Our first Christmas as a married couple was in 1959 on 85th Street in West Allis, the home of my parents Alfred and Ruth Wunrow. Mom and I were married when I had one more year of college remaining, so we were fortunate that my Mom and Dad offered us the chance to live upstairs at their house.
We had the whole upstairs which included a finished bedroom and a closet. The back half of this attic area was rather poorly done dry walled space . To make matters interesting, there was no water or bathroom up there. But Mom fashioned a kitchen area out of that space up there, just outside the bedroom. We had a table and two chairs, an old antique Hoosier cabinet and a hot plate. Mom really made this a special place. Fortunately, we didn’t have to eat there most of the time, mainly on Sunday noons, as Mom worked several nights a week as did I and also worked Saturdays.
The back part of this upstairs space was our living room where we had a couch, chairs and by the holidays, a fresh Christmas tree. Mom wanted to trim it with strings of popcorn and cranberries. We invited Marge and Jerry and another couple to help trim this tree. (Peter and Jan)Sometime, as the decorating party progressed, we decided to send out for pizza. So the guys went out get some pizza. And the pizza was great, except that it was two hours late. You see, we had to go to a tavern to get it and it seems we spent some quality time at the bar before ordering the pizza and taking it home. Needless to say, our tree was beautiful a tribute to the girls who were steadfast in finishing the tree, without much help from the guys.
Our little apartment was beautiful for Christmas and we entertained each of our parents upstairs there, and even Mom’s grandparents Adolph and Ella Mueller. Somewhere there is a photo of them sitting on the couch next to our popcorn and cranberry decorated tree.
After my graduation from UWM I took a teaching job in Janesville, Wisconsin. We moved there in late summer into an upstairs flat on South Main Street, across from the middle school. By this time we were pregnant with Jeff, who was born December 4. What a great Christmas present!
We spent out Christmas in Janesville as Mom recovered from childbirth. Uncle Doug came down to Janesville to spend the holiday with our new family. I don’t recall the presents but sometime around the holidays I saw a basketball backboard for sale at a lumberyard. It was such a good deal that I had to buy it. Well, we hauled that backboard around for at least six or seven years before it was installed atop the garage on 103rd street... six years later!
I also recall the take down of our second year Christmas tree some weeks after the holidays. I was never in a hurry to take our Christmas trees down, as I wanted to cling to the Christmas season as long as I could? Well, this time we were living in a very dry, hot water heated flat and the tree was bone dry. By the time I had dragged the tree down the long front stairway, there were no needles left on the tree.... no needles. Vacuuming was out of the question, so step by step I whisked these pesky balsam needles for what seemed like an eternity.
Christmas 1961 was an entirely different matter by my family. By mid September I had been called up to active duty in the Wisconsin National Guard. This was part of a massi
ve callup involving about half a million soldiers to confront the Soviet Union’s pressure on Berlin. Berlin was a divided city deep into the eastern, Soviet controlled portion of Germany. As such, Berlin was supplied by carefully laid out corridors for air, rail, and highway connections. So when the Soviet Union began to disrupt these supply lines, President Kennedy countered with a show of force, that is, he activated about half a million soldiers. I was one of them. We had just purchased and moved into a house on the northwest side of Janesville at 1012 N. Oakhill Avenue. In less than two weeks we leased our house to a couple and moved all of our belongings to Milwaukee, storing them in both the Mueller’s and Wunrow’s houses. Mom and Jeff moved in with the Mueller's. I flew to Fort Lewis Washington on September 27.
As Christmas came closer the word came out that up to 80 percent of our National Guard Division, the 32nd Infantry Division, would be given fifteen days of leave time to return home for the holidays. But since that meant that ten thousand men all wanted to leave at the s
ame time, the air and rail lines were overwhelmed. Finally, special trains were created to get us home to Wisconsin. I recall I paid about one hundred dollars for my round trip ticket. Well, the trip home took nearly four days which when coupled with four days to return, meant I would have about one week at home for Christmas. Jeff was about nine months old when I left in late September and was now just over one year old, three and one half months later. And Mom? Boy, did she look good to me.
