha.

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My Tree and Me

I love, love, love the custom genealogy charts at My Tree and Me. I wish Santa Claus would bring me this one.

*Is this where I'm supposed to write a long and boring disclaimer letting you know that this site didn't give me any free money or any free stuff, and I don't own any part of it or work for them, and nobody in my family owns any part of it or works for them, and they did not coerce me to write about them, and I did not offer to write about them in exchange for cookies or liquor or dirty, dirty deeds, and on and on and on... ? ::sigh:: Nah. Hey you, Death of Common Sense, you're making blogs really boring.

Advent Calendar: Charitable/Volunteer Work

Did your family ever volunteer with a charity such as a soup kitchen, homeless or battered women’s shelter during the holidays? Or perhaps were your ancestors involved with church groups that assisted others during the holiday?

We give to charities throughout the year, but last year, my husband's family adopted another family for Christmas, through a local charity clearinghouse. It was a single mom and her three children, and some of the things they requested for Christmas were heartbreaking... laundry soap, blankets (because they only had 1 each), shampoo... We divided up the list and hit the Black Friday sales, accumulating a huge pile of gifts for this family, and it felt good. It was the most fun I ever had Christmas shopping, because I knew that someone was really going to appreciate the gift. We weren't able to do it this year, but I hope we will again soon--especially as the children become old enough to understand.

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Advent Calendar: Other Traditions

Did your family or friends also celebrate other traditions during the holidays such as Hanukkah or Kwanzaa? Did your immigrant ancestors have holiday traditions from their native country which they retained or perhaps abandoned?

My family hasn't celebrated anything but Christmas this time of year, and I don't recall any stories about the holiday traditions of our ancestors. Nobody really talks about the ancestors, holidays or no.

But today's writing prompt reminded me of my Norwegian cousin Johnny's comment earlier this week. (Johnny is my 5th cousin once removed--and you geneablog readers are the only people who will read that sentence and think "Hmmm, yes, of course, your 5th cousin once removed, naturally!") I had posted pictures on Facebook of my husband and daughter decorating the Christmas tree, but Johnny teased me, saying that the tree shouldn't be decorated until "lillejulaften" (Little Christmas Eve, the 23rd of December). They leave the tree up until January 13, he says, while I almost always pack up our Christmas decorations on New Year's Eve. I wonder if my ancestors did the same.

As much as I love Norway, I'm all-American in this case. I like to have time to enjoy the Christmas tree before Christmas, because it puts me in the spirit!

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Advent Calendar: Christmas Gifts

What were your favorite gifts, both to receive and to give? Are there specific gift-giving traditions among your family or ancestors?

I love giving Christmas gifts when I know just what to get. Shopping for my daughter's gifts is fun, because I usually know just what she'd love. For our nieces and nephew, it's more difficult, because I don't know what they already have. For the adults, it's a chore.

And I love my family, but I hate the credit card statement in January. Every year we vow to spend less, but it never really works out... you can only cut back so much, when you're expected to buy gifts for so many people. I was thrilled when several of the adults in my husband's family agreed to opt out, but that still leaves me with a shopping list for 19 people, plus playing Santa. And really, what's the point? Does anyone remember many of the gifts they received last year or the year before?

My family doesn't have any particular gift-giving traditions, but in my husband's family, there are always envelopes with cash in the tree. I don't know where the tradition started, but it's continued because it was something that his paternal grandparents always did.

For my daughter, I make a point to always include one particular things among her Christmas gifts: new pajamas. The Tinker Bell PJ's she requested recently are waiting to be washed, wrapped, and worn to bed on Christmas Eve.

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Advent Calendar: Grab Bag

Author’s choice. Please post from a topic that helps you remember Christmases past!

I'm cheating a bit here and recycling the Santa Claus theme, because my mom came across a photo of my very first visit to Santa and scanned it today. This is the lucky Santa on whom I peed thirty-two years ago.

He's an awfully grumpy looking Santa. I think he deserved it.

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Advent Calendar: Christmas Cookies

Did your family or ancestors make Christmas Cookies? How did you help? Did you have a favorite cookie?

As I wrote in the post about holiday foods, the holidays always bring to mind Grandma's dog turd cookies. Classy, eh?

But my grandma has always made a lot of cookies, like any good Norwegian grandma. The Norwegian tradition is to make seven different kinds of cookies at Christmas, but the kinds made vary from one household to another. My grandma's repertoire always includes sandkaker (sand cookies), too, but she does icebox cookies, rather than making them in the traditional molds. Those were always my favorite, along with the good ol' chocolate chip cookies. Krumkake (literally, "bent cookie") is another favorite.

