Jen's Genealogy Pages

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

I don’t think I would consider myself a huge fan of fruitcake, but I have always liked my mother’s. When I mentioned the topic of today’s prompt, she told me that the fruitcake she makes was the fruitcake my grandmother made – and that recipe came from the Toronto Kresge’s years ago. I don’t have the recipe myself but I looked online and lo and behold, people have actually posted the recipe. You can find everything on the Internet! Apparently, Kresge’s Fruitcake used to be sold by Kresge’s every Christmas and at one point they handed out the recipes to lucky shoppers. I guess my grandmother must have been one of them!

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

We didn’t travel a great distance for Christmas. When I was young, all the family was in the same city. We’d usually do Christmas Eve with my father’s side of the family either at our house or at one of theirs. After all our presents were opened on Christmas morning, we would take a couple of ‘favourite’ toys and get in the car. We’d spend the rest of the day driving around the city visiting my mother’s side of the family. I remember there were often two stops with Christmas dinner being at the second one. (I may, however, be remembering wrong! It was years ago and I was quite young at the time.)

Once we’d made the ‘big move’ we didn’t travel at all at Christmas. It was too expensive for us all to fly ‘home’ so we had very quiet Christmases with just us. One year one of my grandmothers came out for the holiday but I think it was only the once. Someday I would like to take our children to visit my husband’s family overseas, but we think we’ll wait until they’re old enough to understand what’s going on!

Excerpt from Where the Saints Have Trod, Judith St. John, 1974 (Oxford University Press). The book is based on the author’s childhood memories (ca 1914-1924). She was my great-aunt.

“We finished The Prince and Pauper and started the book about old Scrooge. First thing we knew, we had stroked off eighteen days. There were only six more until Christmas, and we had come to the date bearing the picture of the train that was bringing Aunt Rhoda all the way from Montreal for Christmas. We were all standing on the station platform when the locomotive rushed into town with boisterous excitement. There was Aunt Rhoda with a huge, black suitcase. It was good to hug her. She was fat and rather squashy, like the comfortable cushion, Edward, I used to play with when I was little.”

Prompt: 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?

My children are still too young to really understand volunteering with a charity but it’s something I would like to have them involved in some day. Until then, we help support our local food bank by getting out to Canadian Pacific’s Holiday Train. The train came to town for the 12^th year last night and we all bundled up and headed out to watch it. The train itself is quite spectacular.

There is a stage car in the middle of the train – it’s a converted boxcar rigged for sound and light. Santa comes out and greets the crowd and does a little song and dance. Then there are cheque presentations for the local food bank. Finally, there is an outdoor concert with both original music and Christmas carols.

The trains – there are actually two - run across the Northeast and Midwest US and across Canada from Montreal to Vancouver. They make over a hundred stops at towns and cities along the way and it is well worth getting out to see if you happen to be in the area. The food bank or pantry in each location are set up to accept cash and food donations and everything donated in a town stays there.

As for my ancestors, one of my great-grandfathers was a Methodist (later United Church of Canada) minister. All three of his children were quite involved with the church as a consequence. Unfortunately, however, I am not aware of any specific activities they might have been involved in at Christmas time.

Excerpt from Where the Saints Have Trod, Judith St. John, 1974 (Oxford University Press). The book is based on the author’s childhood memories (ca 1914-1924). She was my great-aunt.

“The carpenter was home when we arrived. My brother bumped the carriage up the step and into the shack. The mother began to sob again when she saw the baby carriage, the shawl, the wood and the food. We didn’t say anything but ‘Merry Christmas’, but I knelt by the baby in the soap-box.

“ “Come, Janie,” Elizabeth said.

“ “Thank you, God bless you,” the carpenter said. As I went out the door, I heard him say, “Stop crying, Mary.”

Prompt: 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 and friends, for the most part, celebrate just Christmas. As all of my ancestors arrived in North America prior to 1880, I don’t really know if they had holiday traditions that they lost in the move.

I did like the tradition outlined in my great-aunt’s book below. By the time I knew them, however, this was not part of their holiday observances.

Excerpt from Where the Saints Have Trod, Judith St. John, 1974 (Oxford University Press). The book is based on the author’s childhood memories (ca 1914-1924). She was my great-aunt.

“Then we went to bed. My mother fastened back the curtains on every window of the house, placing in each one a lighted Christmas candle. “These will guide the Christ Child across the snow tonight,” she said.

“I watched the candle in our room flicker. “Will the Christ Child come near here?” I asked in wonder.

“ “They say He wanders over the earth every Christmas Eve,” my mother said.

“ “They will help Santa Claus, too,” I said. It was years since children had lived in the parsonage. I hoped he would pause on the roof long enough to see our letters.”

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

For many years – since fairly early on in childhood, really – my favourite gifts have been books. Whether I’m giving them or receiving them, there are always books at Christmas. It’s the librarian in me. In fact, I probably have enough books to start my own library! The problem these days is actually finding time to read the ones I’m given. I have only a couple of books on my Christmas wish list this year because I’m still working on reading some of the ones I was given last Christmas, and the one before, and the one before that. Having children has really slowed down my reading! I also almost always give books as presents at Christmas – and this year will be no exception.