We celebrated Christmas Eve at the Wunrows on 85th street with Uncle Keith’s family. On Christmas Day we spent the day at Muellers on 71st street, their family tradition. We went to the Christmas Eve worship service at Trinity, the church where we were married and then returned Christmas Day for that service too, as was our Wunrow tradition. My Mom played the organ and directed the choir there for many years.
At Mueller’s we were joined by Mom’s grandparents, Adolph and Ella Mueller, and Uncle Karl. And Doug and David were still living at home. Marge and Jerry were married in 1960 and they were living in Alabama while Jerry completed his military ROTC obligation. Holiday meals at the Mueller’s were always special, usually baked ham, mashed potatoes, yams, two vegetables, cucumber salad, maybe creamed onions, and on and on. Grandma Mueller was a persistent cook and meal provider. We all crowded around the dining room table, sharing that room with a tall Christmas tree. If needed we also had a card table and four chairs in the living room.
One of the decorations every year at Mueller’s was a bell-shaped music box that was hung inside the archway. To hear it , you had to pull down on a cord. As the years went by, the grandchildren who could reach it by standing on a chair and they made that tune a regular occurrence.
And sometime during the Christmas Day celebration at Muellers, Mom’s grandpa Mueller would be asked when he was planning to leave for his winter haven in Homestead, Florida. He usually would reply that he would leave as soon as he could after the holidays, driving his Kaiser automobile, with a fold down back seat. Later he upgraded to a Ford woodie station wagon.
The Christmas of 1961 was one of mixed feelings for Mom and me. For the seven days just flew by and soon I would have to leave again for the northwest, over two thousand miles away from my lovely wife and baby. No one knew when we would be released from active duty. And it would turn out to be August 1962 before I would be home for good.
The following four Christmases were spent back in Janesville at our little three bedr
oom home there on Oakhill Avenue. Of course, we didn’t actually spend the holidays there as we always hurried home for the holidays in West Allis with the Mueller’s and Wunrow’s. And the routine would pretty much follow that from previous years. In 1965 we would have a second baby, David John, to entertain us. And Jeffrey made a perfect big brother. So by Christmas 1965, David was an active six-month-old baby. And also important, Mom was pregnant again. We didn’t know until later in the spring that she was carrying twins. That was a surprise yet to be revealed.
We had the whole upstairs which included a finished bedroom and a closet. The back half of this attic area was rather poorly done dry walled space . To make matters interesting, there was no water or bathroom up there. But Mom fashioned a kitchen area out of that space up there, just outside the bedroom. We had a table and two chairs, an old antique Hoosier cabinet and a hot plate. Mom really made this a special place. Fortunately, we didn’t have to eat there most of the time, mainly on Sunday noons, as Mom worked several nights a week as did I and also worked Saturdays.
The back part of this upstairs space was our living room where we had a couch, chairs and by the holidays, a fresh Christmas tree. Mom wanted to trim it with strings of popcorn and cranberries. We invited Marge and Jerry and another couple to help trim this tree. (Peter and Jan)Sometime, as the decorating party progressed, we decided to send out for pizza. So the guys went out get some pizza. And the pizza was great, except that it was two hours late. You see, we had to go to a tavern to get it and it seems we spent some quality time at the bar before ordering the pizza and taking it home. Needless to say, our tree was beautiful a tribute to the girls who were steadfast in finishing the tree, without much help from the guys.
Our little apartment was beautiful for Christmas and we entertained each of our parents upstairs there, and even Mom’s grandparents Adolph and Ella Mueller. Somewhere there is a photo of them sitting on the couch next to our popcorn and cranberry decorated tree.
After my graduation from UWM I took a teaching job in Janesville, Wisconsin. We moved there in late summer into an upstairs flat on South Main Street, across from the middle school. By this time we were pregnant with Jeff, who was born December 4. What a great Christmas present!
We spent out Christmas in Janesville as Mom recovered from childbirth. Uncle Doug came down to Janesville to spend the holiday with our new family. I don’t recall the presents but sometime around the holidays I saw a basketball backboard for sale at a lumberyard. It was such a good deal that I had to buy it. Well, we hauled that backboard around for at least six or seven years before it was installed atop the garage on 103rd street... six years later!
