Minnesota Prairie Roots

Two men, dressed as Laura Ingalls Wilder and Heidi (from Johanna Spyri's book) and who shall remain anonymous, vie to unwrap a gift.

Disguised in a bonnet, this bearded contestant struggles to open the gift.

THEY COULD HAVE been characters in a theatrical performance—sweet Heidi from the Swiss Alps, determined Laura from the prairie or a crazy-looking little Who from Whoville.

But instead, they were fierce competitors in the December Family Game Night at Trinity Lutheran Church in Faribault.

My friend Billie Jo coordinated the event which included contestants vying to unwrap a gift. If that sounds easy, then you would be wrong. Billie Jo wrapped the coveted present in layers and layers of packaging and wrapping paper with yards of heavy-duty tape.

The first challenge—to roll doubles with dice. Just a footnote here: Don’t ever take me to Vegas. I never rolled doubles. However, I should clarify that I missed many opportunities because I was busy photographing the craziness.

Once Lady Luck struck, contestants had to don a cap, scarf and mittens (in some cases, oven mitts), then attempt to unwrap the gift before the next competitor rolled doubles and stole the present.

Before we got started, I raised my hand (because Billie Jo is a teacher) and asked if we could use our teeth to open the gift as one unnamed competitor did last year. Fine with her, she said.

So the race began.

Soon we were all laughing and shouting encouragement and laughing some more. There’s something about a bearded man in a gingham bonnet that’s just downright amusing. Maybe you had to be there. There’s also something incredibly hilarious about a friend suddenly transformed into a Dr. Seuss-like character by a neon orange hat.

Eventually, the second youngest of the game players successfully unwrapped a gift card to a major national retailer.

And then we moved onto more games—tossing greeting cards into clothes baskets, passing candy canes and paper gingerbread boys to each other, none as easy as they sound.

Oh, and we also exchanged white elephant gifts that included unwanted cologne, a high school graduation picture and a gaudy holiday-themed photo frame. My 15-year-old son was thrilled to get the frame, which will be regifted for the 2010 Christmas party. This year marked the second time the frame has been gifted, so it’s now part of our tradition.

Laughter defined our Christmas party. And it felt good, very good, to break from the hustle and bustle of the holidays for such silliness among friends.

A charming Who from Whoville finally succeeds in opening the gift.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

ON MONDAY, MY COUSIN Dawn e-mailed with interesting news. She had received a letter on Saturday from Norman Bates, proprietor of the Bates Motel in California, confirming a room reservation for that evening.

And yes, this would be the same motel of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho fame. If you’ve seen the 1960 movie or even heard about it, you know that it includes a murder in a motel room shower.

Dawn went on to complain that her Bates Motel correspondence arrived too late. She already had plans for the evening. “I guess Norman has gotten a little slow in his old age,” she e-mailed. “I was excited though that he remembered me. He must have taken a trip to St. Paul because that is where the post mark was from. Imagine that!!”

Yes, imagine that, Dawn.

And imagine my excitement when I realized early last week that the anniversary date of the notorious murder at the Bates Motel was coming up on December 12. I was nearly giddy with glee over the possibility of having some fun at my cousin’s expense.

This would be the perfect date, I decided, for Norman to reconnect with Dawn. She had previously received letters—one even included a dead box elder bug—from the motel proprietor. Dawn said she was thankful that Norman had forgotten her and moved on.

Big mistake, Dawn.

Although I could not find a dead box elder bug anywhere in my house, I managed to compose a chilling letter (yes, I’m confessing to the letter-writing crime), which read in part:

“You will be pleased to hear that your room, suite #1, has recently undergone extensive updating that includes a lovely new shower enclosure in an expanded bathroom.

We promise only the best of accommodations. I’m certain you will find your stay to be most pleasant and enjoyable.

Because we are located off the main highway, you will also discover this to be a quiet escape from the stresses of everyday life. A picturesque lake is located near the motel for your relaxation.”

And then, I cunningly ended the letter with this pleasantry:

“If I can be of further assistance, contact me via e-mail at ohcysp@batesmotel.com.”

Of course, there’s no such e-mail address. But, if you read the first word backwards, it spells psycho. Did you catch that, Dawn?

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

(Read my November 4 post, “Annie Mary Twente sends Halloween greetings” for more background behind the above post.)

“We Wish You a Merry Christmas”

Bough-decked Shumway Hall welcomes visitors to the Christmas Walk.

"Deck the Halls:" A hallway leads to the 1889 Morgan Hall.

SHATTUCK-ST. MARY’S SCHOOL. Even the name sounds impressive. And this place, on the east side of Faribault, truly ranks among my community’s most prestigious institutions.

