Page 12 - ALMAGUIN NEWS, Wednesday, December 19, 2007

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Corporation of the Municipality of WhitestoneMunicipal Office will be Closed

Friday, December 23, 2005to Tuesday, January 3, 2006.

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Municipal Office will be CLOSEDMonday, December 24, 2007 to

Tuesday, January 1, 2008 inclusive

Faith and familyLaurel J. Campbell

Staff Reporter

CHISHOLM – Like something from a Currier and Ives painting, a parade of horse drawn buggies head off on Sunday morning to a rural farm house where the township’s 15

Amish families will hold their bi-weekly worship service. In the frosty air, the horses expel puffs of winter mist from their nostrils while they patiently wait in the snow-blanketed yard, to take their families back home, the black buggies stark on the white winter landscape

During the Christmas season, Powassan’s main street takes on a turn of the century atmosphere as women in intricately hand-stitched black bonnets and long dresses, and men with their traditional hats and distinctively homemade denim pants, join with other parents in search of the perfect Christmas gift for their children.

“Despite what people may think, we do not always give handmade gifts to our children at Christmas,” said Yost Yoder who moved his family to Chisholm from St. Mary’s five years ago. “We buy many of our Christmas gifts, just like everyone else. But perhaps not the same type of gifts.”

Books, tea sets for the girls and train sets for boys, are high on the gift-giving list, said Yost’s wife Katie, “and when our girls were young they got homemade dolls with Amish clothing.”

Last year the Yoder girls, Rosanna, 19, and Ella Mae, 16, were given a new bookcase for their bedroom, musical alarm clocks, little holders decorated with flowers, and books. “I’m not going to tell you what they’re getting this year,” said Yost, “because the girls do read the newspaper.”

Unlike most young people, the Yoder girls have no Christmas lists, and even when younger it was never an issue with the Yoder’s five children, Nathan, Alvin, Ephraim, Rosanna and Ella Mae.

“We’re always happy with anything our parents want to give us for Christmas,” said Ella Mae, the more outspoken of the two girls still living at home, along with brother Ephraim who looks after the family’s diary farm. When asked, neither of the girls could think of anything specific they wanted to find Christmas morning, other than perhaps books, as both are avid readers.

Even as little girls, both sisters say they never longed for any certain presents, and never held any secret desire for the media-hyped toys like Barbie dolls, that would not be acceptable in an Amish home.

“I know what Barbie is,” said Ella Mae, having seen them in stores all of her life. “But I don’t know why I would want one. None of my friends ever had one.” As they have grown up, there has been a similar attitude to makeup, with both girls admitting the thought “has never entered our minds,” while dad is quick to point out “why would they need makeup, they’re pretty enough without it.”

Never having been exposed to television and mass media advertising in their home, Yost asks if it really is true that such marketing campaigns influence the desires of children. A successful businessman, who

with his brother Enos, owns Yoder Brothers Construction where they build homes, barns and outbuildings throughout the non-Amish community, it seems hard to believe he has remained so unscathed by modern marketing hype. It’s a testimony to his firmly-rooted beliefs in a simpler lifestyle, one devoid of the trappings and dependency of today’s society in general.

“I was the second youngest of 15 children,” he said, “and I know that when we were growing up times were tough for our parents. But there was always a gift for us on Christmas morning. We got toys, like trains, and quite often useful things like watches and pocket knives and homemade clothing made by our older sisters.”

Sometimes the Yoder children would get together “and give our parents a gift, but we never had spending money, and mostly it’s just the children that receive Christmas presents,” he said, “parents wouldn’t expect it.”

While other teenage girls are filling their Christmas list with fashion items, Yost says “we try not to give clothing as Christmas gifts. We believe, as parents, there are certain things we should be responsible for supplying our children with year-round, like clothes, food, a good home. For Christmas, they should get a special gift, something they ordinarily wouldn’t get.”

Christmas trees are not part of the Amish celebrations, and when asked why, Yost had no answer other than to ask why others put them up. Outside the Amish community Christmas trees are traditions, not a good enough reason for Yost, who points out that “the Amish really have no Christmas traditions. What we do in our family, might not be done in another,” he said. “In fact there are Amish communities that don’t believe in giving Christmas presents at all because they feel it takes away from the true meaning of Christmas, which is the birth of Christ. That’s not to say they don’t give their children gifts at other times of the year though.”

Katie adds that a tree, like so many other traditions in non-Amish households, was never an issue for her children.

“If you’ve never had it, you don’t miss it,” she said.

When Yost was young, presents were not wrapped.

“There was so little money, and wrapping paper costs money, so why not save that and spend it on the children,” he said.

Katie adds that the family now wraps presents on occasion, with all of the gifts being piled on the family table on Christmas Eve and often covered with a sheet or blanket.

“I remember when all of our children were at home, one year Yost decided to let them get up whenever they wanted and go downstairs for their presents. Two of the boys stayed in bed till seven, but the others were down early and the squeals and laughter that came up the stairs was really quite funny.”

Some Christmases gifts are wrapped and on display before the big day.

“I used to like to do that when the children were smaller,” said Katie, with Ella Mae remembering the year, “we kept rattling them, and guessing what might be in them

until mom said we weren’t allowed to touch them anymore.”

Often depicted in movies and novels as being aloof, humour, sharing and love are all part of being raised in an Amish home. While the Yoders have never seen depictions of their community in movies, they are aware of such films as The Witness, but Ella Mae is quick to point out that “you read a lot of things in books that isn’t true.”

Yost admits that with both of the girls avid readers, “I would like to set limitations and would rather they read a wholesome family book, but they both have memberships at the library and are capable now of making up their own minds.”

While the Amish do not celebrate with special Christmas church services, unless Christmas Day falls on a regular worship Sunday, the Chisholm Amish School will ring with laughter and carols, presents will be passed out, and there will be tables of home-baked goodies when the local Amish community celebrates its annual school Christmas.

“We have about 12 students in our school, but everyone is invited to the Christmas party,” said Yost. “That’s when the community celebrates together. Weeks before the children draw names for a gift exchange and decorate the school with paper chains and artwork. There will be readings and some small plays, the children will recite poems, some of them very humorous. Each of the children makes a gift for their parents, and sometimes the parents go together to buy a special gift for the teacher. Then there will be a time of visitation when there will be homemade candy, popcorn, cookies, fruit and nuts. For our community, that’s really the big day, but it is all done in celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, the true meaning of Christmas.”

Unlike the community’s church services, this event will be conducted entirely in English. “All of our church services are in German,” said Yost, “but all of our schooling and school events are in English.”

German is the first language of all Amish children, “and often when they start school they are not at all fluent in English,” said Yost. “German is spoken in all of our homes and has been ever since the Anabaptists came to North America in the 1700s. I suppose that’s one area where the Amish as a whole have a tradition, but we want our children to have a good command of English as well.”

While Yost and Katie’s daughters speak perfect English with no apparent accent, Ella Mae admits “we think in German, even when we speak in English.”

As a result there is no sharing of church hymns between the Amish and English communities, with Amish hymns coming directly from words compiled in great part by Anabaptist’s persecuted in European prisons centuries ago and put to the music of secular

‘Christmas is a very special family time for the Amish,’ says Yost Yoder of Chisholm. ‘It’s all about the birth of Jesus and about families being together.’

PHOTO BY LAUREL CAMPBELL

SONGS OF PRAISE: An

Amish hymn book,

written in German,

withsongs of worshippenned

centuries ago in European

prisons, beside an oil lamp in

the Yoder home.

Continued on page 13