I also recall the take down of our second year Christmas tree some weeks after the holidays. I was never in a hurry to take our Christmas trees down, as I wanted to cling to the Christmas season as long as I could? Well, this time we were living in a very dry, hot water heated flat and the tree was bone dry. By the time I had dragged the tree down the long front stairway, there were no needles left on the tree.... no needles. Vacuuming was out of the question, so step by step I whisked these pesky balsam needles for what seemed like an eternity.
Christmas 1961 was an entirely different matter by my family. By mid September I had been called up to active duty in the Wisconsin National Guard. This was part of a massi
ve callup involving about half a million soldiers to confront the Soviet Union’s pressure on Berlin. Berlin was a divided city deep into the eastern, Soviet controlled portion of Germany. As such, Berlin was supplied by carefully laid out corridors for air, rail, and highway connections. So when the Soviet Union began to disrupt these supply lines, President Kennedy countered with a show of force, that is, he activated about half a million soldiers. I was one of them. We had just purchased and moved into a house on the northwest side of Janesville at 1012 N. Oakhill Avenue. In less than two weeks we leased our house to a couple and moved all of our belongings to Milwaukee, storing them in both the Mueller’s and Wunrow’s houses. Mom and Jeff moved in with the Mueller's. I flew to Fort Lewis Washington on September 27.As Christmas came closer the word came out that up to 80 percent of our National Guard Division, the 32nd Infantry Division, would be given fifteen days of leave time to return home for the holidays. But since that meant that ten thousand men all wanted to leave at the s
ame time, the air and rail lines were overwhelmed. Finally, special trains were created to get us home to Wisconsin. I recall I paid about one hundred dollars for my round trip ticket. Well, the trip home took nearly four days which when coupled with four days to return, meant I would have about one week at home for Christmas. Jeff was about nine months old when I left in late September and was now just over one year old, three and one half months later. And Mom? Boy, did she look good to me.We celebrated Christmas Eve at the Wunrows on 85th street with Uncle Keith’s family. On Christmas Day we spent the day at Muellers on 71st street, their family tradition. We went to the Christmas Eve worship service at Trinity, the church where we were married and then returned Christmas Day for that service too, as was our Wunrow tradition. My Mom played the organ and directed the choir there for many years.
At Mueller’s we were joined by Mom’s grandparents, Adolph and Ella Mueller, and Uncle Karl. And Doug and David were still living at home. Marge and Jerry were married in 1960 and they were living in Alabama while Jerry completed his military ROTC obligation. Holiday meals at the Mueller’s were always special, usually baked ham, mashed potatoes, yams, two vegetables, cucumber salad, maybe creamed onions, and on and on. Grandma Mueller was a persistent cook and meal provider. We all crowded around the dining room table, sharing that room with a tall Christmas tree. If needed we also had a card table and four chairs in the living room.
One of the decorations every year at Mueller’s was a bell-shaped music box that was hung inside the archway. To hear it , you had to pull down on a cord. As the years went by, the grandchildren who could reach it by standing on a chair and they made that tune a regular occurrence.
And sometime during the Christmas Day celebration at Muellers, Mom’s grandpa Mueller would be asked when he was planning to leave for his winter haven in Homestead, Florida. He usually would reply that he would leave as soon as he could after the holidays, driving his Kaiser automobile, with a fold down back seat. Later he upgraded to a Ford woodie station wagon.
The Christmas of 1961 was one of mixed feelings for Mom and me. For the seven days just flew by and soon I would have to leave again for the northwest, over two thousand miles away from my lovely wife and baby. No one knew when we would be released from active duty. And it would turn out to be August 1962 before I would be home for good.
