Celebrating the Winter Holidays, Part 2

Last week’s blog post focused on some winter holiday traditions, including Christmas trees. (If you missed it, you can read it here.) Of course, a lot of the fun in having a tree for Christmas is decorating it with ornaments. However, decorating indoor trees with man-made objects was much slower to catch on than previous traditions, and, like the trees themselves, the first ornaments came from Germany. This week we will meet a fascinating German immigrant who made St. Louis his home and might very well have helped your family to have a brighter Christmas.

Celebrating the Winter Holidays, Part I

Now that Thanksgiving is behind us, you’ve probably begun decorating your house for the rest of the holiday season. Whether it’s lights and inflatable snowmen outside or an “Elf on the Shelf” resting comfortably on the living room mantel, most of us are fascinated by holiday decorations. If you celebrate Chanukah, you have started lighting candles and spinning dreidels, and if you are celebrating Christmas, you have likely already got your Christmas tree up and have hung all the family's favorite ornaments on its branches. As we like to do around the holidays every year, let’s look at how our ancestors passed down these traditions to us.

Autumn Traditions are in the Air

Although it's still very warm in parts of the United States, those of us in the Midwest are enjoying some cool, comfortable weather this week. In fact, the nights are feeling downright autumnal! Stores are filled with the bright colors of Halloween decorations, and those of us who need our yearly fix of pumpkin doughnuts, pumpkin muffins, and the ever-popular pumpkin spice lattes, are blissfully eating and drinking our way into the season. Did you know that pumpkins have a long, interesting history? If your ancestors were in this country or in South or Central America, they likely ate, cooked, and/or carved pumpkins throughout their lives. Read on for more!

On St. Patrick's Day We Can All be a Little Irish!

Even if you haven't a single drop of Irish ancestry, March 17th, St. Patrick's Day, has become a holiday for everyone to feel Irish. So for at least a day, you can put on something green, eat corned beef and cabbage, drink green beer, and watch or participate in a merry parade. If you are in a big city, perhaps the streets are repainted with green stripes or fountains (or even the Chicago River) are dyed green. But maybe, as genealogists, we should take a minute to determine exactly what really came from Ireland and what has been made more recently in America!

Gingerbread History for the Holidays

We thought this week, as we approach Christmas weekend, we’d share some fun facts about one of our beloved holiday foods, gingerbread. Perhaps you baked and decorated some gingerbread men or built a house with some of the young people in your family to celebrate the holiday. Many of us now just use kits or mixes for our gingerbread, but what we create really bears little resemblance to the gingerbread our ancestors knew.

Gingerbread was popular throughout Europe for centuries. Ginger root came from China, where it was used for its medicinal properties, especially for indigestion. A form of gingerbread appeared in both Greek and Egyptian early history. As trade increased between East and West, ginger was more available, and by the Middle Ages, its strong flavor was used to disguise the taste of meat that might not have been very fresh. (Image from Wikimedia Commons; public domain)

Did Our Ancestors Trick or Treat?

Whether your neighborhood will be teeming with children asking for treats on Halloween night or not, it is likely most of us will be unable to resist those large packages of bite-sized candies lurking in every store. Is your downfall Reese’s peanut butter cups, Skittles, or sweet, sticky candy corn? Maybe Almond Joy minis or KitKat bars? Candy companies have super-sized Halloween during the past few decades and earned billions of dollars for their hard work. But where did the whole Halloween trick or treating idea come from? Did our ancestors walk door to door with little carved pumpkins asking for goodies from their neighbors? Let’s explore the origins of trick or treating.

A Little New Year's Eve History as We Welcome 2021

This coming Friday, we will gratefully usher in 2021, hoping for a much brighter, less tragic year, one in which we can see each other again without fear and collect those long overdue hugs and handshakes. As you Zoom-celebrate with your friends and family, you may adhere to some tried-and-true traditions. Many of us will sit in front of our televisions and watch the ball drop in Times Square. We may have a glass or two of something bubbly and sing either the Scottish or the English version of the song we most closely associate with ending an old year and beginning a new one, “Auld Lang Syne.” Do you know the origins of these beloved New Year’s traditions?

Celebrating the Fourth of July!

Although this year's summer holiday festivities were restricted because of the COVID-19 pandemic, certain traditions of this holiday weekend were still in evidence everywhere. Otherwise-quiet neighborhoods exploded with the bright lights and loud roars of fireworks; backyard barbecues smoked away, filling the air with the delicious smells of food on the grill; and people flew flags, hummed patriotic songs, and searched online for Boston Pops renditions of John Philip Sousa's marches. All of these July 4th customs have a surprisingly long history; many would be quite familiar to our ancestors.

Thanksgiving Treats and Traditions

Make the Most of Your Holiday Gathering

As families and friends gather to celebrate the holidays, genealogists have many opportunities to explore their families' heritage and traditions. It's a great time to teach the next generation the secrets to your family recipes or the meaning behind the special dishes, silverware, or serving pieces you inherited and hope to pass on.

You can share stories as you eat or as you create something delicious using Grandma's mixing bowls. Record your traditions—take photos or videos and write down how you came to be making the traditional foods your family enjoys at the holidays each year.

Make copies of the family recipes to send home with your cousins. Recall the foods you ate at holiday gatherings in the past. What was delicious? What do you wish you could recreate? What foods were awful experiments that you still laugh about today?

Food has always been the center of family gatherings. No matter what your ethnic or religious background is, preparing and serving special dishes for family and guests is universal. What is center stage for your Thanksgiving table?

• Is it turkey? Do you serve it brined, roasted, deep-fried, stuffed, or unstuffed?
• If not turkey, then ham? Prime rib? Goose or duck? Turducken or tofurkey?
• What accompanies the main course? Stuffing (or dressing), mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, or sweet potatoes with marshmallows and pineapple?
• What about cranberries . . . jellied from a can or homemade with orange and pecans? Or does your family just not like them at all?
• Many a table is graced with that old standby green bean casserole this week. Is yours? Perhaps you prefer different veggies like Brussels sprouts or broccoli?
• What's the grand finale to the meal? Pumpkin, sweet potato, or apple pie? Something with nuts or filled with chocolate?

After you've thought about (and/or consumed) all the food, why not turn to other topics? Have you ever broken from tradition and tried something new? Did your family rebel or consider it an adventure to try something different?

Are there activities you look forward to each Thanksgiving? Maybe your family plays board games, watches television, or goes to the park to play touch football. Some families put up their Christmas tree or sing around a piano or guitar. Maybe you like to watch a marathon of holiday movies. Whatever it is your family does each year, be sure to record those memories too.

Finally, whether your traditions are completely different from those mentioned above or waiting to be newly created, Thanksgiving is all about being grateful for the bounty of the harvest and the warmth of family and friends. If you are surrounded by people you care about, all that matters is the enjoyment of good company and the feast you or your hosts have prepared.

Whether you journal, blog, scrapbook, write stories, or take photos, your family will thank you for preserving the memories of what makes your Thanksgiving special. And all of us at St. Louis Genealogical Society hope you have the happiest of holidays!