Founded in 1858 as an Episcopal mission school, Shattuck today serves as a boarding and day school for 437 students in grades 6 -12 from 36 states and 20 countries. It’s nationally-known for turning out top-notch hockey players, for outstanding academics, for figure skating and more.

And this time of year, the school is also known for opening its doors to the community during the annual Christmas Walk. On Saturday, I toured the Shattuck campus, taking in the sights and sounds of Christmas.

But, I also absorbed the beauty of these historic stone buildings, which enticed me more than the holiday décor. It’s not all that often I get inside these doors.

Because pictures sometimes are worth a thousand words, I’ll showcase the Shattuck campus in the images I composed as I wandered the halls.

I was a bit smitten by this school with its stunning stained glass windows and heavy, dark wood. In the slate and wooden steps that dipped from years of footsteps, I felt history.

So join me on this Christmas walk, themed to Christmas songs, for your holiday enjoyment.

“O Holy Night”

A place to relax next to one of many stained glass windows at Shattuck.

“O Christmas Tree”

An inviting corner in the Shattuck library.

“Here Comes Santa Claus”

Santa visits with Christmas Walk guests.

“Frosty the Snowman”

An example of artwork sold at Shattuck’s holiday market.

“Feliz Navide”

Aiming to break a pinata during Christmas Walk festivities.

“Angels We Have Heard on High”

Two angels create a simplistic, yet impressive, holiday display below stained glass windows in a stairway at the Shattuck campus.

“I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas”

A view of Shumway Hall from the Shattuck campus library.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

(Watch for additional posts from the Christmas Walk at the Shattuck campus. I ran out of time to tour the St. Mary’s campus. But there’s always next year.)

The advent calendar that has caused much discord at my house.

“PEACE ON EARTH, good will toward men.”

Or, more accurately for my family, this should be rephrased as “Peace at our house, good will between siblings.”

Yes, thankfully, rivalry and teasing among my three offspring have pretty much ceased. Maturity and living under three separate roofs explain everything. The girls have been gone for years—off to college and one now onto a career. That leaves only my 15-year-old son at home with me and my husband.

I don’t miss the bickering, especially during the holiday season. Every December, I could expect my kids to squabble over—get this—an advent calendar.

My Aunt Dorothy crafted the felt calendar some 20 years ago. It’s darling with red rickrack trimming a large piece of white felt adorned with a Christmas tree and numbered pockets. Inside each pocket, Dorothy placed tiny, holiday-themed items like a snowman, bells, gingerbread boy, dove and so forth. (I’m uncertain, though, what a mouse has to do with Christmas.) Each day, my kids were to remove the “ornament” from the appropriately-dated pocket and attach it to the tree.

In a perfect world, the kids would take turns. But, as all mothers know, this is not a perfect world with perfectly-behaved children.

So, each December morning, it became a race to see which kid would make it downstairs first to nab the ornament from the pocket and slap it onto the tree. This system, of course, failed. All attempts to resolve the conflict also failed.

Fast forward to 2009. “Are you putting the ornaments on the advent calendar every day?” I ask my son.

“Yes,” he replies with less enthusiasm than I expect.

And then he admits, upon my probing, that the advent calendar tradition has lost much of its appeal. That, he confesses, has everything to do with the lack of daily competition among him and his sisters.

Perhaps I should put a little excitement back into this tradition. Since he’s still sleeping, I’m going to pull the holly from the December 12 pocket and hang it on the tree.

There, the deed is done.

Will my 15-year-old notice? Will he care? Have I just destroyed peace and good will in my house?

Some of the felt ornaments adorning the advent calendar Christmas tree. See the holly? I added that ornament.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Today's Minnesota Prairie Roots' flowers come from the Faribault Farmers' Market. I photographed the bouquet there this past summer.

IT MAY BE COLD here in Minnesota with bone-chilling temperatures. But inside—and I mean inside the hearts of Minnesotans—warmth prevails.

With that thought, this week’s Minnesota Prairie Roots’ virtual Friday flowers go to a Paynesville woman who is giving generously to the American Cancer Society.

Meet Kathy Webb, creator of Mrs. Ed’s Seasoned Salt. Kathy has been making her specialty seasoning for 20 years and giving it to family and friends. Two years ago, though, she began selling the salt as a fundraiser for the Cancer Society, via Bloomers, a team in the Paynesville Relay for Life.

The seasoning sells at $6 for a 16-ounce bottle. Kathy and her husband, Ed, donate all of the ingredients, so every cent of seasoning sales goes to the Cancer Society.