The following four Christmases were spent back in Janesville at our little three bedr
oom home there on Oakhill Avenue. Of course, we didn’t actually spend the holidays there as we always hurried home for the holidays in West Allis with the Mueller’s and Wunrow’s. And the routine would pretty much follow that from previous years. In 1965 we would have a second baby, David John, to entertain us. And Jeffrey made a perfect big brother. So by Christmas 1965, David was an active six-month-old baby. And also important, Mom was pregnant again. We didn’t know until later in the spring that she was carrying twins. That was a surprise yet to be revealed. The first Christmas with Mom in my life was the last year of high school, December 1955. Mom planned to go with my family to our traditional Christmas Eve Sunday School service. So we stopped by her house on 71st street to pick her up sometime after six for the 7 o’clock service. I went up to the door. Now remember, my family had been getting ready for this all day. Dressing up and preparing special food, etc. Someone opened the door and I went inside to wait for her. The scene I saw was totally unexpected. Here was a family in a fairly typical Saturday evening routine watching television, Grandma Mueller at her sewing machine finishing numerous clothing projects that Grandpa Mueller wrapped as soon as she finished. Grandpa had washed his hair and now wore a nylon hood piece on his head, also a tradition at least weekly throughout the year. And there was Marge and Douglas and her baby brother David, a second grader, I think. I found out later that Grandma would continue sewing until early morning before she decided what gifts would have to be wrapped and given out in an unfinished state.
The following morning I went back there to join in their Christmas Day traditions. And Grandma was now busy in the kitchen preparing a feast to top all feasts. Ham, and all the trimmings. And the usual guests like Uncle Karl and Grandpa Mueller's parents, too (Adolph and Ella Mueller). And presents....well, it seemed like they just never stopped coming. And some were even from Santa. Santa? Aside from Saint Nik earlier in December, we didn’t talk about Santa much in our house. But he sure knew where the Muellers lived. And Mom’s Mom just couldn’t give enough to me. I really felt at home there very quickly. And at the dinner table Mom's Dad announced to me for everyone to hear, “Eat........... and if you don’t get enough to eat, it’s your own damn fault“, said lovingly with a smile and twinkle in his eye.
The next Christmas, 1956, Mom and I had been dating for over one year and my folks spent Christmas at Uncle Gary’s in Danville Illinois. Mom and I were invited over to the Winkler’s and someone picked us up and took us home. That was nice. And the following Christmas in 1957 I gave Mom her diamond engagement ring. I still consider myself a very lucky man to have had her as my wife and life mate. In the late 1960’s with four active children we appreciated when the grandparents would watch the kids while Mom and I got ready for Christmas. Later after Duane arrived I would take the kids out in the afternoon of the 24th to give Mom a chance to finish the house preparations and get herself ready. Once I recall we went to Cap’s Pizza and then drove around to see Christmas decorations, you know, marking time before out return. I will always be able to see how nice the house looked, and how nice Mom looked when we returned home.
Shopping for Christmas presents from the children led me to a tradition that I did for some years. I called it, “Breakfast and Shopping with Dad”. It was about 1974 and I took the kids downtown in Milwaukee to have some breakfast and shop at the F.W. Woolworth store. Each of the kids had some money to spend. We walked around the store a bit and then I let them go on their own, while I watched from a distance. Then we would meet and checkout separately. I spent most of my time with Duane the youngest one we took along.
In subsequent years Debra would join us. We always started with breakfast at a restaurant and then went shopping. One of these later times we shopped at the Drews store in Hales Corners. Debra was about three or four then and she shopped with me spending her own money. When we returned home they would spend some time wrapping these treasures for each other.
I can’t reflect on Christmases past without remembering the year when all the kids were sick in December with stomach flu. Mom had the four older ones lying on the pullout couch in the family room so she could tend to them more easily. It seems this was the situation for most of the two weeks before Christmas Day. Later, after Christmas, the flu bug would hit Mom, but always after Christmas. She would stay in bed and sleep for at least two days before arising and caring again for her brood. It seems like more that once, she took to bed after the holidays to fight off the flu and recover. But it seemed that she simply willed herself to stay well until the crucial days were over and I was home to take her place in the house for a few days.
