A Christmas memory from the 1880s

[Karen Kelsey]

Much of our Christmas happiness comes from our past - remembering holidays long ago, and of loved ones who are no longer with us. The web of memory is strong during this season, and it is something that usually helps us understand the past and face the future.  As I edited my family's letters from Sweden, I came across this paragraph, written in a letter dated December 4, 1905.  It describes memories of Christmas in Gärdslöv Parish, Scåne, in the home of a tenant farming family on the Näsybholm Estate:
    Dear Maria, do you remember Christmas at home, with the table next to the woodstove, Far on the couch, and Mother - with the pudding and the fish, and the glass pitcher with the good Christmas beer.  I think about it sometimes, and smile to myself, and dream of being a child again.  And I wonder how it is now (at the old home).  [translation by Berit Nightingale]
    In a later letter to Maria Ahlgren Bloom, written in 1925 by a different sister, Johanna Ahlgren, the following is quoted:
    Yes, my dear, now Christmas will soon be here.  Oh, how many Christmases have passed now since we children were gathered [together], and how many fights and turns we have had to go through.
 
May your Christmas be so good, that this year's memories might be written about, then read 100 years from now!  What memories do others have that were passed down to you by your ancestors?