An Amish Year of Holidays

When people find out that I write books about the Amish, it seems everyone has a question ready to ask. Especially around the holidays. Do the Amish celebrate birthdays? Do they give Christmas cards? Do they stay up late on New Year’s Eve?

As with the English, the Amish traditions vary from settlement to settlement, but for the most part, the Amish celebrate the same holidays we do.

After all, holidays are important to the Englishers. It only stands to reason that they are important to the Amish as well.

I’ve asked my Amish friends about New Year’s Eve and most stay up and watch the clock tick over to a new year. They like to eat pork and sauerkraut (recipe below) on New Year’s Day and enjoy time with family and friends. However, for a great deal of the Amish especially for those working in rural settings, work continues as normal. Livestock isn’t concerned with human holidays and must be milked and fed regardless. (Just a note here–most of my Amish friends work for English companies and no longer farm for a living.)

Everyone loves Valentine’s Day. Couples make special plans, youth groups organize fun activities, and Amish school children make Valentines to give each other. There are special lunches to celebrate and cards are exchanged. And though we would like to believe that the commercialism of store-bought valentine cards, candies, and roses have not taken hold in the Amish culture, this isn’t the case for every district. A lot of this is determined by how integrated the Amish are into the English community around them.

Naturally, Easter is a big holiday for the Amish. And since the Amish hold their church services every other Sunday, it is possible for Easter to fall on an ‘off’ Sunday. Amish families can either attend a service in another district or observe Easter at home. Amish children color Easter eggs and even have egg hunts.

Surrounding Easter is Ascension Day, the thirty-ninth day after Easter Sunday. The day celebrates Christ’s ascension into heaven. The Amish also celebrate Good Friday and Easter Monday. Both days are usually filled with quiet reflection.

In addition, the Amish celebrate Pentecost. It’s the fiftieth day after Easter and is the celebrated day when the Holy Spirit appeared to the apostles. Some consider this the birthday of the church. Easter can also be a big time for school programs if they aren’t held at Christmas.

The Fourth of July is not normally observed by the Amish. They have nothing against it per se and some even set off fireworks. Though it seems more for fun than true celebration as the English do.

St. Michael’s Day is observed on October 11th. If you live near an Amish community, you may be surprised to find less traffic on the roads and a great many (if not all) of the Amish businesses closed for the day. The Amish observe this day with rest and fasting and preparing for the upcoming communion service.

This holiday was a new one for me. Most probably because it’s a Catholic holiday, though it is not celebrated on the same day for all who observe it. So why do the Amish celebrate a Catholic holiday? Most likely tradition. In the old days, a great many Amish were tenant farmers. They paid a certain percentage of their profits to the land owners on specific days. October 11 just happened to be one of the ‘quarter days’ (or payment days) and somehow managed to work its way into Amish tradition.

Halloween is not celebrated by the Amish for obvious reasons. However, many Amish decorate with pumpkins, though they do not carve them.

The Amish celebrate Thanksgiving much the same way English do with a big meal and visiting family. However, Thanksgiving falls in the middle of the Amish wedding season and can sometimes take a backseat to a wedding celebration. Traditionally the Amish get married on a Tuesday or Thursday. It’s not uncommon to have a wedding or even more than one to attend on Thanksgiving Day.

Christmas traditions between the Amish and the English are as kin as they are different. The Amish do not put up a Christmas tree, though they decorate in other ways—like with Nativity scenes and candles. They exchange gifts, though my Amish friend’s family draws names to keep things as simple as possible.

The Amish school children host a Christmas program. They participate in skits, Bible readings, and even sing a few Christmas carols.

For the most part, Christmas is quiet and reflective. The day after Christmas, or Second Christmas, is filled with visiting friends and neighbors. Second Christmas came about as an extension of Christmas Day itself. The Amish have such large families that it’s impossible to visit everyone they would like on one day.

The tradition of Old Christmas is still followed in many districts. This day (at one time the actual day Christmas was celebrated) is another day of reflection and visitation by families. Old Christmas falls on January 6th. Note: none of my Amish friends in Pennsylvania celebrate Old Christmas.

So as you can see, the traditions of the Amish are rooted in the past as well as looking toward the future. But as a devout society, the traditions of the Amish are bound in faith and caring.

What are your favorite holiday traditions and how do they compare to the Amish?

I hope you’ll leave me a comment and let me know you visited! Everyone who comments will be put in a drawing to win a signed copy of Titus Returns. My latest Wells Landing book!

And as always, thanks for reading!

 

 

 

 

Amish Pork and Sauerkraut (serves 8-10)

1 pork shoulder (10-15 pounds)

4 pounds of sauerkraut

Salt and pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Rinse pork and place in a large roasting pan.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Cover with 1/3 of the sauerkraut.

