Christmas at the Janzens

Once at home Dad would inspect the wood in the body and glue in a few repairs. Then a new set of strings. After adjusting the bridge with his trusty knife, the mandolin sounded petty good. In a few years he had four mandolins for his students. He expected one would play soprano, another alto, a third tenor and a fourth bass. He already had transposed the tunes to four part harmony, hand written the music onto good paper and made copies with a Hectograph. Dad had a mouth-piece tuner which would provide the pitch and we were ready to start. Everyone was assigned a music line to play. There were two Bettys who played soprano, Susan my future wife played alto, I played tenor and Henry Dyck played bass. Dad would play guitar. It worked. This how Dad taught us how to read notes. It came naturally.

Dad was never paid for the mandolin purchases.

Christmas was coming and we practised every day. Mennonite men can be quite critical and did point out to my Dad when the mandolin orchestra happened to make a mistake! But this is what our Christmas concert was all about. Dad never showed whether he was tense and nervous but I’m sure he was underneath. After the lengthy program Dad had planned and the sermon had been preached, a few men would light the tree. To see a hundred (?) candles lit with real flames and the house lights turned off was truly what Christmas splendour should look like. Then the concert was over. Everyone went home.

We also went home. This is what Christmas was supposed to be, our Christmas evening. But we were all so tired it was quite a let down. Why this opening of gifts wasn’t postponed til the next morning I will never know. However my parents did the best they could. We would save the big gift until the last but oowed and ahhaaed after seeing what our relatives from Winnipeg had gifted each of us. Mom saw to it that she wore a newly sown dress with a Christmas motif. Dad’s gift to us was always the exotic candy purchased at the only store in Winnipeg, (Riedigers) where prize candy could be purchased. Of course his favourite final gift would be a large Oh Henry chocolate bar which he had hidden before Christmas since my sister and I were very good at finding hidden treasures like candy and chocolate bars. I can only remember two “big” Christmas gifts for myself. I received: a flashlight and the next year a wrist watch. I must say I was a bit of a show-off with the last gift because no one else in school had one.

And so this was our Christmas. No Santa Claus, no sleigh and no reindeer. We did have a family radio but the Christmas songs and jingles were from somewhere else. Dad did not teach these in school.