There aren’t really any specific gift giving traditions in our family. We have a ‘gift-opening tradition’ in that we tend to do stockings first thing in the morning, have breakfast, and then open the rest of the presents. It also tends to be just the more immediate family we exchange gifts with and not the wider, extended family. By the time I came on the scene our extended family was large enough that while we would get presents from our grandparents, gifts were not given between members of the various families. There were just too many aunts, uncles and cousins to make that feasible. It really was enough to just get together and celebrate.

I have started one tradition with my children – every Christmas Eve they get a new pair of pajamas. It’s only been a few short years for this tradition, mind you, but this year’s pajamas have been purchased and washed and are just waiting for the big day!

Excerpt from Where the Saints Have Trod, Judith St. John, 1974 (Oxford University Press). The book is based on the author’s childhood memories (ca 1914-1924). She was my great-aunt.

“It was still dark when the alarm sounded. It was morning. “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas.” Everyone shouted the greeting as loudly as possible. In a twinkling my brother, Elizabeth and I were racing downstairs for our stockings. I let the other go first in case Santa Claus had not found us in the new parish. But he had come all right! Our stockings were bulging. The tree looked like a fairyland tree in the faint light.

“ ‘He found us. He found us.’ We all climbed on to the big bed in my mother and father’s room. Aunt Rhoda came, too, wrapped in a blanket. The things in our stockings were a great surprise to everyone. A red candy apple, a little candy donkey, a toy watch, a puzzle, nuts, raisins, candy, figs, dates, a shining apple, and in the toe, a fat, bouncing orange. When all our treasures had been unpacked, we sang our jolliest Christmas songs, beginning with “Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas bells”. I thought Santa Claus had never been so generous.”

Today’s advent calendar prompt is an author’s choice on a topic that helps me remember Christmases past. For me, one of the key remembrances of Christmas past is the Stocking Party. Let me start by saying that in addition to my grandparents I was lucky enough to have two very involved great-aunts. They never married and took great interest in their grandnephews and grandniece. In fact, it was they who helped kindle my interest in genealogy. They were born in the early part of the 20th century and were passionate about their family history. Both librarians, they had done some research on their own and also collected that which others had done. They were also keepers of much family lore and many heirlooms and other artifacts. Once I was old enough, I became interested in where they – and I – had come from. They are gone now, having both lived into their 90s. (I was lucky enough to get the librarian gene and I really hope I got the longevity genes as well!)

What I want to remember about Christmas past, however, are the Stocking Parties they used to hold for us on Christmas Eve. We didn’t get a Stocking Party every year but we had them often enough they are a definite childhood memory. Stocking Parties are a lot of work for the host, but a lot of fun for the guests!

Everyone gets their own stocking at Christmas Eve dinner. As you go through the stocking and open each individually wrapped ‘present’ you find food and treats and toys. Your entire meal – mostly sandwiches and carrot sticks and cookies and other easily wrappable items – is wrapped up in wax paper and placed in the stocking. There are also little toys for the children and other small tokens for the adults. Everyone takes their time opening different items and enjoying the meal, the company and the toys.

I haven’t attended a stocking party in over 25 years and I’ve never heard of anyone else doing something similar. I don’t know if they made it up themselves or if there’s some Secret Society of Stocking Partiers out there somewhere! Someday when my children are old enough, I hope to hold a Stocking Party myself. It would be interesting to see what it’s like on the giving side of the equation.

My great-aunts as young girls

We have always baked cookies for Christmas. When I was young, my mother and other family members baked many different kinds – from shortbread to sugar cookies to Nanaimo bars to fruit cake to rum balls to these really neat marshmallow chocolate logs. We used to have a big family Christmas party where all these cookies were served. After we moved away from our extended family, the production of cookies streamlined somewhat as it was only the four of us eating them.

As soon as I was old enough to bake, I adopted some cookies into my own repertoire. I don’t do a huge amount of cookie baking these days but there are a few that I try to make every year – sugar cookies, chocolate chip shortbread and cherry chocolate cookies. This past Monday, in fact, I took part in my first ever cookie exchange. I baked several dozen chocolate chip shortbread cookies and got dozens of cookies back – 6 each of 12 different sorts. It’s interesting to see what might be part of other people’s Christmas traditions.

Probably my favourite cookie over the years is the basic sugar cookie. I bake them all through the year – hearts for Valentine’s Day, pumpkins for Halloween, Santas and Christmas trees and stars for Christmas. It’s from the Purity Flour cookbook, published in 1967. (In more recent years, I have been known to replace the shortning with butter.)

Sugar Cookies

Preheat oven to 375°.
Cream 1/2 cup shortening with 1 cup sugar
Add 1 well-beaten egg, 2 T milk or cream and 1/2  t vanilla
Beat until light and fluffy.
Blend or sift together 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, 2 t baking powder and 1/2 t salt
Add to creamed mixture and combine well.
Chill the dough.
Turn chilled dough onto a lightly floured surface. Roll to 1/8″ thickness. Cut out with floured cookie cutter.
Bake on greased baking sheets in preheated 375° oven for 6 to 8 minutes.
Yield: About 5 dozen cookies.