Cover pan and place in oven for 90 minutes.

Remove and add another 1/3 of the sauerkraut.

Cover and place back in the oven for another 60 minutes.

Remove and add remaining sauerkraut.

Cover and place back in oven for another 60 minutes.

Remove and enjoy!

Be sure to serve with mashed potatoes and apple sauce.

Amish Quilts

Most of us would agree that Amish quilts are something of a cultural icon. They’re beautiful as well as functional and serve as a form of entertainment and togetherness for the Amish women who make them.

Quilt block from a quilt my Amish friend made for one of her daughters.

We have heard of or seen pictures of Amish women gathered around a large quilt frame, stitching and talking. Family members get together to make a quilt for a daughter who’s getting married. Friends and fellow church members may gather to make a quilt to send to a country in need, like Haiti. Or members of a district may work together to make a quilt to donate to an auction to help a community member facing hard times.

More Than a Marriage, the last novella in my Amish Quilting Circle Series releases at the end of February and features a group of Wells Landing Amish women who get together once a week to sew quilts for the Clarita School Auction. Most of you know that Wells Landing is inspired by the Amish settlement in Chouteau, Oklahoma. But the Clarita School Auction is one hundred percent factual and takes place every September. Click HERE for more info about the Clarita School Auction.

As much as we love Amish quilts, my Amish friend in Lancaster recently told me that the Amish girls of today are shying away from quilts and leaning more toward modern English comforter sets. This type of mindset could eventually lead to the discontinuation of the traditions surrounding these beautiful works of art. I don’t know about you, but just the thought makes me want to cry.

I love quilts and can’t imagine anyone picking a comforter over a hand sewn (or even machine sewn) work of love.

Which brings me to the good news part of this post. Amy’s Amish Quilt Giveaway (3^rd Annual) is still underway! What does this mean for you? The chance to win a one of a kind Amish-made quilt. If you haven’t heard about the giveaway you can find all the specifics HERE. In a nutshell, I’m collecting fabric from my readers. In turn, you get a chance at winning the quilt!

And the best part is you don’t have to able to sew or quilt to enter!

So head over and check out all the specifics of the giveaway and send in your fabric! (Must be 18 to enter. Void where prohibited.)

And you can also join my Facebook page dedicated to the quilt HERE.

I am so excited to be able to use this quilt to bring my readers together and for a little while keep this beautiful tradition alive.

If you have any questions, you can leave a comment below or email me at amylillard918@gmail.com.

Do you currently have any Amish made fabric goods in your home? Quilt? Doll? Potholder? Tell me all about it! Everyone who comments on this post will be entered into the weekly drawing. Up for grabs this week? A signed copy of Titus Returns, my latest Wells Landing Amish romance.

And as always, thanks for reading!

 

 

 

 

Wow! You Must Do a Lot of Research

This is the second thing most people ask me when I tell them I write about the Amish. The first is usually “Are you Amish?”

Well, no.

The first time I can remember hearing about the Amish I thought the person telling me about them was lying. Most probably it was my brother who liked to tease me beyond belief. I couldn’t be sure anything he said was actually the truth.

The next time I was watching Witness. I don’t know how old I was (at least seventeen, though). But I remember in the movie, the bad guys are looking for the Lapps. They call the local law enforcement in Lancaster who says, “Do you know how many Lapps are in Lancaster County?”

At the time I had no idea.

After that I didn’t think about the Amish much. I went to college, got married, and moved to the Caribbean. In fact, I probably didn’t think about the Amish again until my agent suggested I write a book about them.

Wait…what?

“Yes,” she said. “Write an Amish romance.” I really thought she was joking and when she didn’t call me back and tell me that she was pulling my leg, I went to Mardells and started my research.

For those of you who don’t live in the area, Mardells is a Christian bookstore owned by Hobby Lobby. I went to get fiction books about the Amish to read to get an idea what they were like. I mean, I knew all the elements of a secular romance. How different was an Amish one?

Turns out, they are incredibly different and not so different all at the same time.

But reading fiction books with Amish characters is a lot different than non-fiction books, and I found myself reading and watching everything I could. From Donald Kraybill to Amish Mafia. Yes, I meant it when I said everything.

These days it’s still the same. I absorb whatever I can about the Amish, but my favorite way to do research is to visit the communities themselves. Even ones that I don’t plan to write about.

