The Big Picture is the Collection of Pieces

The best part of the Holiday season for me is spending precious time with family. One of the traditions that I cherish the most is one that I don’t even get invited to! My folks graciously invite the grandkids over each year for a lefse making session. The grandkids, no matter what age, all look forward to the hands-on activity of making lefse with their cousins and grandparents. When finished, they all get to bring home the result of their hard work. Lots of laughs, great memories with grandparents, and they get to eat their mistakes! Priceless!

Attending a Christmas service at church is an obvious highlight for me. But aside from that, I just really enjoy gifting, with the highlight being watching my kids and grandkids open their gifts.

My favorite part of preparing for Christmas is setting up our Nativity scenes. I have fond memories of doing that each year as a child and now my kids look forward to it just as much.

My favorite piece of the holidays is the traditions that are created. I have special memories as a child of decorating Christmas cookies with my Grandma, Christmas Eve oyster stew, and midnight church services. Creating new traditions with my own family is extra special. We started this tree skirt the year my son was born, and each year add the kids’ handprints to see how much they have grown – the smudgy prints are an extra special memory of their ages at the time!

Just wanted to share one of our sweetest parts of the holiday season – my husband’s homemade pies. From the flaky crusts to the delicious fillings, every bite is a taste of love and tradition that makes this season truly magical and delicious!

In December 2020, my husband’s family decided to forgo flying down to Dallas for a Cowboys football game, but to instead travel in an RV from Sioux Falls down to Dallas, TX – all 7 of us. Being a family of history buffs, we made sure to take many stops on our way down, including the WWI Museum in Kansas City, the Dr. Pepper Museum and Magnolia in Waco, TX, a Segway tour of JFK history and Fort Worth, a tour of AT&T Stadium, and a tour of the Oklahoma City Bombing Museum and Memorial. Now every year at Christmas we mention how it could be worse, we could be trapped in an RV together again for a week.

Bill ‘s great-aunt created these handmade small velvet stockings. They have your full name on one side and your birthday on the other side. When anyone in the family got married or had a baby, she made one for the new member of the family. She is long gone, but it gives us a warm feeling every year when we hang them up.

My family has any number of traditions I remember from childhood that I have continued on with my own family not adult life, but sometimes it’s the new traditions that were unintentionally created that leave the biggest mark. For me it is the busy music rehearsals that accompany the season often help me enter into the anticipation and the celebration of Christmas the most. For the last decade I have sung with the SDSO Chorus, and each December we perform Handel’s Messiah (in near full) at First Lutheran Church in downtown Sioux Falls, as well as a more secular performance of Christmas music called “Tis the Season” at the Washington Pavilion. While the final performances are a great celebration, it’s the rhythm and in between moment of the rehearsal’s, the “behind the scenes” efforts of what all goes into it that is the most memorable. This year, unfortunately, I am not participating which is why I might be reflecting on it more, as we just had a new baby and my wife has her own overlapping duties for another major holiday concert in the area (she is rehearsing an directing the choir for Christmas at the Cathedral). However, I am making new memories by at least attending Handel’s Messiah this year, with my 7-year-old daughter.

My favorite PIECE of the holiday season is a spike that we put on our Christmas tree along with other ornaments. The spike is not much to think about, except for me at Christmas time, the birth of Jesus. Along with the buzz of shopping, baking, eating, and opening of gifts it’s the few quiet times at Christmas, I like to reflect on the things that matter most….Faith, family, health, work, friends. The spike represents the bad that brings the good. I hope we all find some time to enjoy the reason for the season!!

My favorite piece of the holidays is giving back and volunteering with Sioux Falls Cares. Sioux Falls Cares is a non-profit organization that provides food, clothing, toys, and necessities to more than 850 families – including over 2,000 children, in the Sioux Falls community. Each year my husband and our friends put on our Christmas light necklaces and Santa hats and help load vehicles with the supplies and then those drivers deliver to the families in need. If you are free to be a driver it is a one-of-a-kind experience spreading the joy of Christmas to your recipient family. This 2-day event always takes place at the beginning of December, and it is incredible to see the community come together and give back.

My favorite piece of the holiday season is the nostalgia of it all. No other time of the year brings up so many thoughts and memories of years gone by. For me it starts with the Thanksgiving Day parade and runs through New Year’s. The stores preparing for Christmas, pulling out numerous totes of Christmas decorations for the house, and of course the music. It all comes together and gets me thinking back to the days of coming home from college for Christmas, all the family traditions growing up, and now all the traditions I have with my family. I enjoy this season and thinking back on many great memories and the new ones to come.

My favorite piece of the holiday is cutting down the Christmas tree with my family! The whole family, even the dog, would load up in our pickup and drive to the local Christmas tree farm. Where we were able to walk around and cut down the perfect tree. After enjoying some Christmas cookies and cider, we would head home to start decorating.

One of my favorite memories of Christmas time was when my family would go to Lorie Line piano concerts every year and we would collect the bells. The bells were given to ring during the Jingle Bells song. It was something my parents took my sisters and I to every year and its fun to bring them out to decorate the house with.

A special memory for me was experiencing the joy of Christmas with our first-born grandson, Oliver.

I think my favorite holiday thing that my family does is every year we buy the latest Lego Christmas village set and we spend a couple of nights putting the new one together and all the previous ones as well. At this point I think we have 5-6 sets.