Christmas 1970 is also memorable. We were hosting big gathering at our house that year
. Duane had been having trouble with various bronchial infections and nothing seems to help. I recall his difficulty breathing, his red cheeks and watery eyes throughout Christmas Day. We later decided that part of his problem was an allergy to tree pollen and so we decided to purchase an artificial tree. We found one a few days after Christmas at Stein Garden Center on Highway 100. It was white plastic; a little different for us, but the price was right and the choices few. And we found that it looked really nice when decorated. A day or so later, the Stein store burned down.
One Christmas with the white tree, we were seriously involved in putting up the tree and all the other traditional decoration around the house. Now you have to understand that these efforts were not always completely happy occasions. In fact, stress was a constant companion.
Anyway, I decided that it would be fun and a learning experience to tape record some of this obnoxious behavior, especially at the supper table. It was successful. We learned how silly some of that negative stuff sounded. Of course Jeff got suspicious, later saying that the tip off was that I was strangely quiet throughout the meal.
That same year, I used my new 8-mm movie camera, which had a stop action feature. In other words, you could set it to take a frame every minute or so. So I set it on a tripod and filmed the setting up of our white tree, branch by branch. In its finished form the whole thing takes about half a minute. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it.
Somewhere in the late 70s or early 80s we gradually changed our traditions from spending Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa Wunrow’s to visiting them and then spending most of our time at our house. From early on we attended church at Divine Shepherd, later transferring to Hales Corners Lutheran about the time David and the twins were old enough for confirmation classes. And the tradition of having the Sunday School program on Christmas Eve was changed to an earlier Sunday, replaced by a worship service of music and lights.
And the Mueller family celebration evolved into a rotational hosting of either Thanksgiving or Christmas Day between the Freitags and our family. I have only to imagine the difficulties of preparing for Christmas in 1969 and 1972, just weeks before the births of Duane and Debra. But Mom was always a trooper and one who gave of herself always before herself.
Who can forget the frigid cold Christmas Eve in the late 1980s when the temperatures dropped down into the minus teens. We all went to church, but not before dressing up with long johns, boots, heavy sweaters and warm cap and mittens. We looked like we were going camping, but safety was our only concern that night. We worried about the cars starting, but all went well and we made it back to our house for our traditional gift opening.
Or how about the balmy Christmas also in the late 1980s when the temps soared into the sixties and the guys played football on the front lawn.
We started wit
h family photos when we were just four kids in the late 1960s. Probably the most memorable photo is the one we took on a balmy early fall on the front steps of our house with the temperature a warm 75-80 degrees. It was planned as a cross country ski picture since that was our winter passion, or at least mine. So all of us were decked out in winter jackets and caps holding our skis. Well, my teenagers were mortified that someone they knew would drive by and see this ridiculous situation. If you look at the resulting photo you can just about read the minds of these mindful but reluctant kids.
But one of my efforts that I am particularly proud of is associated with my family history hobby. Sometime in the 1970’s I decided to make ornaments from canning jar rings with an old family photo attached inside the cover. I made a number of them, all different ancestors of the Wunrow and Mueller family lines. Fortunately we use them to this day. Each time I look at one I think of the family Christmases we have shared and loved over the years.
Christmas Memories from Jenny:
As a little girl I can remember saving up all my money (from chores and
eventually our Post route) for Christmas shopping for my family. Dad used
to load us up and take us to Drew's Variety Store where he'd let us go and
find the treasures we needed to get for our sibblings and mom and dad. One
year Julie and I were so excited by what we got for each other we decided to
share what we'd bought. I got her a cash register and she got me .........
We'd even wrap all the gifts ourselves which wasn't always pretty but
required lots of tape. Then one year Dad taught us the art of using just a
little tape and how to strategically place is horizontally on the edge to
maximize stickage.
Every Christmas Mom made sure each of us kids had a new (store bought)
Christmas outfit to open and then wear for Christmas. It was the first
present we got to open so that we could "get ready" for Grandma and Grandpa
Wunrow's house. My earliest memory is of going to their house on 85th
Street for Christmas Eve supper. Sometimes Uncle Keith's family was also
there with us. I remember sitting around their dining room table with
everyone and eating her chicken casserole. Grandma's meals were never
extravagant but always yummy!) We'd then open our gifts from Grandma and
Grandpa. We kids usually tried to rush through this because inevitably
Grandma shopped for items we needed and gifts were usually socks, a sweater,
or even underwear (maybe not!) and we really wanted to get home and see if
Santa had come to our house yet.
