Wanda Tegmeier's Christmas Pageant

People who now know me as a kind-hearted heathen might be surprised to hear I had extensive religious training in a rural clapboard church with peeling paint…at least until my best friend Carol Fujan talked me into playing hooky from Sunday services.

However, even Carol and I knew that as the season neared, Santa was watching, and it behooved us to keep our butts stuck to the pews throughout the sermon and, of course, to volunteer to be in the Christmas Eve church program.

When the annual insanity of the holiday season peaks, I like to travel back to that kinder, gentler time, to the Christmas pageant put on by our Methodist church in O Little Town of Carleton, Nebraska where I grew up.

Wanda Tegmeier, a lovely rotund woman who magically produced one baby boy every year, spearheaded the event.

Her oldest, Dick, was 8, and she cast him as Joseph. I was desperate to be the Virgin Mary, but one look at me, and anyone could see I was much naughtier than nice. However, my friend Carol, despite her sneaking-out-of-church ways, had the perfect holy face, and she got the part. So I ended up as one of the kids who recited a piece of the Christmas story.

Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and the wise men were off stage in the Sunday school room when the program began. The rest of us kids lined up in the back of the church with the choir. Wanda gave each of us a lit candle to carry. Thinking back, it doesn’t make sense that little kids would be allowed to transport open flames in an old wooden building, but those were more innocent times.

We marched to the front, singing “Come All Ye Faithful.” The choir took their seats. We placed our lit candles in the holders, dripping wax and narrowly avoiding setting the altar afire. A row of child-sized chairs waited for us to nervously sit until it was time to say our lines.

Rodney Smith took the lead and announced the census by Caesar Augustus. I had a crush on Rod. He looked like a 6-year-old George Clooney with a flat top.

Then Rosalee Penner, 14, beautiful and with a voice like an angel, sang “Silent Night.” The girl knew how to set a mood.

Next came Ricky Widler. He had red hair, freckles, and dripped with mischief. He’d threatened to moon the congregation, and I hoped he would drop his trousers, but he played it straight, introducing Mary and Joseph, who waltzed on stage, looking pure and holy. And so cued, the choir rose to sing “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” I thought it was the most beautiful carol in the whole world.

Bobbie, another one of the Tegmeier boys, stood to announce the arrival of the Baby Jesus. He took his infant brother from his mother Wanda and handed him to Mary who placed him in a cradle, and we little ones gathered around to sing a grotesquely off-tune version of “Away in the Manger.”

And on the pageant went. Doug Smith introduced the shepherds, and they trooped in wearing sheets belted with rope. You could see the cuffs of their dress pants and dark shoes, but they were still able to watch their flocks with stunning authenticity.

The choir sang “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.” Janet Penner delivered the line about “glad tidings of great joy,” and the congregation rose to sing “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” which made me think of another Harold, the nerdy son of our school bus driver.

Then it was my turn to say my piece and cue the wise men, my brother John, Bob Stofer and LeRoy Disney, all wearing striped bathrobes. They sang “We Three Kings.”

We all marched off stage singing “Joy to the World.”

Once we kids were seated in the pews, the choir sang “Up on the Rooftop.”

Good old Santa Claus appeared from the Sunday school room. It was my grandpa, and I knew because my grandma had mentioned about a hundred times how the only way she could get the old coot to church was to put him in a Santa suit.

Grandpa gave candy canes to all the little kiddies, and we went home to pick one present to open on Christmas Eve. Even if it was underwear, it didn’t matter, because the real Santa had not yet arrived, and our hearts were still full of hope and wonder.

Home for Christmas

When my brother John and I were in college in Nebraska, we shared a dilapidated two-bedroom cottage within walking distance of campus. Yes, the kitchen floor sloped, and we had to kick doors to get them to open and close, but the place was a mere 120 dollars a month, and it was home to us.

We lived with two dogs, a spirited Brittany spaniel and a mellow half-pint Aussie. My brother took them mushroom hunting with him. You might think stalking toadstools was a recipe for agonizing death, but John possessed a library full of esoteric information on fungi. No mushroom was consumed until it had been positively identified with spore print and all.

The tastiest and most plentiful of the wild mushrooms were morels. Our kitchen was strung with lines of them drying. Fresh or dried, these mushrooms turned ordinary fare into gourmet feasts.

Since we were students, we lived on a microscopic budget. What we ate had to be cheap. We shopped sparingly, and by the end of any month, what was left in the larder was slim.

So as Christmas neared that year, we had little food left in the house, not only because it was late in the month, but because we’d planned a 400-mile trip to the other end of the state to visit family. We both intended to load up on our mother’s excellent cooking during the semester break.

For weeks I’d been singing, “I’ll be home for Christmas…” driving John as crazy as any in-store holiday music ever could. Still we were in good spirits and ready for a cozy week with our mom and dad.

Then the storm came. It began with freezing rain. Ice pulled down electric lines and killed power for the area. Our furnace didn’t work without it. Then the blizzard arrived and blanketed the ice.

Our only hope of getting home was to have Santa pick us up in his sleigh, and we all know Mr. Claus has much more important duties in December.

Luckily, we had a gas stove and water heater, so we ran the oven and burners and continually refilled sinks and the bathtub with hot water.

We wore layers of warm clothes topped with parkas and really appreciated having two thick-furred dogs to cuddle with.

The snow got so deep the pooches didn’t want to go outside. We shoveled a clear space for them near the door, but we had to physically carry them out to get them to do their necessaries.

Our food supplies dwindled. Even though there was a great market a block away, it was closed due to the blizzard and for lack of electricity.

I took inventory of what we still had. Flour, potatoes, a few cans of soup and vegetables, powdered milk, cooking oil, and a well-stocked spice cabinet. And, of course, we had those wrinkly morels.

We put together a pot of soup and made bread and managed for the first couple of days. We weren’t about to starve, but it appeared Christmas dinner might be a little bleak.

The morning of Christmas day it was below zero. The power was still out and the roads were not yet cleared of snow. John appeared from his bedroom holding a can of tomato sauce, a package of spaghetti, and an onion. He’d been hoarding!

Add some morels to the above, and we had the makings of a most excellent meal. The aroma of onions sautéing was like heaven. The sauce simmered. The pasta boiled.

John dished up the feast and handed me my plate. I was ready to dive in, and that’s exactly what I did. Our Brittany spaniel took that moment to jump on me, and the uneven kitchen floor didn’t help matters. Whoops! My spaghetti slid off my plate and went flying. The dogs went to work cleaning it up.

My brother stared at my empty plate and then at the dogs lapping rich sauce from the floor.

“Don’t think for a second I’ll share my food with you.” He grumbled, grabbed my plate and filled it with half of his meal. He carefully carried both plates to the table himself. “Sit,” he said gruffly to me.

I did, and the dogs sat, too.

We ate, savoring every bite. All these years later I still remember the taste of that incredible sauce.

The meaning of this season is blessed with the good memories we keep. And we can be home for Christmas, if only in our dreams.