Christmas Eve at Mee Maw’s

Christmas Eve at Mee Maw’s in 1966.  That would be Germaine Erie Patureau Landry’s home in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Last week I talked about one of the traditions of our family during the 1960s.  That one involved the music at the junior high school where my dad taught in Jennings, Louisiana.  This week I’m looking at the other family traditions from that same time period.  I realized a few weeks ago that I really hadn’t written much about Christmas traditions in the Landry household, even at the Christmas time of year.  I also realized I had lots of Christmas photos that need to be shared.

So that’s what I’m doing – sharing some Christmas cheer by way of old family photos.  It’s what you do on a family history blog, right?  And the big event for the Landry family aunts, uncles, and cousins was the Christmas Eve get together at Mee Maw’s house.  As you can see from the photos, there were lots of family members!  My dad was Robert Joseph Landry – better known as Bobbie by the family – and he was from a family of eight children.  His mom was Erie Patureau Landry and she was the matriarch of this large group.  And she loved family.

The Christmas Eve get together in 1967.

She had to if she was willing to have this large group of people in her house!  It started out with her, her children, and her daughters- in-law and sons-in-law.  That’s seventeen people, and by the time I was born, there at least fifteen grandchildren.  It continued to grow for a while longer, so in 1966 there were lots of excited little children around.  What’s even more amazing is that she had a gift for every one of her grandchildren at this event.  And since we were Catholic, we all had godparents.  So we got gifts from our godparents as well.  At some point we drew names and bought gifts for the person we picked.  That’s a lot of gifts in one place!  I remember how the people handing out gifts had to be careful not to step on anyone or anybody’s newly opened present!

From an old family recipe. Pate’ de fois gras made by Greg Raley (#73 in photos). He and my brother Rob are two from my generation that are keeping the tradition alive.

The other part of this get together was the food.  Everyone brought food to share with the family.  There was always plenty to eat and it was all tasty.  One thing that we used to have at some of these events seems to be unique to my family.  My grandmother had an old family recipe for pate de fois gras.  It was a spread made with goose or pork livers.  I never have liked liver, but I did like the pate.  My dad would make it and we would make sandwiches with it and eat it for breakfast.  We would eat our liver pie sandwiches after dipping them in coffee milk.  Sometimes my dad and his siblings would bring a sampling of their latest batch and compare it with each other.  I’m trying to find out the origin of this recipe, so if any extended family are familiar with the history, let me know.  I’ve been wondering if it comes from our Leveque line.

When it was getting later at these Christmas Eve gatherings, I remember going outside with the cousins and looking up in the sky to see what could be seen.  Some of the older ones would say, “Is that Santa there?”  I would look to see if there was a telling red light trailing across the sky.  Those were such days of wonder and longing.  Waiting for Christmas day seemed like forever.  The family gatherings were such a highlight.

I think of those events from time to time when I’m doing my family research.  With my dad’s ancestry being French and Acadian, the old records are written in French.  I’m able to make out most of what is written on a birth or baptism record.  The first word I was familiar with was the word for godfather – parrain.  That’s because I remember getting a gift from Uncle Johnny (my godfather) one Christmas and it said it was from “Your Parrain.”  I started learning about my family history at a young age!  But I wouldn’t enjoy my family history as much without having such great family memories of my own to recall.

Merry Christmas everyone!

IDs –  I can’t leave without letting you know the names of everyone in the photos.  I got most of them, but some I couldn’t tell.  That’s bad when I can tell who is who in photos of my great grandparents’ siblings, but can’t tell who my own first cousins are from 50 years ago.  Like I said, there are so many of them.  And not all of them are looking at the camera.  I can’t see some faces clearly, so I appreciate any help with identifications.  I went ahead and made a list of names and used the numbering system of the list for both photos.

List of my Mee Maw and her children and grandchildren