Christmas

Memories of holiday celebrations remain very food centric for me.  When I recall the roasts, turkeys and hams of holidays past, I am instantly transported to the chaos and love of the kitchens where those meals were affectionately prepared.

Christmas was always spent at my aunt and uncle’s home.  My brother and I could never wait to arrive there to play with our cousins, see all the new toys Santa delivered and for me, eat copious amounts of my aunt’s stuffed mushrooms.  These mushrooms somehow verified it was finally Christmas.  They were not fancy, just mushrooms with a piece of link sausage placed in the cap and baked to perfection.  I craved these mushrooms all year.  They would disappear within minutes of exiting the oven.

As we grew older the family increased and now boyfriends, girlfriends, new husbands and wives were also attending the holiday celebrations so the mushrooms would vanish at an even faster rate.  There were never enough of these little bites to meet the growing families’ demands and the competition to score a few was fierce.  I truly miss that.

It’s become fashionable to say that your favorite holiday is Thanksgiving, and every so often I say those words. What I mean is that Thanksgiving is a holiday that’s entirely about food. The glorious turkey. The stuffing your mother used to make. And pies, pies, pies. When you say your favorite holiday is Thanksgiving, you’re not just praising Thanksgiving – you’re secretly dissing Christmas, with all its mercenary trappings and its promise of day-after holiday depression.

But the truth is I am demented over Christmas. I love it. I love twinkle lights, I love my tree (which I put up the first week of December), and I love Christmas dinner. Unlike Thanksgiving dinner, which is practically written in stone, Christmas dinner is a feast with no real rules. Days of discussion precede it. Goose? Prime rib? Turkey all over again? What about ham?

And then there are the desserts. The desserts of Christmas are divine, and they are true holiday recipes, the definition of which is that you would not be caught dead eating them at any other time of the year. It wouldn’t be Christmas without something like gingerbread, or a Yule log, or a plum pudding with hard sauce.

I was the youngest of five boys, most of them out on their own by the time I have any real Christmas memories. Being the baby of the family, and 8-years-younger than my closest brother, I had a different relationship with my dad than they did. He was an old-fashioned father and my arrival had been quite a surprise (they were hoping for a girl.) My mother passed away when I was five-years-old and my dad was forced to raise my brother Paul and me by himself for a few years before he remarried.

Our lives as a blended family weren't always easy, but Christmas was a time for tradition and like many people we had old ones and new ones. The week after Thanksgiving my dad and I would head out to the local tree lot. We always had a real tree and it had to be a Noble Fir, which has the best branches and spacing for decorations. If Dad was going to pay good money for a tree he wanted as many options as possible and the earlier you went the better the selection. Once we found our perfect tree, up it went onto the roof of our Buick Estate Wagon for the long journey home.

Since we had to wait for everyone to be home to decorate the tree - another immovable tradition - it sat outside in our backyard in a bucket of water so it would stay fresh until the "big night." Sometimes it was Christmas Eve, some years the weekend before. I always wished it was up longer, but the rules were the rules. To set the mood my dad would put on the Firestone Christmas album he got from his local tire dealer every year and then bring down the boxes of ornaments and lights the family had collected.

It’s the holiday season and along with sipping cocoa by the fire, it’s the perfect time to cozy up with a good book. We thought we’d take the time to share some classic titles for your twelve days of Christmas. Maybe we’ll introduce you to a new title or two.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens – Probably the epitome of “Christmas Classic,” this story has been parodied countless times and always drives home an important moral lesson.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss – Dr. Seuss makes us feel like we can spread the joy of the holidays to the grumpiest of people and reminded us that even if all the presents disappeared, we can still celebrate!

The Elf on the Shelf by Carol Aebersold and Chanda Bell – If you’re a parent of tiny children, you probably have embraced this new Christmas tradition of inviting one of Santa’s elves to help keep an eye on what’s going on around the house.