I'm not much of a cookie baker. I used to like to make them now and then when I was younger and lived with my parents, but I seem to have lost my touch. Now that my daughter is old enough to want to "help," I'll probably try my hand at some cookies for Santa this year.

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Advent Calendar: Holiday Parties

Did your family throw a holiday party each year? Do you remember attending any holiday parties?

Well, I'm not sure what to do with this Advent Calendar prompt, because the short answer is no. And the long answer is pretty much... no. Ha. I haven't known my parents or grandparents to ever host a holiday party. For the most part, the Christmas season has always been reserved for family time. Martha Stewart makes it look fun, but there are just too many things going on to throw parties into the mix, too.

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Advent Calendar: Santa Claus

Did you ever send a letter to Santa? Did you ever visit Santa and “make a list?” Do you still believe in Santa Claus?

My mom still likes to remind me that the first time I sat on Santa's lap, I peed on him. In my defense, I was 3 months old. ;-) I don't have any memories of visiting Santa Claus when I was a child, but I have seen a few photos.

This one just makes me laugh. Who does that Santa think he's fooling, anyway, with those dark eyebrows? I was onto him!

1978 or 1979?

I'm guessing this next one was 1979, because it appears to have been taken in the living room of the rental house where we lived when I was very small. I don't remember it, except from photos. Looks like I still wasn't ready to sit on Santa's lap.


When I was 3, my mom even paid a coworker to come over on Christmas Eve, dressed as Santa. I guess I didn't notice the dark eyebrows that year, because I bought it hook, line, and sinker.

1980

But I really hope I wasn't dumb enough to buy this one! (That's me in the corner, back in my naturally blond days.)


I do remember writing letters to Santa when I was a kid. One year it even appeared in the newspaper, because the local paper would collect letters addressed to Santa from specially assigned mailboxes.

Do I still believe in Santa Claus? Well, the official answer is yes, of course. I believe for my 2-year-old daughter Lily, who went to visit Santa yesterday.

Her first visit to Santa was in 2007, at a Breakfast with Santa event at the local zoo.


She was even less happy about this in 2008.


Yesterday she still wasn't so sure about this old guy, but she bravely ran up to him and sat on his lap. She didn't look him in the eye, but when he asked what she wanted for Christmas, my Little-Mermaid-obsessed girl said "Ariel." (Hmmm. I guess Santa needs to do some more shopping.)


I love the tradition and mystery of Santa Claus.

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Genetic Genealogy on CNN

CNN recently did an story on just how mainstream genetic genealogy is becoming. Watch "One Man's Search for Answers" at CNN.com.

Advent Calendar: Outdoor Decorations

Did people in your neighborhood decorate with lights? Did some people really go “all out” when decorating? Any stories involving your ancestors and decorations?

My family never went "all out" with outdoor decorations; I can't remember ever having lights on the outside of our house. (Occasionally we strung them around the inside of the window, but that was it.) This was our first year for them, and my daughter and I had to sweet talk my husband a bit to get him out there to hang them one warm Sunday afternoon.


He looks rather perplexed here, doesn't he? I don't think he was enjoying the holiday festivity right at that moment.

Later our neighborhood went all Clark Griswold on us and completely outdid our little display of lights on the porch, but I don't think I'll be able to convince my husband to climb up on the roof. We don't have many lights yet, anyway. I think I'll be out buying some on clearance after Christmas, so we can do it bigger and better next year.

Find more Advent Calendar posts at Geneabloggers!

Advent Calendar: Christmas Cards

Did your family send cards? Did your family display the ones they received? Do you still send Christmas cards? Do you have any cards from your ancestors?

I LOVE photo cards at Christmas, especially now that I have a child to feature on them. ;-) I love finding just the right picture and just the right card, and I enjoy the ritual of writing out addresses and sticking on the return address labels.

The oldest Christmas card I have in my family collection is from ca. 1960 and features a picture of my mom and aunt with their Barbie dolls.
I keep all the Christmas cards I receive in a gold, star-shaped basket that I bought for this purpose. After Christmas, I toss most of the generic cards (or cut them up for my scrapbook), but I always keep the photo cards. They're saved in special pocket pages of my scrapbooks, and I like to look back at them.

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Advent Calendar: Christmas Tree Ornaments

Did your family have heirloom or cherished ornaments? Did you ever string popcorn and cranberries? Did your family or ancestors make Christmas ornaments?

