Memories and mental images are prevalent in my mind during the holiday season.

I muse about how my great-grandparents Theresa and James Barrett decorated the house and entertained when they moved into it in 1911. Did they put up a Christmas tree? Was there even anywhere to buy a "real" Christmas tree on the prairies? If they did have a tree, what kind of ornaments were available back then and did they light the tree with candles?

I wonder what Christmas gifts their children - my grandma Anna, great-aunt Alice and great-uncle Henry - got that year and if they found it in a Sears and Roebuck or Montgomery Ward catalog. Was it delivered by a mailman who drove a horse and sleigh or did he have a Model T?

My musings move forward and I ponder about what may have been a popular Christmas gift for girls during the '30s when my mom Marcia, was a child? My mom grew up in the house, moving there with her parents, my grandma Anna, and grandpa Jay several years after the latter's marriage in 1922.

I have a hunch that one of the things my mom had on her Christmas list was books because there are boxes  full of them in the attic  with titles like "The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore" and "Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Camp Rest Awhile."
I know my grandparents and mom decorated Christmas trees at their home during the time they lived here, because we also found ornaments and wreaths in the attic. I have memories of putting up some of them when my grandparents were older and my siblings and I helped them decorate for the holidays. My grandpa put his Bing Crosby Christmas album on the record player that was in a big, wooden cabinet, and we decorated while Bing crooned "White Christmas," "Winter Wonderland" and the "Little Drummer Boy."

The "Little Drummer Boy" reminds me that my great-grandparents and grandparents were devout Catholics who didn't miss Mass unless there was a serious reason, so another thing that I think about during the holidays is how they got to church. My mom used to tell me about riding to Mass on Sundays in a sleigh during the winter with hot rocks to warm her feet and blankets covering her, so I wonder if that is how they got to Mass on Christmas. Did they go to midnight Mass on Christmas Eve with the stars shining above and the horses' breaths whistling in the cold? Was it hard for the horses to pull the sleigh over the snow-covered roads or were there tracks that made it easier for them?

My musings and memories are top of my mind, especially during the holidays, because I am so grateful that my husband and I have had the privilege to raise our family in this house on this farm.

I have daily reminders that the caretaking of the three generations who lived here before me have made it possible for me, the fourth, to live here. I am surrounded by physical reminders in the form of the good condition of the house itself and photos of my relatives and the multitude of stories my mom and grandparents told me and the memories me and my siblings made when we visited my grandparents.

Now, the fifth generation to live here, our children, Brendan, Thomas and Ellen, have stories they will remember from me and their grandma, my mom, telling them and memories they made throughout the year during their young lives and, especially, at Christmas. The fourth and fifth generations now will pass on those memories to Aria, Brendan's and his wife's Kasey's daughter, and to future members of the sixth generation.

Keeping the farmstead and the house in the family has had effects that have rippled positively throughout the past 114 years and it's something that I never want to take for granted or forget for which to be thankful. Musing and mental images keep it in the forefront of my mind so I will continue to do that, particularly during the holidays when we gather in our home that has housed family celebrations of the season for 11 decades.

Wishing you a joyful, peaceful holiday season of making the memories with those you love in the place that means the most to you.

Opinion column by Ann Bailey, journalist and guest contributor.