Drawing: Akseli Gallen-Kallela / CC0
This reminiscence was written at the end of the 19th century by
Rev. Friðrik J. Bergmann (1858-1918) who was a minister in North Dakota and Manitoba, and the first lecturer in Icelandic at Wesley College.
Christmas is still on the horizon. And everyone will be glad for it, this time as always, because it brings them more joy than any other holiday. The rejoicing is so great and universal that almost everyone feels that their burden will be a lighter than ever at Christmas. They will try to be as happy and joyful as they possibly can.
How precious this joy is, how treasured the anticipation of the human heart for something of indescribable value that lies ahead. People could not possibly do without Christmas and the joy that always accompanies it. It is every person’s sacred duty to make the most of Christmas. And the person who carries it within themselves strives to make others happy and content.
When we compare our first Christmas in this country with the Christmas that is now upon us, the change has been quite dramatic. Most of us would find the Christmas of the first Icelandic settlers to be quite poor. If we could look into the log cabins – as they were years ago down in New Iceland, or south in Pembina County in North Dakota, or west in Argyle – we would be able to imagine the poverty that then existed in our land. People were not extravagant in those days, but most of the people had the basic necessities. They could go a little easier – grind a few more coffee beans to put in the pot, so that the aroma would be greater when poured into the cup – than on working days, when you slurped down the coffee without any living awareness of the aroma, because there was no time for that.
There wasn’t as much decoration around the early settlements in those years. Four log walls and chinking in the cracks, so that you couldn’t see out, and an open ceiling, which we now try to hide from view. Two windows, one in the middle of the main wall, the other usually beside the door, or both on either side of the door. If the farmer had been a particularly generous man, he might have allowed the priest to have a loft in the house. Otherwise, there was no attic, only the rafters alone, the roof low and usually made of turf.
In one corner stood the double bed. But in front of it was the table at which everyone ate their meals, usually under the window, a tablecloth spread upon it. And if it was possible to buy a new tablecloth for Christmas, such a festive atmosphere came over these poor dwellings that it was like being in a new house. There was usually one chair, often more or less broken, so you had to be quite careful when you sat on it.
The Icelandic trunks, which stood here and there along the walls, were much safer seats. They had been brought from Iceland, carrying all the household goods when they moved from their homeland. Often painted either a beautiful red or a lovely green, they were much treasured. Sometimes the owner’s name was painted on them in artistic script. Now they stood around the house and were the favorite seats of the people and their guests. But they also became weak, at last, not so much from the journey from Iceland – they mostly tolerated that quite well – but from the daily jostling between wall and table, when people sat at the table for meals, and especially when coffee was served – and that is quite often among Icelanders, as everyone knows.
When there were more people in the household than a couple and small children, one bed would not do. Then, one or two beds were pushed together, according to the Icelandic custom. Most of these beds were poorly furnished, so they did not seem inviting to anyone. There was often an Icelandic blanket or cover on the bed, which naturally began to wear out and show a lot, which was not surprising, because in Iceland they had often been passed down from parents to children before coming to America, after long and loyal service. And now they were getting old.
The stove was usually placed near a windowless wall, and often moved further out into the room when winter came. For then it had to do two duties at once: first and foremost to cook the food, and then to see that all the people were more or less comfortable, whatever the weather was outside, because there was no other stove in the house. But they did a surprisingly good job of keeping everyone warm, if one did not forget to stoke them.
Somewhere on the wall was a clock. However, there were homes that did not have a timepiece, so they followed the course of the celestial bodies, as our ancestors did out at sea. For this reason, people took it for granted that one got up at once they awakened, and did not wait for a certain hour. It was therefore often more of an advantage than a disadvantage to be without a clock.
In the older settlements, these homesteads seem rather imperfect now, and they undeniably were, when compared with the large houses that farmers are now adept at building. The homes of the same people who, twenty years ago, lived in cabins like the one just described have become so spacious that they may contain seven or eight rooms as large as this one in the past – ornate mansions, full of luminous objects and shining furnishings.
But are these people, who have so wonderfully improved their homes in a relatively short time, happier now than they were in the log cabin?
Happiness! What a question! As if one is not happier, a thousand times happier, who has everything, who can enjoy all the comforts of life, knowing that they and their children need not lack anything, compared to the other who has nothing but the bare necessities to keep body and soul together. Yes, it is probably the purest folly to be so bold as to ask another such question. And yet I cannot help myself.
For in spite of everything, the Icelandic settlers were doing exceptionally well even twenty years ago. They were so full of life and humor and cheerfulness that it was a pleasure for them to come. It did not occur to them to complain about not having this or that comfort of life. They had no idea at all that such comforts existed, or they were so far beyond their horizons that they did not think of them.