Grandpa Wunrow always had a great time giving away brown bag gifts to each
person that came to Christmas Eve. He'd scout through the garage and
basement to find "useful" items that each of us could use and wrap them in a
brown lunch bag (if they fit) otherwise a grocery brown bag. My mom always
tensed up after we opened our treasures from Grandpa. After all, it'd be
hauled home and then she'd have to find a place to put it! I remember
getting a neat plaque one year that my dad made in elementary school. I
also remember Debra once got a plastic electric lighted Santa. This really
impressed me because normally our brown bag gifts were used, recycled items
and this clearly was brand new! I can remember thinking how much Grandpa
must love Debra!
After opening our gifts at their house I remember that we'd go to church.
Along the way we always looked for clues that Santa was amongst us. I
remember vividly one time I saw him driving in a car and was excited that he
was so close to our house that he must have dropped off our toys!
After I was older (and everyone else too) and in middle school we'd fill
Grandma and Grandpa's Christmas stockings with goodies mom brought along and
hung them on their fireplace without getting caught. Later, I remember that we stopped going to Grandma and Grandpa's house and instead had them over to our house after supper sometmes after church at Hales Corners Lutheran Church. One year it was so cold we all wore long underwear and wool socks
under our dresses!
In subsequent years Debra would join us. We always started with breakfast at a restaurant and then went shopping. One of these later times we shopped at the Drews store in Hales Corners. Debra was about three or four then and she shopped with me spending her own money. When we returned home they would spend some time wrapping these treasures for each other.
I can’t reflect on Christmases past without remembering the year when all the kids were sick in December with stomach flu. Mom had the four older ones lying on the pullout couch in the family room so she could tend to them more easily. It seems this was the situation for most of the two weeks before Christmas Day. Later, after Christmas, the flu bug would hit Mom, but always after Christmas. She would stay in bed and sleep for at least two days before arising and caring again for her brood. It seems like more that once, she took to bed after the holidays to fight off the flu and recover. But it seemed that she simply willed herself to stay well until the crucial days were over and I was home to take her place in the house for a few days.
Christmas 1970 is also memorable. We were hosting big gathering at our house that year
. Duane had been having trouble with various bronchial infections and nothing seems to help. I recall his difficulty breathing, his red cheeks and watery eyes throughout Christmas Day. We later decided that part of his problem was an allergy to tree pollen and so we decided to purchase an artificial tree. We found one a few days after Christmas at Stein Garden Center on Highway 100. It was white plastic; a little different for us, but the price was right and the choices few. And we found that it looked really nice when decorated. A day or so later, the Stein store burned down.One Christmas with the white tree, we were seriously involved in putting up the tree and all the other traditional decoration around the house. Now you have to understand that these efforts were not always completely happy occasions. In fact, stress was a constant companion.
Anyway, I decided that it would be fun and a learning experience to tape record some of this obnoxious behavior, especially at the supper table. It was successful. We learned how silly some of that negative stuff sounded. Of course Jeff got suspicious, later saying that the tip off was that I was strangely quiet throughout the meal.That same year, I used my new 8-mm movie camera, which had a stop action feature. In other words, you could set it to take a frame every minute or so. So I set it on a tripod and filmed the setting up of our white tree, branch by branch. In its finished form the whole thing takes about half a minute. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it.
Somewhere in the late 70s or early 80s we gradually changed our traditions from spending Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa Wunrow’s to visiting them and then spending most of our time at our house. From early on we attended church at Divine Shepherd, later transferring to Hales Corners Lutheran about the time David and the twins were old enough for confirmation classes. And the tradition of having the Sunday School program on Christmas Eve was changed to an earlier Sunday, replaced by a worship service of music and lights.
