Luke 2 ... the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
Today we celebrate God’s gift to us, his son Jesus Christ.
Have yourself a merry, white Christmas! (Yay! It snowed.)
Christmas Festival took on a whole new meaning this year… when I hear those two words together “Christmas Festival” my mind immediately thinks of the 100+ year old annual Christmas concert at St. Olaf College. But this year the Bollinger Family held its own Christmas Festival…created because of the pandemic as a safe way for celebrating Christmas together with multiple families and young energetic children.
My daughter-in-love came up with this great idea and it was fun planning it with her. She worked hard to make it happen. We helped where we could ahead of time.
The day of the festival we gathered together early one December afternoon, which ended up being a very mild day…almost 40 degrees and no wind…a beautiful blessing. The weather was tolerable for staying outdoors for five hours! We had propane heaters in one area to warm up if necessary… the adults used it a few times but not the kids – they were active enough to stay warm the entire time!
The yard was decorated with garland, lights and lanterns, and a Christmas tree which came to life at dusk…on one of the shortest days of the year.
The table was covered with a red tablecloth and decorated with lights, mini-trees and ornaments for the crock-pots of chili.
There was games and activities and a very special Nativity Story Walk all planned out for the children, which they hardily enjoyed.
Towards dusk we started fires in two fire pits. We enjoyed eating our chili dinner from compostable bowls around the bon fires.
We brought along our roasting sticks to roast marshmallows and make s’mores for dessert…all with Christmas music sounding through speakers in the back ground.
The grandchildren (and grand-dog Charlie) had a good time celebrating together while social distancing and masking up. I trust the grandchildren will remember this Christmas Festival for years to come. I know I will. The adults had a great time too!
Merry Christmas!
We took a drive down to Faribault MN to see Faribault Frosty. Even though we do not have any snow on the ground Faribault’s Frosty still came to be – and is a wonder for us all to see.
Frosty is an oversized Snowman and one that has been created every year for 17 years by a wonderful family giving this gift to their community in Faribault. Employees from Shattuck- St. Mary School’s ice rink shaved ice with their Zamboni for this family’s tradition to carry on in spite of the fact there are no students at the school practicing their hockey skills or ice skating.
We took our grandchildren to see Frosty standing tall. As we drove up the master creator was on a ladder tying Frosty’s red scarf around his neck. He told us we came just in time – that the kids could help him patch up Frosty by adding snow to some holes in Frosty’s body. The kids had a great time doing so.
This is a great tradition this Faribault family has built. Frosty’s creator, was so kind to our grandhildren and he made their day.
And mine too…every little act of kindness these days really means a lot.
Another significant loss in 2020.
Florence would have been 100 years old Saturday, December 26, 2020.
She almost made it…She was still living by herself in her home of 52 years, where she died last Saturday…two weeks before her birthday.
Her house was one I always liked to go to, and she was a woman I always liked to visit.
She was like family to me…she was my aunt’s forever friend and they lived together since high school.
She was there before I was born. She was there at our extended family Christmas’. She was there for the holidays, the confirmations, the graduations and the weddings. She was just always there, a part of the family.
Auntie Ag and Florence were dear friends. After my aunt died in 2004 we continued to keep in touch with Florence. Florence was an independent woman, and stubborn too, and insisted on staying in her own home by herself. Her mind was sharp and she took care of her finances until the end…but she was losing her hearing and that made communication difficult. But there are many fond memories.
God bless you Florence. May you Rest in Peace. You will be missed.
We’ve put up our Christmas tree, added some decorations around the house, readied Christmas cards for mailing and finished our Christmas shopping.
And, this past Sunday we listened to Christmas from St. Olaf, an online, digital concert featuring St. Olaf College music ensembles and a compilation of songs from previous Christmas Festivals. It was created as an offering to replace the beloved in-person St. Olaf Christmas Festival which couldn’t happen this year because of the global pandemic.