Why? Because the Amish are fascinating people. I find it simply amazing how the communities differ and the ways that they are the same. When we were in Pontotoc, we were warned by the locals that they were stand-offish and didn’t readily talk to outsiders. We took that knowledge, shoved it in our back pockets, then headed toward the Amish houses. By the middle of the afternoon, we had met Elizabeth Hostetler. She and her husband had moved down from Ohio to be able to farm—land was getting scarce up north. She was canning chicken and couldn’t talk to us long, but managed to share a few nuggets of information including Thanksgiving traditions, when the Mississippi Amish leave school (yes, it is different from Lancaster), and the truth about their rumspringa. I was told on my first visit to Ethridge, Tennessee (the parent community to the one in Mississippi), that they didn’t have a rumspringa or run around time at all. What we learned from our new friend is that they have one, but it is very controlled and very conservative. Those wild and crazy stories they report about Amish teens running amuck are not coming from Mississippi.

So how does a person go from not knowing much to writing books about the Amish? Yes, it takes a lot of research and nothing beats going to a community and visiting with the people there.

I’ve been privileged enough to spend an entire week with my Old Order Amish friend in Pennsylvania. Nothing compares to living the life every day. After a while I forgot that I was among Amish and I was just among friends. I didn’t notice the differences until we (Stacey, Sadie, and I) ventured into town on a Saturday. And I knew I would never view the Amish the same again.

This year Stacey and I hope to return to Pontotoc, Big Valley, and of course, Lancaster County. But even more, we want to take a Missouri trip and check out all the interesting Amish settlements in the Show Me State.

You can bet, I’ll come back and show you everything I learned.

What about you? Where is the closest Amish community to your home and have you ever been?

I’m giving away a signed copy of Just Plain Sadie to one lucky winner this week. Just leave me a comment below.

And as always, thanks for reading!!

 

 

 

 

 

Not All Amish Communities Are Created Equal

When I started thinking about this post, this was the title that popped into my head. Not all Amish communities are equal, not all are the same. They differ in their Ordnung, the written and unwritten rules that govern a settlement, but they differ in other ways too.

This week, I had a reader ask me about the use of tractors in my Wells Landing Series. I explained that it was an actual part of the Amish community that inspired Wells Landing. But it made me think about the different Amish communities, how they vary, and how we perceive them.

I just finished the first novel in what will be at least a three novel series set in the little talked about Amish settlement near Pontotoc, Mississippi. Yes, there are Amish in the South!

The Pontotoc Amish settled in Mississippi as a spin-off settlement of the Swartzentruber Amish community in Ethridge, Tennessee. Swartzentruber Amish are among the most conservative of the Old Order Amish, not even allowing indoor plumbing. But when I first saw the houses, I immediately wondered how these people scrape out a living.

Mississippi red clay dust coats everything. All the houses are covered in aluminum siding, mostly white, but there were a few red ones. Yes, red! There are no flowers planted out front, no cute swing sets for the children to play on. There are no phone shanties. But there are plenty of signs made out of the scraps of siding which bear the carefully lettered names of the items the family sells. The gardens are large and fields of cotton and peanuts are plentiful. Almost every house has a shed where they sell the products that they make—goat milk soaps, gel air fresheners, potholders, button necklaces, and all sorts of canned goods.

It’s a peaceful, though dusty, and has a beauty all its own. But it’s miles away from Lancaster County in both distance and attitude. But it’s next to impossible to visit the two areas and not compare them. And on the surface, Pontotoc can look at bit rundown. And my heart went out to the people who live there. But when we mentioned this to our Amish friends in Pennsylvania, their sixteen-year-old had an insightful theory.

It doesn’t have to be that they are poor, but that they have different priorities.

Wait…what?

Yes, even the Amish can have different priorities.

My Amish friends in PA plant flowers in their yards every year. Do you know how much water it would take to keep flowers alive in the MS heat? A lot. So they don’t plant them. Instead they grow muscadines, tomatoes, and corn. Something with more value, something worth the effort it takes to keep it alive. Just different priorities.

And just something to think about the next time you get to visit an Amish community.

Have you ever been to visit the Amish? Where did you go and what was something interesting you observed?

This week I’m giving away an audio copy of Caroline’s Secret. Just leave a comment below to be entered into the drawing.

And as always, thanks for reading!

 

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a safe and fun holiday. I had a great blog planned for this week and then life stepped in. Aside from my family being home for the holidays, I managed to come down with a sinus infection on top of having a looming deadline for the first book in my new Amish romance series.

So…That being said, I’m just stopping in today to announce the winners and talk a little about resolutions.

With so many pressures at the holidays, my resolutions include NOT writing a book next December along with my standard “Lose X number of Pounds.” Actually this year, I’m adjusting it to be “10 Healthy Habits I Want to Start in the New Year.” (Including breaking my addiction to Coca Cola.) When I have all ten I’ll let you know—LOL—but until then I’m crawling back into my writing cave to finish A Home for Hannah.

What about you? New Year’s Resolutions? Yay or Nay? Leave a comment below to be entered to win a copy of my latest Guideposts Sugarcreek Amish Mystery, Stranger Things Have Happened.

And as always, thanks for reading!

Amy