My missionary family and I were living in the hot desert area of the North Sudan and thus our Christmas tree was a thorn tree. My older sister and I made paper garlands and other ornaments to decorate the prickly tree.
My dad fashioned a fireplace and mantle so we could hang our stockings and our mother who grew up in eastern Pennsylvania, with mostly German settlers created a “putz.” This was a Christmas scene of the nativity figures surrounded by a background of hills with sheep, donkeys and other figures and animals arranged on a large wooden platform or box placed in the center of the living room.
Often an electric train circled this masterpiece and neighbors would be invited to come and admire the Christmas putz. My creative Mother used homemade clay to create some of the animals and scenery but I am sure she brought the nativity scene with her when they left the U.S. and traveled to Sudan. The next Christmas when I was 6 I was in eastern Pennsylvania with my family and I got to see my grandparents’ putz as well as visit other friends and neighbor’s putz, but my favorite Christmas memory is of the ones spent in the Sudan with a thorn tree and a homemade putz.
Peg Weymer is a long-time Meadville resident. She spent her childhood in the Sudan, Africa, an experience that has influenced her entire life. She is a former teacher, the mother of five children, she has 11 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. At 96 years of age, she enjoys a good game of bridge, reading, crocheting and staying in touch with her family.