And the Mueller family celebration evolved into a rotational hosting of either Thanksgiving or Christmas Day between the Freitags and our family. I have only to imagine the difficulties of preparing for Christmas in 1969 and 1972, just weeks before the births of Duane and Debra. But Mom was always a trooper and one who gave of herself always before herself.
Who can forget the frigid cold Christmas Eve in the late 1980s when the temperatures dropped down into the minus teens. We all went to church, but not before dressing up with long johns, boots, heavy sweaters and warm cap and mittens. We looked like we were going camping, but safety was our only concern that night. We worried about the cars starting, but all went well and we made it back to our house for our traditional gift opening.
Or how about the balmy Christmas also in the late 1980s when the temps soared into the sixties and the guys played football on the front lawn.
We started wit
h family photos when we were just four kids in the late 1960s. Probably the most memorable photo is the one we took on a balmy early fall on the front steps of our house with the temperature a warm 75-80 degrees. It was planned as a cross country ski picture since that was our winter passion, or at least mine. So all of us were decked out in winter jackets and caps holding our skis. Well, my teenagers were mortified that someone they knew would drive by and see this ridiculous situation. If you look at the resulting photo you can just about read the minds of these mindful but reluctant kids.But one of my efforts that I am particularly proud of is associated with my family history hobby. Sometime in the 1970’s I decided to make ornaments from canning jar rings with an old family photo attached inside the cover. I made a number of them, all different ancestors of the Wunrow and Mueller family lines. Fortunately we use them to this day. Each time I look at one I think of the family Christmases we have shared and loved over the years.
Christmas Memories from Jenny:
As a little girl I can remember saving up all my money (from chores and
eventually our Post route) for Christmas shopping for my family. Dad used
to load us up and take us to Drew's Variety Store where he'd let us go and
find the treasures we needed to get for our sibblings and mom and dad. One
year Julie and I were so excited by what we got for each other we decided to
share what we'd bought. I got her a cash register and she got me .........
We'd even wrap all the gifts ourselves which wasn't always pretty but
required lots of tape. Then one year Dad taught us the art of using just a
little tape and how to strategically place is horizontally on the edge to
maximize stickage.
Every Christmas Mom made sure each of us kids had a new (store bought)
Christmas outfit to open and then wear for Christmas. It was the first
present we got to open so that we could "get ready" for Grandma and Grandpa
Wunrow's house. My earliest memory is of going to their house on 85th
Street for Christmas Eve supper. Sometimes Uncle Keith's family was also
there with us. I remember sitting around their dining room table with
everyone and eating her chicken casserole. Grandma's meals were never
extravagant but always yummy!) We'd then open our gifts from Grandma and
Grandpa. We kids usually tried to rush through this because inevitably
Grandma shopped for items we needed and gifts were usually socks, a sweater,
or even underwear (maybe not!) and we really wanted to get home and see if
Santa had come to our house yet.
Grandpa Wunrow always had a great time giving away brown bag gifts to each
person that came to Christmas Eve. He'd scout through the garage and
basement to find "useful" items that each of us could use and wrap them in a
brown lunch bag (if they fit) otherwise a grocery brown bag. My mom always
tensed up after we opened our treasures from Grandpa. After all, it'd be
hauled home and then she'd have to find a place to put it! I remember
getting a neat plaque one year that my dad made in elementary school. I
also remember Debra once got a plastic electric lighted Santa. This really
impressed me because normally our brown bag gifts were used, recycled items
and this clearly was brand new! I can remember thinking how much Grandpa
must love Debra!
After opening our gifts at their house I remember that we'd go to church.
Along the way we always looked for clues that Santa was amongst us. I
remember vividly one time I saw him driving in a car and was excited that he
was so close to our house that he must have dropped off our toys!
After I was older (and everyone else too) and in middle school we'd fill
Grandma and Grandpa's Christmas stockings with goodies mom brought along and
hung them on their fireplace without getting caught. Later, I remember that we stopped going to Grandma and Grandpa's house and instead had them over to our house after supper sometmes after church at Hales Corners Lutheran Church. One year it was so cold we all wore long underwear and wool socksunder our dresses!
