Shayna HepnerFollow

Date Collected

Fall 11-14-2018

Place item was collected

Nibley, Utah

Informant

Morgan Hepner

Point of Discovery/Informant Bio

You could tell Christmas is Michele’s favorite holiday just by listening to her talk about it. She doesn’t have any bad memories about it and is appreciative of everything her family does. Her favorite gifts were the ones made by hand, not the ones you buy at a store. She truly embraces the saying that the best gifts are the ones made from love and not bought.

Context

Morgan spends Christmas with her mom’s siblings, their spouses, all of her cousins, and her niece and nephew. On Christmas Eve Morgan and her family drive to her aunt’s house which is also in Nibley. Christmas day is spent at her grandma's house in Hyrum.

Text

About the second Saturday of December, my grandpa has a Christmas party with all eight of his siblings. There are five brothers and three sisters. All of the brothers still live in Utah but two of his sisters live in Texas and his other sister lives in North Carolina. Mostly the brothers come to grandpa’s Christmas party but for the last two years, the sisters from Texas have been able to come. They bring all of their kids, grandkids, and great grandkids to the party and it is really fun because I only get to see those cousins a few times every year. My grandpa used to be the janitor at the Whittier Center in Logan. Every year we would have the Christmas party there and it would be a lot of fun. About eight years ago he retired and we could no longer have our Christmas party there. Now we have the Christmas party at South Cache middle school because by grandma is the boss of all the lunch ladies. For dinner we make funeral potatoes, homemade rolls, ham, a smoked turkey, a mandarin orange salad, and a raspberry pretzel salad. My mom also makes homemade suckers in the shape of Christmas trees, reindeer, wreaths, and snowmen. We all have so much fun making them with her. My family doesn’t really do anything else until Christmas Eve. This year we are going to have another Christmas party with my grandma’s family and all of their kids. I am excited to be able to spend the holiday with more of my extended family. On Christmas Eve we spend all morning baking treats like pumpkin rolls, rice crispy treats, homemade suckers, and cookies. The cookies were for Santa but the rest of the treats were for when we went to my aunt’s house for dinner. For most of my childhood we used to go to my great grandma’s house for Christmas with all of my grandma's siblings and their families. Eventually the families got too big for great grandma’s house so we split and my grandma’s family started doing Christmas Eve at her oldest daughter’s house and Christmas day at her house. On Christmas we would go to grandma’s house for lunch and she would give everyone a present; usually a new pair of pajamas and a movie ticket pass. At the very last grandma and grandpa would open their presents from their kids and we would eat and everyone would go home to play with their new toys.

Texture

Morgan loved remembering past Christmases. She was so happy remembering the traditions that have stayed the same and even learning of how some of these traditions got started by listening to other interviews conducted. She would laugh at how long ago some of the things are family did because to her they feel like just yesterday.

Course

ENGL 2210

Instructor

Lynne McNeill

Semester and year

Fall 2018

Theme

G1: Holidays

EAD Number

1.13.12.15

Download

Share

COinS