The ornaments from my childhood are a hodgepodge collection, including many that I made in elementary school. My favorite is perhaps the tiny scene I made in kindergarten--half a walnut shell with cotton ball snow and a very, very small plastic reindeer, with red yarn glued to the back. I don't know how it has survived this many Christmases. However, I don't remember ever stringing popcorn or cranberries or making ornaments outside of school. Maybe we're just not crafty that way.

During our first Christmas season together, my husband (then fiance) and I decided to start a tradition of buying one new ornament each year. The first one we bought, in 2004, was a Hallmark ornament with the words "Our First Christmas Together." In 2005, we didn't buy an ornament, but we received a small cross-stitch from a family friend. It was a wedding gift and includes our name and wedding date. It's really too big for the tree, but I hang it nearby. In 2006, we found an ornament to commemorate our first pregnancy; on it, a chicken sits on an egg, knitting, while the rooster sits nearby reading a book on parenting. Last year we bought a Snow White ornament at Disney World, to remember our daughter's first trip and the Snow White dress she wanted to wear every day for months.

But since our daughter was born in 2007, that year is represented by a "baby's first Christmas" ornament, and I think it will become more dear to me with each passing year.


I'm sure we'll be looking for a "new house" ornament this year, since we moved this summer to the house where we hope to stay until our children are grown. I'm looking forward to many family Christmas celebrations here, with many more ornaments on the tree.

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Advent Calendar: Holiday Foods

Did your family or ancestors serve traditional dishes for the holidays? Was there one dish that was unusual?

For me, it's not Christmas without lefse! My Norwegian grandma makes it every year. I've made it once with her and once with my mother-in-law, but one of these years I'm going to get a lefse grill of my own and practice.


I also think of Grandma's variety of Christmas cookies. One of her specialties is a chocolate cookie that I've always known as "dog turds." That's what Grandma calls them, because that's what they look like!

Christmas dinner is pretty traditional Midwestern American fare, usually turkey or ham with potatoes, corn, sweet potatoes, and other sides. My grandma never mashed her potatoes when I was a kid, though--she riced them! Mmmm, I love riced potatoes.

We'll be hosting Christmas Eve for both sides of our family this year, which is a little intimidating. I'm just not a very practiced cook, and unlike most of our family, I'm a vegetarian. My mom has been delegated the task of making the turkey, my mother-in-law is bringing mashed potatoes, my husband's aunt is in charge of pies, my friend is making a Christmas pudding, and my sister-in-law is bringing the cookies. So hmmm, that means that with a quick stop at the deli, I should be done, right? (Ha ha.)

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Advent Calendar: The Christmas Tree

Did you have a real tree or was it artificial? How big was the tree? Who decorated the tree? What types of Christmas trees did your ancestors have?

The earliest pictures of Christmas trees I have in my stash of family photos come from the 1950's. The common element seems to be a liberal use of tinsel. (I love tinsel, but we could never have it in my childhood home, because our cat, Joey, couldn't resist eating it. This is how he earned the nickname Tinsel Butt, and let's just say, it was quite literal. Ewww.)

1952

my mom's first Christmas

1958

my dad (age 11), his brother Criss, cousin Neil

1962

My eldest cousin was a Christmas baby, so that's actually a birthday cake in the photo.

While all of those trees look real, I grew up with fake trees. I remember having a heavily flocked tree in the 1980's, and for many years we had just a small tabletop tree on a plant stand, like this one from my parents' home in 2002:


I love the tradition of hanging Danish flags around the tree, in honor of our Danish heritage. (It's not something that was passed down in our family, but rather a tradition picked up from the Danish exchange student who lived with my family when I was in high school.)

The tree was always set up during the weekend after Thanksgiving, and my mom and I decorated it together.

But my mom's Christmas trees have become less festive since my parents became empty nesters. Case in point, Christmas 2006:


Really, Mom, tsk tsk. ;-)

My husband's parents have a fake tree, too. It lives most of the year, completely set up, in their basement storage, and comes out to the family room in December.


But his grandparents have a fake tree with a spinning base, so they can catch a glimpse of the ornaments on the back side, too. It barely fits in its spot behind the dining table and always seems to be getting caught on something.


For our first few years together, my husband and I had a tall fake tree that I had inherited from my parents. As a gift for our first Christmas together, my parents gave us the star for the top of the tree.


This was our daughter's first Christmas tree in 2007. Here she is "helping" Papa put the star on the tree.

But still, I'd never had a real tree. Last year I used this sob story ;-) to convince my husband that we ought to have a real tree, so we ventured out to the Christmas tree farm. It was a lot of fun and a tradition that I hope to carry on.




I loved the look and smell of a real tree, and it quickly turned me into a Christmas tree snob. =) No more fake trees for me!

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