I learned about Kathy this fall while working on a Christmas gifts feature about Minnesota-made/grown foods that published in the November/December issue of Minnesota Moments magazine. See www.minnesotamoments.com.

Just this week, Jason Davis from Minneapolis-based KSTP/Channel 5 did a segment on Kathy’s seasoning for his “On the Road” television show. And, yes, Jason got the story idea from my feature. He’s a faithful reader of Minnesota Moments. Here’s a link to Jason’s “Paynesville Woman Spices It Up for Charity”: http://kstp.com/article/stories/s1294760.shtml?cat=26

What particularly impresses me about Kathy is her positive attitude. You see, she’s been battling colon cancer and recently completed six months of chemotherapy.

She told me in an email this week, “I am feeling really good.”

To Kathy and those like her who give of themselves to help others, these Minnesota Prairie Roots’ Friday flowers celebrate you, your strength and your generous spirit.

Mrs. Ed's Seasoned Salt

Mrs. Ed’s Seasoned Salt is available at Bloom Coffee and Floral in Paynesville or directly from Kathy. Call (320) 243-4156 or e-mail mrsed@lakedalelink.net to order for $6 plus shipping. Also, check out the Web site: http://mrseds.us.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

(Seasoned salt image is courtesy of Mrs. Ed’s Seasoned Salt.)

I use new and vintage cookie cutters when making roll-out cookies for the holidays.

EVERY YEAR ABOUT THIS TIME, I pull out my tattered The Cook’s Special recipe book, published in 1973 by St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Vesta, and turn to page 75.

At the top of the page, highlighted by a star and “delicious!” penned by my second daughter, Miranda, is my favorite holiday roll-out cookie recipe, Cream Cheese Cookies.

These rank as the decadent version of sugar cookies. Three ounces of cream cheese add the extra flavor that puts these cookies over the top.

This is my mom’s recipe and as much a part of my annual childhood tradition as the Sunday School Christmas Eve program at St. John’s.

For my oldest brother, Doug, I doubt there was anything sweeter than covertly dipping into the freezer for a roll-out cookie or two prior to Christmas.

On Tuesday, my son and I baked a batch of Cream Cheese Cookies. As I flattened mounds of dough, then rolled the dough nearly paper thin, I thought back to those years on the farm when my brothers and sisters and I imprinted cookie cutters into flattened sheets of dough.

Then, many decades later, I began the same holiday tradition with my children, with my girls first and then their brother. Sometimes I wondered, like my mom probably wondered, why I made roll-out cookies. This was time-consuming, messy work with flour everywhere–dusting kids, countertops and the floor.

One year, Miranda stuck a red hot candy up her nose, sending me into panic mode.

Cookie-baking is much less eventful these days. Yet, it’s still memorable. As my 15-year-old son and I worked together Tuesday afternoon stamping out and sprinkling colored sugar atop cookies, I delighted in the sweetness of the moment, of my teenager with the flour-covered hands continuing a decades-old family tradition.

I typically roll the dough as thin as possible.

Cream Cheese Cookies

½ cup butter

½ cup shortening

3 ounces cream cheese

1 cup sugar

1 egg yolk

½ tsp. vanilla

½ tsp. salt

2 ½ cups flour

Cream butter, shortening, softened cream cheese and sugar. Add egg yolk, vanilla and dry ingredients. Roll out very thin and cut with cookie cutters. Bake at 350 degrees for 5- 7 minutes. If cookie dough is thicker, bake longer.

All you need is colored sugar to add a festive touch to these cookies. Frosting would simply overpower their buttery, creamy flavor. Plus, simple is easier.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

My husband, Randy, blows snow off our driveway Wednesday morning. From the pie-shaped slice of snow, you can see how much of the white stuff fell in Faribault, Minnesota, during the past 24 hours or so.

Randy blows the feather-light snow.

“WE HAVE THE FOLLOWING cancellations and postponements,” the announcer for a Rochester radio station says. He then launches into a lengthy list that includes the Central Valley Co-op annual meeting, the Waseca Senior Center fashion show, the Medford choir concerts, grades two and three, and bingo at the Legion in New Richland.

Nearly every event scheduled for Tuesday evening in southeastern Minnesota has been impacted by the winter storm that brings “blowing snow, reduced visibility and difficult driving conditions.” The DJ repeats those words over and over again through-out the afternoon.

Now it’s Wednesday morning. Ten inches of snow and high winds make it clear that winter has arrived here in Faribault. My husband, who typically leaves for work at around 7 a.m., is blowing snow from our driveway and sidewalk and from a neighbor’s place. And it’s already nearly 10 a.m.

