Posts with the tag “memoir”

What are your favorite Christmas Eve or Christmas Day traditions? Is there a particular cookie that you always eat first? Is there a certain tie that you wear every year to the Christmas Eve service? To spark a return to the eternal debate: do you open your presents on Christmas Eve, Christmas morning, or Christmas afternoon?While I have a variety of traditions that others might share, I also have...  Read More

When home begins to fill with the varied wonderful smells of baking cookies, Christmas memories come flooding back...  Read More

How do you rejoice? I often think of rejoicing as a musical activity, done by singers or instrumentalists...  Read More

Arise, shine, for your light has come. It can be difficult to shine sometimes...  Read More

While singing in Christmas at Luther in my freshman year, I got the chance to experience a traditional part of the Christmas service from a unique perspective...  Read More

Our arrival in Chiang Mai in the northwest of Thailand highlighted how busy the city was...  Read More

For the fifth time in a single day, I had to stand, silent and unmoving...  Read More

It was a cold, rainy afternoon in Rouen, France. I was standing at an overlook on La Côte Sainte Catherine. Even just getting to the overlook had been a challenge...  Read More

Zwiebrucken, Germany…December 1954Shortly before Christmas, the staff at the Service Club asked for volunteers to be “Fathers for a Day” for some orphans from Zwiebrucken.About 10:00 an olive drab bus pulled up to the base chapel.  The windows were filled with smiling faces—outside, gathered on the ground, around the bus, were the “expectant fathers” awaiting their new families.It was soon determi...  Read More

(The following is a selection from Journeys: An Anthology of Adult Student Writing 2012 produced by The Minnesota Literacy Council.  Susan Ault shared this book and uses it in her work with adult English language learners through the Hopkins Schools.  Her students also contribute to the annual editions of this anthology.)My favorite holiday is Christmas Day because I’m from a poor family, and when...  Read More

I hold my young daughter’s mittened hand as we walk in the cold night, Christmas caroling with the Children’s Choir and a few adults.  The carolers knock at another door, waiting with anticipation.  The wait seems longer than it really is.  The gentleman that opens the door peers at us, looking over eyeglasses positioned far down on his nose.  We are from his church, just up the road in Minnetonka...  Read More

Macy’s on 34th Street, a Saturday night three weeks before Christmas. The nip in the air and the brisk breeze made us pull our hoods and scarves tight against our ears. Bright lights, big city—with crowds both overstressed and festive, it seemed as if everyone in New York City was downtown that night. Someone in our tour group had said to be sure to go to Macy’s and see the decorations. To us firs...  Read More

Daddy was not a man of the cloth….as they say...the word “cloth” acquired its meaning in 1634 when it began denoting one’s preference for the profession of clergymen.  Daddy was a keeper of the soil and seeds...God’s crops.  In other words he was a farmer (a sower of the seeds).  God’s crops….a farmer...as I said, “a sower of the seeds”. But one year prior to Advent, my mom asked him to design and...  Read More

[This memoir is by a student in Susan Ault’s English Language Learner course for Hopkins schools.]In my native city of Poncitlan, Mexico, the biggest celebration of the year is the Virgin of the Rosary.  This celebration starts on November 23rd and lasts for eight days.At five o-clock in the morning the people are inside the church and the mariachi band plays the Happy Birthday song.  When they si...  Read More

When the base of the tree would begin to fill with presents over the course of December, my brother and I always kept an eye out for one from our great aunt Judy.  She lived in the mythical land of Seattle which we had heard of in stories of our much older brother Jeff’s legendary trip to the World’s Fair.  We just knew that Aunt Judy sent the coolest gifts.  In her wisdom our mother never loaded ...  Read More

This Advent memoir is from Carol Olson, Rolf Olson’s mother, a resident of Madison, Minnesota, and member of Faith Lutheran Church.There was church every Wednesday during Advent, and I know that if mother and father went, we kids went, too.  And there was all of the baking preparations then, baking cookies and making traditional Norwegian sweets and breads.  It was an exciting time.  I can remembe...  Read More

[This memoir is by a student in Susan Ault’s English Language Learner course for Hopkins schools.]Christmas preparations in Sierra Leone for Advent are different from America. In America all they do is exchange gifts and go to work.  But, in Sierra Leone people will start celebrating a week before Christmas.  On Christmas Eve, people will do a lot of grocery shopping and buy lots of meats and chic...  Read More

From Kyong S. an English language learner from South Korea in Susan Ault’s classThe Republic of Korea allowed December 25 as a national holiday.  Therefore, from Christmas Eve until the next day, the 25th, it can be considered as a Christmas holiday.  There is nothing like a Christmas holiday like the West.  So Christmas doesn’t bring the whole family together. All Christians are judged before Chr...  Read More

“Merry Christmas” in German: “Frohe Weihnachten”  by Ursula S., a student in Susan Ault’s English Language Learner course for Hopkins schools. When I was a little girl, we lived in a small town in Bavaria, southern Germany, with my twin sister and an older sister.  We would celebrate St. Nicholas (Santa Claus) on the 6th of December.  It was a special day for us.  That was when St. Nicholas came t...  Read More

[This piece was provided by Susan Ault's mother who is 92 years old. Prior to the pandemic she golfed most days, loved bowling and enjoyed traveling the world.]It all began with the Christmas ‘Wishbooks’ coming in the mail.  Oh, how we poured over those pages knowing they were for our eyes only!  Soon, practicing for the annual country school program began.  The usual carols, skits and solos were ...  Read More