Christmas 1932, memoir excerpt

Continuing with Alice Anderson's remembrance of a long-ago Christmas in the Northwest...

Christmas 1932, Part 2

As the days went by, Mama was keeping her December schedule. It was the Bonde (Farmer) calendar, she explained to us each year. At the beginning of the month the pig was butchered and hung from the high rafters in the barn, to age. Mama boiled the scrubbed pig’s head and the feet. She made head cheese, wrapped it in the skin and then in cheesecloth, then weighted it down in a brine in the stone crock. She used the same big rock to hold the sausage in place year after year. Tradition, I guess, or maybe she knew that stone was just the right size, and it was clean.

In the evenings my brother John and I sealed the envelopes on the Christmas cards. Mama selected each one carefully to fit the recipient. The most special ones were sent to Sweden, even as early as November. Always, every year we heard Mama admonish Papa, “Today, you are going to write to Ida and Gust back home.” She often ended up doing it herself.

The most exciting day of all was December 10 (Anna Day in Sweden), when the lutefisk was put into the wooden tub to soak. The Saturday before Anna Day Papa would go to Mount Vernon to the butcher shop and buy the dried cod, each piece measuring at least three feet. These he would saw into pieces about six to eight inches long. The cats relished the dust that fell from the sawing, dancing excitedly under the saw buck. Twice a day until Christmas Eve Mama would change the water on the fish. We watched as the fish was reconstituted, becoming white and fluffy.

During all of these preparations Mama and Papa explained to us that this is the way it was done in Sweden. The humble people made use of the poorest parts of the animal carcass. They added spices to enhance the flavor of ordinary food.

How we loved the pickled herring! And best of all was the Christmas baking, especially the pepparkakor, a ginger cookie. Mama made dozens of them and declared that during December we could eat some every day. This, she said, made children good and that was important before Christmas Eve.

Comment from the coach: Note Alice’s storytelling style—simple, yet satisfying. Her inclusion of homey details allow her readers a glimpse into a simpler time. She doesn’t dwell on emotional impact; she lets the facts speak for themselves. Compelling memoir need not be fancy, only from the heart.