Rural Heritage December 2025/January 2026

distribution by the fire department. While Bing crooned on the turn table, the smell of fresh-baked sugar cookies filled the house. Us kids got to help with the decorating, and we spent a lot of time making sure the sprinkles and frosting were just right on each gingerbread man. We dipped pretzels in milk chocolate, white chocolate and pink chocolate. We sampled chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookies, molasses cookies, sugar cookies and cookies I'm sure I've forgotten. I remember butter cream mints, pressed into festive molds and dyed Christmas colors. There were all sorts of candies, in every shape and fashion. I know we worked on Christmas treats for three days at least. When it was all finished, mixed bags of treats were filled and boxed to go to the firemen who distributed them door to door throughout town. Between baking, decorating, bagging and boxing cookies, us kids worked on craft items to give out as Christmas presents to family. I remember making faux stained-glass ornaments that were baked in the oven to melt the “glass.” My project was a black-and white spotted horse; no reindeer or Santa Clauses for me. I still think back to that Christmas and the fun

we had listening to carols and making treats with the whole family. We still try to recall that year with the occasional cookie swap here at the farm. It was the second Christmas we spent in Ohio that Oma and Opa came to visit from Germany. They were the parents of our stepmother, and Oma and Opa were not their names. In our attempts to learn German, we learned that Germany had hill folk, same as Kentucky. And while city kids might refer to their grandparents as Grossfater und Grossmutter, we were told that closer to the alps, German farm kids used the equivalent of mammaw and pappaw, which was Oma und Opa. Anyway, that first taste of a German Christmas made our eyes pop. My sister got a nearly life-sized doll that would walk and talk in both English and German. She had a small record player in her back. For those of you who don't recall record players, I'm sure you can wiki something on your electronic device and look it up. But this doll came with a series of plastic records, just slightly bigger than an Eisenhower dollar, (again, go look it up!) and one side was in English the other in German. My gifts are probably what set me on the course for my current career. Opa was a carpenter by trade.

Rural Heritage

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