Christmas: Little House Style
Celebrate Christmas Like Laura Ingalls Wilder
Christmas was a particularly meaningful holiday for Laura Ingalls Wilder. Very few holidays are mentioned in her books. She mentions Thanksgiving during the Plum Creek years and she talks of the Fourth of July more than once.
However, the premier holiday of Laura’s childhood was clearly Christmas.
Christmas and Important Memories
Christmas was central in Laura’s memories for two reasons. For one reason, the Ingalls were not wealthy people and could spare little for extras throughout the year. In fact, they made as many household and personal items as they were able to and seldom purchased pre-made items from the store. As a result, Christmas gifts were especially meaningful since they represented an outlay of precious time such as Laura’s first rag doll Charlotte or money such as the precious Christmas tin cups that Laura and Mary received in Indian territory.
The second reason Christmas figured so strongly in Laura’s memory is that often the Ingalls’ diet was limited and spare. Laura was a child who grew up understanding hunger. In her book, The Little House Cookbook: Frontier Foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Classic Stories, Barbara M. Walker writes that in the Little House books “much of the action centers on food--hunting it, growing it, losing it to natural disasters, cooking it, preserving it, and eating it. On the frontier, feeding the family was a task that took most of everyone’s time…Food also looms large in this pioneer chronicle because there was rarely enough of it. Though she tells of being listless and weak from near-starvation during the Long Winter the storybook Laura never complains of hunger. Yet the real grownup Laura’s memory for daily fare and holiday feasts says more about her eagerness for meals, her longing for enough to eat, than it does for her interest in cooking. (3-4)”
Feeling Full at Christmas
Walker’s thesis is confirmed in Laura’s account of the first Christmas we read about in her books the Christmas at The Little House in the Big Woods. In it we read that the children did not say a word at the table because they knew that children should “be seen and not heard. But they did not need to ask for second helpings. Ma and Aunt Eliza kept their plates full and let them eat all the good things they could hold.”
The chance to indulge in feasting to the bursting point was clearly understood by their parents. While in Indian Territory, Ma indulges the overly excited children on Christmas morning by telling Pa “Don’t make them [eat] Charles. It will soon be dinner-time.”
Christmas Memories
Laura’s memories of Christmas include the terrifying near-loss of Pa during a vicious blizzard. Pa returns to their home on The Banks of Plum Creek after three days lost in the snow. He survived the ordeal by eating the Christmas candy and Christmas crackers. However, the oysters came safely through as they were frozen when he bought them and remained frozen during the long three days. The book ends on Christmas Eve. Laura listens to Pa play the fiddle and realizes “Tomorrow was Christmas, with oyster stew for dinner. There would be no presents and no candy, but Laura could not think of anything she wanted and she was so glad that the Christmas candy had helped to bring Pa safely home again.”
As Laura matures, she concludes in On the Shores of Silver Lake that “Every Christmas is better than the Christmas before…I guess it must be because I am growing up.” When Carrie asks her in These Happy Golden Years “Oh Laura!…Isn’t this the nicest Christmas! Do Christmases get better all the time?”
Laura answers confidently “Yes, …They do.”
Christmas Like Laura
To celebrate Christmas like Laura, one needs to keep three ideas center stage on Christmas Day: food, family, and gratitude. For those who love the Little House Books, it could be fun to pick a meal from one of the Christmas celebrations that Laura describes and replicate it to share with your own family. A good source for recipes for those who choose to copy an Ingalls’ Christmas meal is The Little House Cookbook: Frontier Foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Classic Stories by Barbara M. Walker.
For those who are not so adventurous as to want to make an ‘authentic’ pioneer meal, the best meal to make should consist of comfortable foods that will be enjoyed not only by the people who consume it but will be an enjoyable and nurturing experience for the person who prepares the food. Surround yourselves with family at Christmas and do not forget to be thankful for the blessings God has given you. Consistent inclusion of these three ingredients in your Christmas celebrations increases the chance that ‘every Christmas be better than the Christmas before.’
Read more about Laura Ingalls Wilder and her books at Suite101.
The Little House Cookbook
|
What do you think about this article?
Comments
More in Reading & Literature
Latest Articles