The concert didn’t get off to a smooth start. But then it is 2020. Things are not going well this year.
As a previous ticket coordinator for this popular event we had our share of problems when we first offered tickets online so the concert glitch brought back memories of my time at St. Olaf… the difficult but also the good… friendships made and festivals attended, all bringing a sense of gratitude for my time on the hill. As many concert goers told me over and over and over again, the Christmas Festival was the start of their Christmas celebrations. It has become that for me.
The technology was worked out and we were able to connect to the digital concert and hear some beautiful, hope-filled music. The signature finale “Beautiful Saviour” was included and that made everything right. I now have a sense the Christmas season has begun and we can start celebrating the birth of Jesus.
Christmas…a wonderful time of the year. I like decorating for Christmas and one thing I like to create is Christmas planters. A friend has property out of town and she invites me to go with her to cut evergreen branches off the trees so we can work with nice, fresh greenery.
Then we go back to the garage and we both start decorating. She has a wooden box planter and an old milk can on her front porch, which we fill with greens, and other miscellaneous branches, then add a finishing touch, a Christmas bow.
We also have an old antique milk can, off my husband’s family farm, that I fill with different types of evergreen branches.
Then I make a Christmas planter for our front porch. It’s amazing to me how much a splash of red color stands out. We always add something red. I was told Carl Larsson, the famous Swedish painter, added a touch of red to all his paintings, although a quick Internet search didn’t lead me to any evidence but in all the paintings I’ve seen of his the color red is in them.
I also put greens in my flowerboxes on our deck. I add lights to make for a cheery scene all winter long, right outside our patio door.
It’s nice to be decorating for the holidays…whoever thought the pandemic would last this long…
We celebrated Thanksgiving, with family, early this year.
Outdoors.
Unusually warm temperatures.
Beautifully set table.
Dinner delivered at sunset.
Eating by candle, and lantern, light.
Giving thanks.
Reading children’s books.
Continuing traditions.
Enchanted evening.
Grateful.
We trapped another squirrel…number 15! So off we went to transport it to the Squirrel Resort, 12 miles from our house.
Then we continued on, driving the back roads to Hastings, Minnesota for a walk.
Hastings has designed a lovely, paved trail along the Mississippi River. It provides benches, interesting informational signage, and a large picnic pavilion. The trail leads right up to Lock & Dam No. 2.
Saturday was sunny, and not too windy or cold, so we decided to take our daily walk in Hastings. We parked in a lot near the pavilion which provides ample, free parking.
The trail begins at the pavilion, close to an old working railroad lift bridge that “lifts” to let large boats float underneath, when needed.
We walked about 1.5 miles to the Lock & Dam and were fortunate enough to be there as they were bringing a large barge through, in two separate maneuvers. We’ve watched this kind of operation before and it is always fascinating.
There was river traffic…besides the barges there were boats with fishermen fishing, and a couple of tug boats. There was both pedestrian and bicycle traffic along the paved River Walk trail, and two trains rambled by across the river on the tracks. There was a lot of activity to watch…which is cheap entertainment in this time of pandemic.
Hastings is a county seat with a historic downtown and about 38 miles from Northfield if you drive the direct route (which is also picturesque). We drove through downtown and noticed several antique stores were open but we didn’t stop this time. We did stop however, to get a hot, caramel mocha for our ride back home! Yum.
We’ve always enjoyed going for drives in the country and exploring small towns…I’m sure we’ll be going for a lot more this fall and winter.
The room where we met was the kitchen…wallpaper – circa 1970.
We sat at the vintage kitchen table in the new addition of the old farmhouse. There was plenty of light; one large picture window facing south, that overlooked the driveway and the cornfield. Out the other window, facing west, you could see the barn and other farm buildings. There were always a lot of cats hanging around outside the back door by their food dishes, and birds at a birdfeeder right outside the front window. There was life.