Instead, they talked a lot about how everything was starting to go well for them. While you sat with them over a cup of coffee, they told you about their farm and their first year here in this country, how poverty surrounded them. Now, they generally thought they were in pretty good shape. And the hopes they had for the future were always the most glorious.
One of the things I noticed, which seemed beautiful, was their gratitude to Providence for how well they had fared. They took no greater pleasure in anything than recounting for themselves and their friends how they had overcome all their difficulties. They felt they had been treated to an everyday miracle.
The Israelites of old could not have felt more pleased at being led dry-footed across the Red Sea, than many an Icelandic colonist has felt to pass unscathed through all the troubles they faced when they first set foot on land here. And there is nothing that makes a person happier than the consciousness that a miracle has happened to them, even though they did not achieve it entirely through their own efforts. Rather, the forces of a higher life made themselves felt, and an invisible hand has supported them and led them.
It was delightful to visit Icelandic homes in the villages twenty years ago, not least of all at Christmas time, even if they were not decorated. Hearts were so open and warm and sincere, as the welcome revealed. Although the winter was cold and the house was no palace, it was as if people had everything. Cheerfulness, satisfaction, and joy shone from every face. “Life is a victory,” was the refrain in every thought and conversation.
It was the substance of the mother’s thoughts as she quietly bent down over the cradle, lifted the wool from the tiny cheek and kissed the forehead with her lips, to see if the little one was warm enough. It shone in the farmer’s gaze when he came in from his work and looked at her – she who had been struggling to have the Christmas coffee ready and the buns piping hot on the table when he came in, with a child on his arm. It was like the church bell, ringing in the minds of people from town to town, settlement to settlement, wherever one went: “Life is a victory, by divine grace.”
And today, I never come to a place where the people live in more or less the same conditions as people did twenty years ago, where I don’t hear something of that same bell ringing. I never enter a log cabin with the table under the window, a double bed in the corner, a stove, and Icelandic trunks against the walls, without feeling warmed by them. I never see people more cheerful or happier. I never feel more light in my mind when looking into the future. Nowhere do I feel more gratitude to Providence. Nowhere is there a more solid conviction that life is a wonderful and supernatural miracle. And nowhere do people bear misfortune and adversity with more endurance and courage than there.
To tell the truth, one of the most delightful things I do is think about Christmas in the log cabin.
When it’s dark on Christmas Eve, the only oil lamp in the house is lit and a new lamp glass is placed on it. The lamp is placed on the shelf by the clock, where it sheds the best light across the house. There is a fresh tablecloth on the table, the floor is freshly cleaned and spotless. The Icelandic trunks are all in their places, and everything is in order. The mother has dressed her little angel in a white and red dress that she has just sewn. She walks with the little girl smiling, racing to have everything ready.
And when her husband comes with a straw or two in his beard, but unusually cheerful, with a little parcel under his arm, which he hands to her and says: “This is for you; it must have come in the mail,” – and she takes it with a smile, turns it over in her hand, and hardly dares to open it, but he watches every movement and tries to read her most hidden thoughts – then, I tell you, the truth that the couple in the ornate house, adorned with electric lights, exquisite musical instruments, and beautiful paintings in gilded surroundings, like some royal palace, may seriously wonder whether they are as happy, as heartily glad and fortunate, as the humble settlers in their log cabin.
And while the wealthy man in a palace may give his wife a diamond ring that cost many hundreds of dollars, I am not sure that she is happier, more joyful, and more fortunate at Christmas than the woman in the log cabin, who cannot understand what ingenious plan her husband had to buy her a beautiful pair of shoes. She knows that he must have taken an indescribable amount of care.
As everyone knows, the true value of gifts depends on the care behind them. Remember the log cabin and never let the image of it disappear from your minds. Remember the mighty hand that has wrought the miracle and made it so wonderfully happen to you.
Remember Christmas then, and Christmas now. Trace all the steps that lie between, how one action has been led to another, how everything has increased and multiplied. Then you will feel the miracle that has come to you. And then it cannot help but be that a beautiful hymn of praise will awaken again in the heart: “Life is a victory, by divine grace.”
No one knows how to celebrate Christmas who cannot embrace that hymn with all their heart. As long as it sounds in every home this Christmas, both the log cabin and the ornate mansion, then everyone may be happy. Then there would be much joy among us. And that is my heartfelt wish.
Published by Lögberg-Heimskringla in Icelandic
60 years ago.