Northern Wyoming News - Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years

WORLAND – Every family has traditions that they do every Christmas, but not every family has the same traditions. The way people in the same community celebrate Christmas is as different as night and day.

Some of the traditions start well before Christmas day such as the advent calendar. There are many different definitions of the advent calendar but the main gist is that it is a December calendar that has a little door for each day that is opened to reveal an assortment of different things. Some advent calendars have a little gift for each day and others have colorful characters peeking out. It’s loved by children as they count down the days to Christmas.

Many families have the tradition of the elf on the shelf. The elf on the shelf is a little elf that moves around keeping an eye on the children. Wyoming Highway Patrol Lieutenant Karl Germain has a similar version of the elf on a shelf, it’s an angel on the shelf. “We do the angel on the shelf. We have a little tray with some glitter in it and we will write a message to the kids every night. They think that the angel is writing the message.”

Germain also has a family tradition where the family celebrates the feast day of Saint Nicholas on Dec. 6 instead of having Santa come Christmas Eve. “Traditionally kids would leave their shoes out and get gifts in their shoes on that day. We try to put a religious spin on Christmas and celebrate the birth of Christ versus buying into the whole secularism of it. When the kids wake up they will have some presents and treats and we try to get them one of those chocolate Santa Clauses and some small gifts and we put them in the shoes. The kids absolutely love it, they have a blast and they look forward to it every year,” Germain explained.

One tradition that has, for the most part, fallen to the wayside is the Christmas family newsletter. Washakie County Library director Karen Funk keeps that tradition alive. “I like to do a traditional snail mail Christmas letter that talks about things we have done, my animals, how things are going in life,” Funk said.

Tumbleweed Propane owner and Hot Springs County Commissioner-elect Philip Scheel started a new tradition this season that he plans on doing every from now on. “We went with the church group up to the national forest on Grass Creek and cut down a Christmas tree for the church. I think that that is something that we are going to start as a tradition. It was a fun time taking the youth of our church and going to the mountains for the day to find a good Christmas tree. Then we had a little camp fire and roasted hot dogs and had some hot cocoa before coming back down to the church and decorating the church Christmas tree,” Scheel stated.

Scheel also participates in the Angel Tree. The Angel Tree is a tree that has angels, snowmen or slips of paper that contains a needy child’s age, sizes and Christmas wish. People pick a child and shop for that child to make the child’s Christmas as special as they can. Scheel and his family pick two or three children every year and shop as a family for those children.

Many families have Christmas Eve traditions. In my family when I was a child, we would open one gift on Christmas Eve. Northern Wyoming Daily News advertising salesperson Amanda Owens recalled opening a gift on Christmas Eve that was always pajamas.

Hot Springs Greater Learning Foundation education director Jacky Wright has a couple special traditions for Christmas Eve. After the candlelight service at their church her family gets together to watch some special family videos. “When our son (Wyatt) was not even a year old his grandparents came to visit and his granddad read him the story “The Night Before Christmas” and we recorded it. And we have the book that he read from and every Christmas Eve we watch the video and read the book, even though he’s 16 now. A couple of years ago we were with his grandparents in England and we recorded my dad again reading the book to him, when he was 14, I think. So we now have a video of that that we also play. We took with us the Wyoming version of the night before Christmas and we had Wyatt read that to his granddad. So now we have three videos that we play every Christmas Eve,” Wright said.

Northern Wyoming Daily News Editor Karla Pomeroy wraps presents for her fur babies to open Christmas Eve.

Some people can’t wait to put up their Christmas tree and put it up as soon as possible while others wait until Christmas Eve to put up their tree. Some people take their tree down the day after Christmas while others wait until New Year’s Day or longer. Every family seems to have their own tradition when it comes to the Christmas tree. “We always wait until Christmas Eve to decorate the Christmas tree and we do it together as a family,” Germain stated. “The Christmas season actually goes through to the epiphany. The 12 days of Christmas, we will leave our tree up throughout the entire Christmas season. We celebrate Christmas for the full 12 days,” he added.

Christmas Day leads to more varied traditions. Wright and her family always listen to the Queen’s speech on Christmas Day. “We always watch the queen’s speech on TV. These days we watch it on the internet. When we lived in the Cayman Islands Michael (Wright’s husband) used to have to stand there with a wire coat hanger attached to the back of the TV so that we could pick it up over the air waves.”

Germain and his family always go to church on Christmas Day. Others like Ten Sleep School Superintendent Jimmy Phelps go to visit family.

Funk takes the time on Christmas Day to reminisce. “I do a lot of reminiscing of my mother’s baking. There are so many food traditions of things you had in the past, things that you liked, things that you had as a child. That’s a big thing, I go through my mom’s recipes, I see her handwriting, the stains on the recipe cards and it’s a good reflection time,” she said.

For Christmas dinner most people have either roast turkey or ham. Wright and her family have a couple added extras to go along with their meal, Christmas crackers and plum pudding. “Christmas Day we have a thing called a Christmas pudding that would be dessert, after you’ve had your roast turkey. I think that you call it plum pudding here, so it’s a fruit based thing that gets steamed. The traditional way to serve that is to pour brandy on it and set it on fire. We don’t usually do that at home, we usually just pour fresh cream on it. We also have Christmas crackers. It’s a cardboard tube covered in pretty wrapping and inside there is this thing that pops when it’s pulled apart. What comes out when you pull it apart, you pull it apart with a partner, is a paper hat that you have to wear while eating Christmas dinner and there will also be a corny joke and a little gift. So every person at the table would have one of these at their dinner place,” Wright explained.

Traditions also change throughout the years as children grow up, get married, move away and have children of their own, creating their own traditions along the way. I remember the traditions that we had when I was growing up. We would get up early and get our stockings. After our stockings we would have breakfast and then pile into the vehicle and go over to my grandparents. There we would have Christmas dinner around 2 p.m. After Christmas dinner we would retire to the living room where we would open gifts one at a time. Each person would open one gift while the others watched and we would take turns so the process of opening gifts would go well past supper time. At the time I wished that we were like everyone else and could open gifts first thing in the morning. Now I know that the way we did Christmas was special and made Christmas last all day instead of being over early in the morning. I miss those traditions.