The farmer and his wife, really a city girl converted to a farmer’s wife, were in their late 80’s when we first met. We attended the same church but we didn’t know each other until we began our coffee visits. We started to meet regularly.
The coffee cups were cracked and mismatched but we didn’t care. The coffee itself was very strong but ready upon our arrival to their place. We always provided sweet treats, which they liked. After awhile I started to set the table when we arrived, and served the coffee, since it was getting harder for them to get in and out of chairs. We settled into a comfortable routine.
It all began when I heard he wanted a regular visitor for his wife. He had been living with cancer for over 30 years. Mayo considered him a miracle. He was starting to have other health issues; she was in the beginning stages of memory loss.
So I called to ask her out for coffee. In our initial conversation she asked, “Just me and you?” I laughed and said, “Well, I think my husband would enjoy visiting with you and your husband, how does that sound?” “OK.” And so our visits with the four of us began.
They were engaging folks…they had a lot of interesting stories to tell and yet they were always curious about our lives too. We met for a couple of years on a regular basis. We enjoyed each other immensely. For my husband and I, it was nice to have elders in our life once again since all our parents had passed away.
As time went by they slowed down more and more until he died at age 90 leaving behind his wife of 69 years! They had four children. Their son was their neighbor, living conveniently on the next farm over. The other three daughters lived in the cities but were able to come down often to visit and care for their mother. She was loved.
I continued to go and have coffee visits with her after her husband died until Covid-19 reared its ugly head. She moved into her son’s home and we were all in lockdown.
After March 2020 I tried calling her but I usually had to leave messages on her answering machine…she picked up once or twice and the conversation was just a few minutes long…”how are you? fine”…and I know she understood the pandemic situation. Then that stopped. She didn’t pick up any more. I would send her notes telling her I was thinking of her so she would know I hadn’t forgotten her.
I had her son’s phone number. Six months went by and one day I called and left a message with him. His sister, one of the daughters, called me back. She said their mom was doing ok, had more bad days than good. Thankfully she did know all her children and grandchildren but unfortunately, according to her daughter, she no longer remembered who I was.
And that changed everything. I confirmed to her daughter that I would no longer call or send notes. It felt like a rejection. In my head I know it’s not but in my heart I was very sad.
It was hard to think that my special friend no longer remembers our conversations about her 35 dresses in her closet when she was a child, and about the Young-Quinlan Store in downtown Minneapolis. We shared memories of both growing up in the city of Minneapolis, and then she moving to the farm and I moving to a small town near her farm and our paths crossing at church. She doesn’t remember showing me the photo of her dearly beloved grandfather E-V-E-R-Y-T-I-M-E we were together…”He was born in 1856 and died in 1955, just think of all the changes he saw in his lifetime” she always said. She no longer remembers our chats about her beautiful dishes…and our mutual fondness of dishes and her showing me all her dishes.
But I remember…I remember hearing the stories of this city girl who grew up to be a strong woman…she liked to drive fast cars and she was one of the first women to work at the air traffic control center in Farmington for 27 years. She was also a farmer’s wife, fixing tractors and driving tractors and helping on the farm. Oh what a life she led…
She knitted beautiful sweaters. She learned to knit in elementary school – quilt squares for soldiers in WWII – and she never stopped knitting. She had four children who “she never had to worry about.” I was privileged to get to know her story a little bit…and I grew to love and care for this woman very much, never realizing the sadness it would cause when she didn’t remember me any more.
I cherish the memories. I smile a little when I remember our good times together, then I cry a little when I remember she doesn’t remember them, or me, anymore.
I have more empathy for those sons and daughters whose mothers do not remember them.
But thank God – He remembers me, and He will never forget me.
The historic river inn in Northfield caught on fire last night, about 5 o’clock. This morning fire trucks continue to pour water on the building and smoke still billows in the air.
What a tragic loss for our town…the beloved Archer House, opened 1877.
