Farm Progress holiday traditions

<p>Prairie Farmer editor Holly Spangler says her church’s Christmas Eve service in their barn is her favorite part of the holiday season. Good friends, hymns with a guitar, cows in the background, straw bale seats, all on a cold night with warm fellowship and a reminder of the perfect peace born of a baby in a manger - it’s a combination that’s hard to beat for their family.</p>

<p>Dakota Farmer editor Sarah McNaughton's tradition includes watching “It’s a wonderful life” on Christmas Eve with her family while eating an assortment of snacks in front of the fire.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Policy Editor Jacqui Fatka puts her creative juices to work each Christmas in drafting a special Christmas letter that goes beyond just sharing the details for all her family and friends. Favorite letters over the years have been themed as a LIFE game board, multiple choice, a year in review based on movie titles, Oh the Places You'll Go and this year "recipes" for each family member.</p>

<p>Indiana Prairie Farmer editor Tom J. Bechman began decorating his house (photos on the right) and front lots with lots over a decade ago for Christmas, thanks to his son, Daniel. At its' peak, it featured a 20-minute program with lights set to music, all computer controlled. People driving by could listen on their car radio. It included a nativity scene and even included Charlie Brown talking to Lucy via blinking Christmas lights! Today, Daniel and his wife, Katie, have taken the light and music show to two other locations. Tom still puts up a nativity and small light display each year. He hasn't hosted the 'big show,' for five years, but neighbors still talk about it!</p>

<p>LEFT: Daniel Bechman built this ‘tree of trees’ to enhance the lighted Christmas display set to music at Duane Sickels Christmas Tree Farm near Winchester, Ind. It was added to the lighted display, which features blinking lights set to music in a 20- minute concert, in 2020, and is lighting up hearts again this year. Sickels and his wife, Marsha, have operated the Christmas tree farm, in addition to row crops,&nbsp;sheep and goats, for three decades. Duane dreamed up the idea of this tree, made of individual plywood trees, and Daniel did the rest. Lights on the tree blink and dance to music.</p>

<p>Jennifer M. Latzke, Kansas Farmer editor, and her family have a tradition of adding figurines to their nativity scene. It started when she was a little girl and she asked my mother why the cows in the nativity were Holsteins and not Angus like those raised on the farm she grew up on.</p>

<p>Latzke's mom bought craft paint and rectified that.</p>

<p>In her scene, Latzke has figurines she's picked up on travels. One of the wise men broke and so she replaced him with the Cuban Farmer brought home from a trip to Cuba with AAEA. There is a Vietnam dragon from my trip with KARL Class X in 2011. There’s a donkey from Peru, a parrot from Costa Rica, a donkey from Mexico, a pig from Argentina, and many more.</p>

<p>Each one reminds Latzke of people and places she keeps in my heart, and reminds her that this scene is for all.</p>

<p>Merry Christmas, happy holidays and may 2022 be filled with love and joy for you and yours!</p>

<p>Art director Melissa Landgraf's Christmas morning traditions with her daughters are centered around things that both she and her husband have carried over from their childhoods. After all the gifts have been opened from Santa, they make warm cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Then the family cuddles up on the couch while eating gooey treats, and watch Jim Henson’s “Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas” and “A Claymation Christmas Celebration.” She hopes her daughters aren’t too emotionally scarred by her husband’s rendition of “Ain’t No Hole in the Washtub” or the California Raisins singing Christmas songs to carry on the traditions with their families when they are older.</p>

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<p>Have you ever been threatened with a lump of coal for Christmas? That’s what Michigan/Ohio Farmer's editor Jennifer Kiel's nephew’s mother, Verna, told her son, Joshua, one year and she followed through – sort of. Lumpy is a rubbery, animated and vocal lump of coal with a chiseled face and piercing white eyes, donning a Santa hat. Kiel doesn't think the hysterical bellows in her folks’ living room were ever louder, as with one touch of lumpy, he springs into action. The family got such a kick out of it, they made it a tradition of handing off the gravelly voiced, singing sinister every year to another member of the family. Everyone has had him at least twice, so by now they can all sing the song from memory. It goes like this…</p>

<p>“Jingle bells, Christmas smells, you’re getting coal today. Had you been nice, just once or twice, it could’ve gone your way. Hey! Now you’re sad, you’ve been real bad, you’re getting squat today. Christmas is here, shed your tears, so you and I can play!”</p>

<p>Lumpy used to sway back and forth while singing, but at some point he became stationary. He’s also got a few little holes in his hat, but he comes out every year and the same eruption of laughter ensues. At the end of the day, he gets tucked away for next year, and the recipient designates by writing on the box who is to open him next. It just never gets old!</p>

