Christmas is a special time of year, filled with sharing memories of Christmases past and spending time with friends and family. Progressive Cattle staff and a few of our regular contributors share Christmas memories that have a special place in their hearts.

Rick Machen

Christmas is a favorite time of year, just ahead of calving, spring works and shipping calves in the fall. Friends and family gather. Seasonal foods and treats are amazing (punishing if not enjoyed in moderation!). The children’s excitement and anticipation of Santa’s delivery refreshingly keeps the spirit of the season alive. Those of us who are older pause to enjoy family and friends and appreciate the notion that giving truly does afford a greater, more joyful blessing than receiving. We in this great country have much to be thankful for.

This Christmas season, I encourage you and yours to attend worship and celebrate “the reason for the season.” You just might experience a Gift there unlike anything you’ll find under the tree.

Abby George

Christmas in my family is celebrated similarly every year – a constant I look forward to. My immediate family celebrates on Christmas Eve by attending Mass, enjoying a prime rib dinner (that we look forward to all year) and opening gifts. Christmas Day is spent at my grandparents' with all my cousins and the rest of the family. We spend the day eating good food, playing games and just hanging out. A tradition that my mom started years ago, and I now help with, is creating a scrapbook of photos from the whole family throughout the year to give to my grandparents. Everyone takes turns looking through it and reminiscing on the memories we’ve made.

Marci Whitehurst

My favorite Christmas isn’t just one Christmas. It’s the ones where my family is together. We’ve never been the type to do elaborate Christmases. But I do fix a feast of food. In fact, I do much of the cooking on Christmas Eve, we have a big dinner that night, and much of what we consume on Christmas is a repeat of the day before. Last year, we invited a stranger for our Christmas feast. He came to our Christmas Eve church service and didn’t have anywhere to go. He joined us in cookie decorating and then eating supper. Afterward, he drove through the night to make it to his mama for Christmas. It was super simple, but I suppose that’s what the first Christmas was about. The gift of Jesus to bring people together to make a new way for us to connect with God.

Carrie Veselka

My family sings Christmas carols every Christmas Eve. It’s an event we look forward to all year long. One winter, I came down with a horrible cold and by Christmas Eve, I couldn’t even speak. As I sat there in the living room surrounded by my family singing "Silent Night," I just started bawling; I wanted to join in so bad and I literally couldn’t. Across the room, I noticed my grandma looking at me. When she caught my eye, she started following along with the words in sign language, which prompted me to sign along with her (long story, but we both happened to know sign language). Even though I couldn’t physically sing along with everyone else, she found a way for me to participate in the joy of our family tradition. I’ve never forgotten it.

John O’Meara

When my children were little, we had a tradition of cutting a Christmas tree on our farm a few days before the holiday. Sometimes we would use a team of our oxen to haul it back to the house. Sometimes we would just haul it up by hand. Some years we cut a little scraggly pine; more often it was a white spruce, which has a very distinctive smell. There was always plenty of snow.

I have a series of memories of my children at different ages – from babies to teenagers – doing this task on our farm in New Sweden, Maine. Eventually, they were the ones cutting and hauling the tree while I mostly watched. Soon, another little spruce will come into the house for the holiday.

Tyrell Marchant

Christmastime conjures up memories of the sharp scent of piñon pine in the living room, leaving hay out for Santa’s reindeer and hoping we’d get enough snow to cover the sagebrush so we could sled down the big hill. But the one that really sticks in my heart is sitting in the living room and listening to my mother’s voice. Every December since seemingly the dawn of time, Mom has read Barbara Robinson’s The Best Christmas Pageant Ever out loud to anyone who’s around to listen. To my siblings and me, the book’s opening line – “The Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world.” – is dang near scripture. These days, my wife and I read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever to our kids every year, and they gleefully anticipate my tearful breakdown as the Herdman brothers drop a ham at the foot of the Holy Child’s manger bed.

Steve Blezinger

When my wife and I were dating, we spent Christmas Eve and Day with my dad at my home place in central Texas. I grew up in an old German farmhouse with no central heat or air, no insulation and a 100-year-old hand-dug well. My then-girlfriend was a city girl used to all the major amenities. She occasionally visited her aunt and uncle’s farm but had never really dealt with any challenges that can come with living on the farm.

In December 1983, much of Texas experienced a significant cold snap. For our house, this generally resulted in frozen pipes and no running water until it thawed. This was the case the morning after we arrived home for Christmas. My girlfriend was highly distressed by not being able to shower or at least wash her hair before going to my aunt’s house for Christmas dinner.

Fortunately, Daddy had anticipated the freeze and had filled a number of pots and the bathtub with water. We were able to heat water on the stove so she could wash her hair and clean up to her satisfaction. This was her first real exposure to what life on our farm could be. Today, we live on that same farm and laugh at this memory!

Gilda Bryant

Christmas on the southern High Plains of Texas was a special time for our family. Once we fed the cattle and horses, my mother let my Italian-American father use her kitchen.

He recreated his mother's favorite meal, starting two days before Christmas. Using an enormous pot, he added tomatoes and spices to create a tasty, rich sauce called "red gravy" that bubbled on the stove for 24 hours. The next day, he made Nonna's version of braciole – round steak filled with pork, veal and breadcrumbs tied with string and meatballs. Both simmered in the red gravy for another 24 hours.

On Christmas Day, we had an Italian feast: polenta (made with cornmeal), meatballs and sliced braciole, all swimming in red gravy – and laughter!

Paul Marchant

I’ve always loved a good Christmas tree, and early in the summer my wife and I, along with our first son, embarked on our first adventure as semi-responsible, full-time adults, I spotted the perfect piñon pine, situated on a hillside some 60 miles from our home. Along with an almost giddy anticipation, I kept a note in my head of that tree throughout the summer and fall.

In mid-November, I made the trek out to the hill where my lone Christmas sentinel proudly stood, sure in the knowledge of the joy that my bride and my baby would find when I dragged the perfect tree into the little ranch house.

Once in a while life offers up gems where high expectations are met with equal results. Though there was no fanfare and we didn’t fully appreciate it at the time, my favorite Christmas tree ever offered up one of those gems, as that year we humbly celebrated the birth of our Savior, just the three of us, far from family but perhaps more at home than we’d ever been.