Everyone has their holiday traditions that they have either started themselves, or have had handed down over the generations. One tradition that I remember, on my Dads side,we would have home made chicken noodle soup with Thanksgiving dinner to put in a bowl with the mashed potatoes. I asked a group of Eagle Mountain residents on Facebook what their favorite holiday traditions were. A lot of them involved food, but there were a few interesting ones that were shared as well. Here are some of the past, present and probably future Holiday traditions from residents of Eagle Mountain and Cedar Valley area. Some of the more common ones are baking goods for the neighbors, Christmas pajamas for Christmas eve, enjoying the Christmas lights in Salt Lake City or around the neighborhood, and of course listening to Christmas Music. Not all of them are just for family and kids, as Chelsey M. points out, “Our kids have paws so it’s pretty mild around here.” Keep an eye on the City Events Calendar for other upcoming events.
[ics_calendar url=”https://eaglemountaincity.com/calendar/?ical=1&tribe_display=month” view=”list” eventdesc=”true” limitdays=”7″ title=”false” description=”false” eventdesc=”false” linktitles=”true” showendtimes=”true”]Early Cedar Valley Resident Traditions
The book Our Roots Grow Deep – A history of Cedar Valley includes the traditions in Cedar Valley during the holiday season.
Thanksgiving Day: “Thanksgiving day is usually spent eating a special dinner with ones family. Depending on the weather, sometimes there is sleigh riding, horseback riding, four wheeling, hiking or other group activities, but mostly with ones immediate family. Sometimes during the week prior to the holiday, a ward dinner has been held with turkey and all the trimmings. Occasionally, there has been a dance held on this special evening when all the town would gather to visit and enjoy each others company.”
Christmas: “This time of the year people of the town join together in celebrating the birth of the Savior. There is always an effort to make it a happy time for all. Singing carols, and exchanging gifts with friends and neighbors, youth doing service projects, delivering fruit and “goodie” baskets to the elderly, are a part of the celebrating. The ward puts on a Christmas Eve program, and everyone is invited whether they are church members or not. The program includes singing, dancing, recitations and reading from the scriptures, and often a play by the children. The big excitement of the evening comes when Santa and Mrs. Claus arrive with treats for all. If someone is unable to come to the program, Santa goes to them. That night all families hurry home to tuck children into bed so Santa can come. Kids try to go to sleep, but reports are that most spend the night watching to see whose lights come on first Most houses can be seen by others out the bedroom windows. Soon, parents are hearing, “Mom! Susie is up!”. Perhaps this night brings more early risers than any other morning of the year. Soon children are gathering to play with one another new toys. The day most often is spent in visiting with family and friends.
Christmas night, there is held as usual a holiday dance. Very few holidays went by without a dance for that occasion, in the gymnasium.”
The book has several personal histories that talk about the dances that were held in Cedar Fort for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. Carol Jensen of the Desert News wrote an article about Cedar Fort.
Arvella Hacking, oldest lifetime resident of Cedar Fort at age 83, remembers best the dances in the recreation hall…
“There were dances at Christmas and News Year’s and Thanksgiving and the 24th of July. Every holiday there was a dance,” said Evelyn Peterson, 70-year-old lifetime citizen of Cedar Fort.
The favorite of all dances was the New Year’s basket dance for children. The girls made picnic dinners, Mr.s hacking said, and the boys bought them.
Which basket a boy selected determined who his partner would be for the evening. New years also meant ringing the bell on top of the school house, not by pulling the rope inside the building, but by climbing on the roof.
“Sometimes people got so vigorous, they tipped the bell over,” Mrs. Peterson said.
Another holiday pastime in the area is hunting. There are many accounts of the men in the area going out rabbit hunting over the holiday season, including the Great Rabbit Hunt of 1914.
Traditions (2018)
Most of these traditions were complied from the Eagle Mountain Citizens Facebook group/page.
The foods that were mentioned as traditions included: “Homemade clam chowder, Hot Chocolate, and Aebelskivers” (Danielle M. – 2018), “Christmas Cookies” (Estefani U.), “Divinity and soft ginger cookies” (Jan P.), “Homemade cherry chocolates, and orange rolls” (Stacey P.), and yes even “fried spam, eggs and rice” (Chelsey M.).
Danielle M. – “we always go driving around to look at Christmas lights and take hot chocolate with us.”
Tiffany U. – “Santa hides the gifts like Easter eggs all throughout the house or flat out just numbers them instead of names. Santa has been so evil to give them a list of math problems to figure out their numbers to keep the kids busy all day. They have more fun unwrapping the gifts than the actual gifts because you can only get so excited over a pair of socks.”
Aaron A. – ” My wife and I started a new tradition a few years ago and it’s one of our favorites. During the month of December, we go to Barnes and Noble (or any bookstore) and buy a book for the other person. We try to find one we think they will like based off of their reading habits, interests, personality, etc.
Then on Christmas Eve, we give each other the book. We will open them and then stay up late by the fire and Christmas tree, reading our new books and then eventually going to bed. It’s become one of my favorite traditions.”
Marah C. – “I like doing lots of crafts and baking with my kids.”
Jennifer G. – ” For December up until Christmas we do an advent calendar of family activities. Some are simple like cutting out snow flakes and then putting them around the house, game night, hot coco and movie etc. we save the easy ones for days we know will be busy but the point is that we all do a family activity together.”
Stephanie S. – “We get the kids an ornament that goes along with their love of something or that matches something big that happened for that year, (it’s so fun to watch their personalities change through the years) they put on their own ornaments every year.”
Christina H. – ” We have an annual tradition of going to Temple Square to see the lights and having hot chocolate with my sister in law and her family.
We bake every year and pass out plates of goodies to the neighbors. My baking options change every year, but I always make my grandmother’s shortbread cookies.”
Kendra W. – “Drive up to the mountains with the family the weekend after Thanksgiving, cutting the “perfect” tree for us, and roasting hot dogs in the cold. Then coming home, trimming the tree, and decorating it while listening to Christmas music.”
Amy W. – “Everyone in our family gets a Night Before Christmas box to open on Christmas Eve. It has pjs and a fun activity to do for the night. Usually they’ll coordinate with each other for a night of family fun!”
Chelsey M. – “We get new pajamas on Christmas Eve and we have fried spam, eggs and rice for Christmas breakfast. We started a new tradition 4 Christmases ago where each Christmas we get a laser cut wooden puzzle with fun novelty pieces and then we spend the next few days putting it together. Our kids have paws so it’s pretty mild around here.”
Mike Kieffer is an IT geek by hobby and trade, with a BS in Information Systems & Technology. He is a proud father of 10, a grandpa, an author, a journalist, and internet publisher. His motto is to “Elevate, Inspire and Inform”, and he is politically conservative and a Christian. Mike has a passion for technology, writing, and helping others. With a wealth of experience, he is committed to sharing his knowledge with others to help them reach their full potential. He is known for his jackassery or his form of self-expression that encourages boldness, creativity, and risk-taking. It can be a way to push the boundaries and challenge traditional norms, leading to creative solutions and positive change.