“The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree is the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.” Burton Hills
OUTLOOK - There are few among us who have as rich a history celebrating Christmas than Olga Moore who has seen more than 100 Christmases, having marked 104 years with her birthday on April 28.
“Oh yes, I have seen a lot of them,” Olga said with a chuckle. “I like Christmas.”
Olga, who is a resident at the long-term care center in Outlook, was the second youngest of 11 children and is the only surviving sibling. She has fond memories of celebrations with her large family. “We always had a nice Christmas at home when both my mom and dad were alive,” she said. “It was lovely. We never had Santa Claus. We just had love between parents and children. So much love. The house was full of love.”
There were no fancy decorations but that didn’t take away from the special memories that were created. “No, we didn’t have a tree, not at the old home,” she said. “There wasn’t too much of that. Stuff was expensive, you know. But we celebrated as wonderfully as we could.”
The celebration always included a gift. “We had Christmas parcels,” she shared. “Maybe a sweater or maybe socks. Just ordinary things. But it was special and it was just so cozy.”
An important part of Christmas was attending church services. “Oh yes, we always went to church. We went with team and sleigh.” She recalls one year in particular when her older sister had bought her a set of dishes. “One time we tipped in the sleigh and my present was in there and I remember thinking ‘my dishes, my dishes’,” she chuckled.
Olga was in high demand as a vocalist all her life and she gained wide acclaim for her talent. “I sang all the time,” she remarked. “I truly did.” She shared the story of singing at the fair in Regina after being selected locally to compete against others from all across the province. She won and was asked to sing at the grand finale. “The mounted police stood around the platform where I sang. That was quite the thing,” she remarked.
It’s not surprising then, that music played an important part in her Christmas celebrations. “We had such lovely programs at school and at the church,” she recalled. In a 2012 interview with John McPhail for The Outlook, Olga mentioned what big events those were. “We must have put on good Christmas programs because they had to take out the wall of the cloakroom in the one room school to hold the crowds that came,” she told McPhail.
Olga enjoys singing carols and says “Silent Night” is amongst her favorites, although “so many are so beautiful. We sang so much at Christmas time.” Her children remember with fondness the family dinners with aunts, uncles and cousins, topped off by singing carols around the piano with Mom and the relatives, and the beautiful harmonies that came from their voices.
They also recall the stories Mom would share of attending Saskatchewan River Church Christmas concerts. They heard of the Christmas tree that would be decorated with real candles. Every year a couple of men would stand by with pails of water, just in case the tree started on fire.
Olga and her husband Everard had five children; Twylla, Neil, Melanie, Miles and Darlene. As children got married and had families of their own the celebrations became even more joyful for Olga. “Oh yes, they came home and we had Christmas at home. It was very special. We had turkey and flatbread and lutefisk and so many wonderful things,” she said with a smile. She now has nine grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren.
Her children say there was no question where Olga wanted their attention to be. “From an early age Mom focused our Christmases to be about Jesus’ birth,” her daughter Melanie remarked. “Christmas Church concerts were so important to Mom whether practicing Bible verses with us or singing Christmas carols.”
Just as her parents made Christmas special for Olga, she in turn created memorable celebrations for her children and extended family. In the lead-up to the holidays Mom was busy making Norwegian favorites, said daughter Twylla, such as krumkaka, rosettes, fattigman, lefsa, other traditional shortbread cookies, and “her delicious Christmas fruit cake.”
Darlene recalls her Mom shopping either by the Sears or Eaton’s catalogues, and an occasional trip to Saskatoon to purchase gifts. “Christmas Eve was made special,” she said, “with new flannel pajamas and new flannel sheets, and then the anticipation of opening all our other gifts Christmas morning.”
Putting up a real tree and decorations about a week before Christmas was something the family looked forward to. “Although money was not always plentiful, mom and dad did their best to make special memories and unique experiences for each of us,” Melanie remarked. “We look back fondly on our Christmas memories. We are so blessed.”
A quote attributed to entertainer Bob Hope states, “My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others.” Olga can look back on a century of Christmases that were truly about sharing love with those that meant the most to her. “As children, of course, you didn’t have to worry about it. Christmas just came and it was beautiful,” Olga shared. “But it’s all about being together with my family. That was what we looked forward to.”
As she prepares to celebrate her 104th Christmas, Olga reflected on celebrations past. “We had it pleasant growing up. Those were good Christmases. They still are. The dear Lord has seen to that.”
