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Posted By Katie On December 31, 2012 4 Comments

Traditional Christmas at the farm

Filed Under: America's Farm Table, Family Values Tagged With: agriculture, family, farming, holidays 4 Comments

Christmas Eve

We spent the past six nights at the farm, as in GriggsDakota. It’s where my parents, grandparents and uncle reside. In the planting and harvesting months, my brothers are there to farm with my parents. The rest of us get there are as often as possible. I always tell my husband, Nathan, it’s my goal to farm when we are 50. I had made a deal with my two cousins, Mark and Scott, when we were really young that when we were 50 years old we would all live on the farm. Mark lives 40 minutes away and Scott is already there. I have 166 miles to go. I also happen to love our corner of the prairie in my husband’s hometown. So…when I am 50 years old, he might have to build me cabin on the farm and we can travel back and forth from our prairie home to the family farm. That’s 16 years away and until then, we will continue to have family gatherings and fun on the farm at my parent’s home.

Hunter and cousin Logan

 Family gatherings involve my mom cooking three major meals a day. It’s unbelievable the variety of food, the volume of food and the tastiness of her cooking. She did not cook the traditional Norwegian lutefisk this year. That is not tasty but it is traditional. My Uncle Nathan baked instead of boiled the lutefisk. It’s like white fish Jello. Smother it with butter, salt and pepper and it slides down without a problem.
We do some of our traditions to remember our ancestors. We also follow the traditions because it makes special people smile. Like Grandma Nola. She is the matriarch of our family. She loves lutefisk. The truth is, I only ever ate because I wanted her to see me eat it and decades later I continue to eat it for tradition and smiles.

Great-Grandma Nola & Miss E

Not everyone embraces our farm traditions like eating lutefisk on Christmas Eve. This is what Miss A thought of it…

 But rule follower Miss E embraced not only a taste of lutefisk but also buttered and sugared her own lefsa (potato tortilla made by my grandparents).

Singing with Uncle Jim

Two other traditions that we followed on Christmas this year were our family Christmas “program”, directed this year by Miss A and Miss E along with my dad reading the Bible scripture of Jesus birth from Luke.

Those microphones were free in Happy Meals in 1987.

My dad reading the Bible

The longest Miss A stood still except for sleep the entire 6 nights at the farm. 

Santa left goodies on Christmas morning. 
 He even drank his Cup of Christmas Tea, ate a cookie, a Cutie Clementine and the reindeer left behind just a bit of carrot.

A visit to special Great Aunt Iris, age 107

 We ate breakfasts at my grandparent’s house a few mornings where four generations sat together, laughing and telling stories. We visited my Great-Great Aunt Iris (in above picture). The girls fed the cows with Uncle Jim. A 70 mile road trip to two different days to see Hunter play in a holiday tournament broke up the days. They won the first game and lost the second game by two points. The girls and I had a visit to the mall in big town, Fargo and lunch with good friends.

Throughout our days at the farm, there were stories, board games, playing in the hay and the girls were exposed to their daddy’s favorite winter pastime, snowmobiling.

 This might become a new tradition. The girls loved their rides on the snowmobiles. The time with my family, with our traditional Christmas, away from our regular routine with little rush to do anything was the perfect vacation.

Tomorrow the sun will set on 2012. I have more to share and new exciting things in 2013, like a whole new blog look in January.

For now, I leave this sunset with you. It is raw, straight from my camera tonight in Logan County, North Dakota. My husband stopped the pick up for me to snap a few shots. I love the prairie. I love my family’s roots here, the wide open spaces, the ability we have to spend together, to find joy in the simple things and to follow the traditions carried on throughout generations.

Even lutefisk.

Happy New Year! On December 31, I am going to capture some favorite sunset photos and have you vote again for your favorite.

What’s a favorite holiday tradition of yours?
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Comments

  1. Michelle says

    December 31, 2012 at 2:29 pm

    This seems like such a wonderful tradition with your family. I love lefsa, but never acquired a taste for lutefisk.

    Reply
  2. Winnie says

    December 31, 2012 at 3:26 pm

    Lovely photos and traditions. I have never eaten ether of your traditional foods, but traditional foods really play big parts in holidays. For New Years Eve we always have to have pork and sauerkraut in our family for “good luck”. Hubby was not raised with that and as it is our 2nd New Years, he is looking forward to it (thankfully he likes it…) Have a Happy, Healthy New Year!

    Reply
  3. MTWaggin says

    December 31, 2012 at 4:05 pm

    Oie – lutefisk yuck but I am oh so proud of Miss E for eating, I do the Miss A take thanks. Lefsa however oh yummolicious. Your holiday sounds like my dream come true you are so very blessed!

    Reply
  4. TexWisGirl says

    December 31, 2012 at 4:08 pm

    may your traditions continue for generations. happy new year, katie!

    Reply

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Welcome to the Prairie…

I am a mom of three kids and a wife to Nathan. Together we live on the North Dakota prairie, 97 miles from a Starbuck's. I share about family, food, farming and the prairie that I love. I used to commute 98 miles one-way to work but it required too much coffee. So now I am home, consulting, speaking, writing and primarily, juggling family life.
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