<p>With a plethora of livestock show ribbons from her daughter’s years of showing sheep across the state and country, Missouri Ruralist editor Mindy Ward started a new tradition for the family. She put up a tree in the dining room and decorated it with her daughters' ribbons and ornaments, even one they made themselves complete with construction paper. The first year they saw it, they fell in love; it has been up ever since. It reminds the family of the fun times had over the years with each other and their extended show stock family. It takes the next generation to start a tradition worth passing down. Ward encourages you all to find one and just do it!! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!</p>

<p>Before joining Farm Progress and Nebraska Farmer, Curt Arens and his family raised Christmas trees on a small choose-and-cut lot, along with other crops and livestock in their diversified family operation. For nearly 20 years, a loyal band of regular family customers from northeast Nebraska and southeast South Dakota made the annual trek to their Bow View Christmas Acres, as it was known, to choose their perfect tree for the Christmas season. Although Arens no longer raises Christmas trees, he and his family, including wife Donna, and children, Lauren, Taylor, Zac and Ben, go to a local tree farm to choose their perfect real Christmas tree for their home near Crofton, Neb. It is an important family tradition for the Arens'.&nbsp;</p>

<p>On behalf of Nebraska Farmer, Curt and his family wish all of our loyal readers a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Christmas for staff writer Kevin Schultz and his family centers around three Fs – Faith, Family and Food. Christmas Eve the family attends services celebrating the birth of Christ, after which they gather at Schulz' brother’s place with his family, their family and his Dad. This will be first Christmas without his mother, which is sad for so many reasons, but she really loved Christmas. Once gathered for fellowship, the family antagonizes the little ones by making them eat supper before opening presents. They dive into German heritage for the Christmas Eve meal of tacos. Schulz doesn't remember when, how or why that tradition started, but it’s been a staple for many years. Merry Christmas!</p>

<p>Fruitcake, loaded with candied cherries, candied pineapple, dates and walnuts, is a family favorite for Paula Mohr, editor of The Farmer in Minnesota. While growing up on her family’s dairy farm in Michigan’s Thumb, her mom Barbara Mohr make this special treat every holiday season.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Wisconsin Agriculturist editor Fran O'Leary and her husband live in Brandon, Wis., and have four sons. When their youngest sons, Nathan and Matthew, who are twins, were one year old, they started taking our Christmas photo of the boys under the Christmas tree. Over the years, the photo evolved, and the family moved the photo outside where there was more space. As her sons got older, their girlfriends/wives joined the photo and a few years ago, even Fran and her husband Neil started getting in the act.</p>

<p>Now their twins are 28 years old and there are 10 in the photo. A friend took the photo (right) for this year’s Christmas card on O'Leary's front porch after Thanksgiving dinner. She sends out about 80 Christmas cards each December to family and friends. They love seeing how the family has grown and changed over the years. The photo on the left is from 2008 when Ryan, center, was 17 and Matthew and Nathan were 15. The oldest son Josh was married and sat out a few Christmas photos until the younger sons were in their late teens. Next year, the family will add another member as Matthew and his wife Ashley, far right, are expecting their first child, and our first grandchild, in February. From left: Megan, Ryan, Qi, Nathan, Shelly, Josh, Fran, Neil, Ashley and Matthew. From the O’Leary family to yours – Merry Christmas!</p>

<p>Jen Koukol, digital team member, loves Christmas lights. As a child, she and her sister and parents would drive around to check out local displays, including one particularly over-the-top, Griswold-esque home, every year. This year she and her family put up a display at their home, but every year they spend an evening driving around near St. Paul, Minn., to see different displays. Her favorites are the ones set to music!</p>

<p>Among other traditions, she and her family also take a day each December to make cookies. Sugar cookie cutouts are a favorite, and no family of partial Swedish descent should be without rosettes, as well as other delicious treats (lutefisk, NOT included). From Minnesota to you, happy holidays!</p>

<p>Director of user engagement, Eric Braun and his family read the poem “Santa Mouse” every year. When he was a little kid he and his sister would beg their mother to read so much that she had it memorized. Then every year she was made to recite it to everyone without the book. She passed away in 2007, far too young, and now every year we read it to honor and also because it’s really a sweet little story. We also leave a piece of cheese out along with the cookies and milk.</p>

<p>Chris Torres, editor of American Agriculturist, likes taking his sons – Miles, left, Malcolm, center, and Matthew – to a local Christmas tree farm on Black Friday. Later the night the Christmas tree gets decorated for the season.</p>

<p>Shelley Huguley, Southwest Farm Press (shown here with her daughter), makes Christmas cookies with her family each year. They use her Granny's sugar cookie recipe and use the same cookie cutters her mom used when she and her siblings were little.</p>