Our oldest daughter has called from the Twin Cities. Her battery light came on just as she got onto the interstate, headed from south Minneapolis to St. Paul this morning. Rather than turn around, she shut off the radio and heater and continued on. Now my automotive machinist husband will need to attempt an over-the-phone diagnosis, all the while praying she will make it home in tonight’s rush hour traffic.

Upstairs, my 15-year-old still sleeps, oblivious to all the stresses that come with a winter storm in Minnesota. I expect he’ll arise around noon.

In nearby Janesville, the ethanol plant, Guardian Energy, isn’t receiving corn today. In Northfield, the Orthopedic and Fracture Clinic won’t open until noon. So the postponements and cancellations continue.

This, folks, is winter in Minnesota.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Winter drive between Faribault & Morristown, 2008.

Stocked up on eggs and milk.

Got gas for the snowblower.

Now waiting

for the winter storm.

Dreamed about a tornado.

Woke up

frightened.

No school?

he hopes.

Only a trace of snow.

Hopes dashed.

Maybe tomorrow.

Will we see wind-sculpted snowbanks by Wednesday here in southeastern Minnesota?

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

WW II veterans remembered at a veterans' memorial in Hirdler Park in Shieldsville, Rice County, Minnesota.

A FEW YEARS AGO, my mom and I were discussing Pearl Harbor. I was interested in hearing about her reaction to the Japanese attack that launched our nation into WW II. Even though she was only nine at the time, my mom remembers her fear.

I recall her very clearly saying that, for all she understood, the attack could have been as near as Marshall. That’s how small her world was back then, confined to the familiar surroundings of the Redwood County farm where she grew up. Marshall lies only 30 some miles to the west. She had no idea that Pearl Harbor was an ocean away from her Minnesota prairie home.

Such remembrances interest me because they tell the personal side of history that statistics and broader, general stories can never reveal.

Rhody, a WW II vet from Rice County, Minnesota.

A few weeks ago, I met a WW II veteran from Rice County. I won’t delve into the details of how I met him (that’s another story), but this 91-year-old man impressed upon me the horrors of WW II.

Rhody and I didn’t talk specifically about the Pearl Harbor attack, but rather we briefly touched on the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan. He pulled out a stash of black-and-white photos and, one by one, handed over prints that showed utter and total devastation of the Japanese landscape.

“We cleaned up the mess in Nagasaki,” Rhody tells me as I gingerly handle the images.

“What do you mean?” I ask, not quite understanding, or maybe not wanting to understand.

“We cleaned up the rubble,” Rhody says. “There were too many dead people.” And that is all he will say about those who died. I don’t press him.

But I wonder about the child-sized Japanese sandals made of woven reeds or grasses that he has shown me earlier.

I follow up with one more question. “What about going into the area?”

He recalls the words of his sergeant: “It could be radioactive, but you gotta go in anyway.” And so that is Rhody’s story. He did what he must do for his country.

Howard, a WW II veteran from Kenyon, Minnesota.

Several months earlier, I met another WW II veteran, Howard. He was driving his patriotically-decorated 1950s vintage Chevrolet pickup truck through downtown Kenyon when I caught up with him just outside the local VFW.

Howard served in the U.S. Army, in the China Burma India Theater, and is a member of the Kenyon Veterans’ Color Guard. We didn’t talk about WW II. But rather, I admired this veteran’s proud display of patriotism in the American flags and the “Support Our Troops” sign adorning his truck. (See my August 24 post, “WW II vet supports troops.”) Howard’s love of country and his appreciation for freedom touched me.

WW II veterans honored at the Northfield Area Veterans Memorial in Riverside Lions Park, Northfield.

Today, on this the 68^th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, take time to honor WW II veterans like Howard and Rhody. And remember those 3,500 Americans who were killed or wounded on American soil on December 7, 1941.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

An alstroemeria bouquet from my husband.

OCCASIONALLY MY HUSBAND, Randy, gives me flowers, just because.

He needs no reason, of which I’m aware, to purchase a clutch of flowers from the grocery store. I find that incredibly thoughtful and, well, just plain wonderful.

There’s nothing fancy about these bouquets, which I must cut and arrange in a vase. But that matters not. I delight in this unexpected gift.

Last night, as Randy carried in bags of water softener salt from the grocery store, he also carried in a triple-wrapped plastic bag of lovely, mauve alstroemeria.

As I snipped the stems, I considered how blessed I am to have this man as my husband, this man who, after a long, hard week of work, still thinks to bring home flowers on a Friday night. Just because.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling