Students and faculty reminisce about favorite Christmas memories

Eden Dehne

Sower Staff

Christmases when we were kids are some of our most cherished memories. Here are some favorite memories from Concordia faculty and students.

Erica Lamm – Associate Professor of Communication, MBA Program Director

Lamm and her brother on Christmas

My favorite Christmas memory was from 1987 when my brother was born. He was born on Dec. 22, and he was still in the hospital on Christmas Day with my mom.

So we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day – me and my sisters – with just Dad there. And for some reason, that Christmas morning we woke up, and all of our Santa presents were in paper bags with our names on them. We thought it was so weird that Santa would use paper bags this year and not wrap our presents all perfectly like he always did.

It took us years to realize that was because Dad doesn’t know how to wrap presents. And so, he just put everything in paper bags and wrote our names on them, and those were our Santa presents that year, and I’ll never forget that. And then I got a baby brother out of it too.

Marissa Heins – Freshman

Heins family holding their goats

My favorite Christmas memory is from 2015. My family and I were getting ready to go to our school’s Christmas program. When I was almost finished getting ready, my dad called and said that our goat, Nibbles, was about to have her babies.

We rushed down to the barn to check it out. We knew she was going to have two babies, but soon it was time to leave for the program, and she had only had one. We waited for a few minutes, and soon she had her second kid.

It was very chilly outside and the babies had not nursed yet, so we called my grandpa and uncle, and they decided to stay with them until we got back to make sure they nursed and seemed to be doing well. That night after the Christmas Program, we went home and went straight to the barn to check on the babies.

We named the younger one Manger, which means “to feed,” because he began to nurse only a few minutes after birth. We named the other, older baby Alpha because it means beginning and he was our first baby goat that we have ever had. From birth, Alpha was a good-looking, healthy goat. At the Lafayette County Goat Show he won Grand Champion Market Goat.

Olivia Nafzger – Freshman

A lot of people have fairly nostalgic Christmas memories. This is not a specific memory, but a place where I grew up spending Christmas every year and therefore contains countless memories within it.

The last two miles to get there were abandoned country roads. The road wound through the woods up and down hills until that last hill, which as the car reached the top the white picket fence came into view.

Nafzger posing beside the Christmas tree

As the car turned off the main road the willow tree with the swing was in full view standing between the house and the road.

Upon my dad turning off the car we would be out the sliding van door and rounding the front walk to the front door. We would ring the doorbell and see figures moving about through the etched glass door. Finally, after the seconds that seemed like minutes the big door would swing open revealing both grandparents smiling and singing out “Welcome!”

Walking in the door, a wall of smell hit us. A combination of the wood burning fireplace and Christmas cookies cooling on the stove. German Christmas carols would be playing throughout the house, and the tree with all its ornaments and lights was clearly visible from the door. It was the type of house where you instantly felt at home.

At this house were late nights playing board games in the kitchen, and lazy mornings drinking eggnog and coffee. Extended family gathered at this place in rural Missouri every December for almost 20 years, and all the grandchildren grew up celebrating there every year. Though we will no longer return to that place, all of the fond memories of cousins and Christmas remain.

Beikmann and her second cousins jump on hay bales

Claire Beikmann – Freshman

I would probably say one of my favorite Christmas memories would be jumping on hay bales at my grandparents’ house with my second cousins. I was probably around 11 or 12. It was really fun, and I enjoyed bonding with my second cousins.

Raegan Skelton – Assistant Professor of Biology

Skelton and her brother posing with Santa at the mall

When I was little, my great grandpa would dress up as Santa Claus and we would all gather in the living room to quietly watch him place presents under the tree. At the time, I had no idea it was my great grandpa!

It’s surprising that I enjoyed this, considering how unsure I am in the photo with my older brother when we went to get pictures with Santa at the mall! I look back at those memories with fond thanks. Now that I have my own son approaching his first Christmas season, I look forward to sharing not only the magic of Christmas with him but the true meaning of Christmas as my parents made sure to do with my brother and me.