Howdy, all!
As Christmas draws near, I get nostalgic. I've waxed on about my occasional bouts of nostalgia, and they get especially strong in December. My memories, in no particular order:
Going to the hobby shop. I've told you several times that Christmas was about the only time we'd go to a real live hobby shop back in the day, with the purpose of buying a grass mat for under the tree. Sometimes, we would pick up a little something for the train layout, too--a new structure kit, or a piece of rolling stock in addition to rail joiners and other required parts. As my brother and I got older, we would get each other's gifts there, too. It wasn't much of a surprise--we'd each pick something, hand it over to the other, who would buy and wrap it. We tried to be surprised on Christmas morning...
Playing with the trains when we were little, and setting them up as we got older. I still have both the Lionel O-Gauge set my parents bought in 1971 (our first Christmas in Florida) and the HO-gauge train set our Grandmother gave us in the late 1970's. Perhaps I should find a place to put them up? Of course, our Feline Justice Units will probably have something to say about that...
Slot cars. After we moved from the apartment we rented when we first moved to Florida into a house, Santa Claus gifted us a genuine AFX by Aurora race track (you know, the ones Jackie Stewart used to advertise), and a few years later my brother got a Tyco TCR (Total Control Racing) set for Christmas. I can't be sure, but I think my brother still has the TCR set, and maybe the AFX set, too.
Decorating the house. We had what my Mom called "pixies" (some call them "elves") that were Elf on the Shelf before EOTS was even thought of. We'd place them wherever they'd fit, and invariably forget one when we took the decorations down. It wasn't uncommon for us to find one hanging out as late as Easter.
Decorating the house, part 2. As kids, we'd watch Dad hang the lights on the house. When we got older, we got to do it. After a while, my brother took over the duties, and he could teach Clark Griswold a thing or two about external illumination.
Decorating the house, part 3. Setting up the tree(s). We had a large artificial tree and several smaller ones of various construction. Mom made a ceramic tree in the early 1970's that we'd put in the Family Room, and my parents had this vacuum-formed translucent plastic tree with colored lights inside that randomly flashed. It was definitely a product of the 1960's. Eventually, I would be tapped to do the lights on the big tree, and we would all do icicle duty--until the family had a cat. We stopped doing icicles for the most part when one year we noticed Samantha, the family cat, tearing through the living room with a shiny streamer coming from her hind quarters...
Getting the annual visit from our Grandmother. Both of my paternal grandparents died before I was born, and my maternal grandfather died when I was six. My grandmother would come to visit every other year or so, but after she married her sister's husband (her sister passed away from cancer in the early 1970's), she and my uncle would come down and spend a few weeks with us. I had to give up my bedroom, but as I got older I learned to appreciate the time I could spend with them. (Before I went off to college, between mid-December and late February I might get the use of my bedroom for maybe two weeks--as soon as my grandmother and uncle left, my father's sister and her husband--the Marine I built the models for--would arrive. Again, I treasured every moment with them, although a younger me wasn't happy sleeping on the couch for the better part of two months every year!)
Shopping. Back in the day, it was slower paced and more relaxing. During my college years, it was fun to be able to come home and cruise through the town to see what had changed. It was always fun to listen to my grandmother joking about going to the mall to "push and shove" every year, too, especially knowing that she and my mother had finished their shopping. It was usually an excuse to take us to lunch.
Food. My mother made cookies by the dozen (Toll House, Quaker Oats' "Vanishing Oatmeal Cookies", and Spritz), and cranberry nut breads by the pound. Along with those, there were meringue cookies, and what we called "Five Cup Salad" (one cup each pineapple chunks, mandarin orange slices, miniature marshmallows, shredded coconut, and sour cream--add a garnish of halved maraschino cherries, nuts are optional). One year, my grandmother and uncle decided they wanted to make pecan pies, and we must have made a half dozen pies, all from different recipes, between 20 December and just after New Year's Day.
Of course, once Mother Butler Pies became established in South Florida, they got our pie money and we moved on to other things. It was truly a sad day when they went away...
One of the strangest items we made one year was a coconut pie that was as simple as tossing a bunch of ingredients into a blender, whirling them up for a minute, then pouring the result into a greased pie pan and baking it. Sounds strange, but the pie was rather tasty.
Eventually, once my mother bought a pizzelle iron, she added those to her repertoire, although she waged a constant campaign to get someone else to make them for her...
And when I say cookies you might think, "What's so hard about that? The recipes are on the bag/container!" You obviously never met my mother. She would routinely add nuts and raisins to both the chocolate chip AND oatmeal cookies (she would have added them to the Spritz, but then the dough wouldn't pass through the cookie press!), and anything else she thought they'd go with (hence the nuts in the Five Cup Salad). She'd always use walnuts, too. She'd also play around with spices--she'd add cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger, ground cloves, and ground mace to the cookie dough. Those cinnamon-scented gewgaws you see in the stores these days had nothing on what our house smelled like during Christmas cookie season...
These days, as I've chronicled a few times, I'll bake the Big Three cookies, pizzelles, and cheesecakes. On occasion, I'll add more different types of cookies to the mix, and I really need to pester my cousins again. My Aunt Madeline made spectacular Italian treats, and I want recipes! The shame of it was that I didn't get them when she was still alive and visiting us every year...
Christmas dinner was usually a ham. Back before places like Honey Baked Ham arrived on the scene, Mom prepared it the old-fashioned way--pineapple slices, cherries, brown sugar, and Ginger Ale for the glaze, throw it into the oven, and let 'er rip. We'd have turkey some years--a lot depended on what we did for Thanksgiving. The sides--aside from stuffing and smashed potatoes, which tended to be turkey-only deals--were pretty much standard. Baked macaroni and cheese, green beans almondine, cheesy broccoli, and some form of rolls were constants. Dessert was pies, cookies, the aforementioned Five Cup Salad (a friend of the family called it "Three Prong Salad"), and whatever else Mom and Dad had received as gifts at work. Of course, dinner was preceded by the snack trays--pepperoni, cheese, crackers, olives (green and ripe) and pickles (dill and sweet). Yeah, it was a pretty big feast.
After I moved up here, Christmas is different, but I actually prefer the way my wife's family does it. Biscuits, country ham, sausage patties, bacon, chips and dips, sausage pinwheels, pigs in blankets, all served buffet style, and everyone helps themselves when they're hungry. After we arrive, my cookies get added to the feast, too (but not the cheesecakes--they're whisked off to undisclosed locations as soon as they're delivered--and if you believe that...). It's a fun time, and everything is easy to prepare. No fuss, no muss...
Mom was a teacher, so she would always get food gifts. Cookies and candy were common, although one year she got a rum cake--and the final glaze was more like a dunk in a vat of rum--you'd blow a 3.3 on the breathalyzer and get a DUI by just standing next to the tin!
A couple of the people Dad worked for would give out Christmas baskets, and, working in the insurance industry, he'd also get booze--this was before the days of corporate rules against such behavior. I still remember the year he got this huge bottle of Amaretto in a wrought iron tilting pouring stand. He'd get several bottles each year, and by the time my brother and I were old enough and in school, a bottle would usually go back to school with each of us. One year, I recall a bottle of Cutty Sark (my folks, when they did take a drink, preferred bourbon or rum) that came to Daytona Beach with me. I later came home for a weekend in February, and when I got back to the apartment that Sunday evening, I noticed that the bottle was empty. Dry. My roommate gave me some cock and bull story about some masked man who knocked on the door, told them he smelled Scotch, and held them at gunpoint and wouldn't leave until he watched my roommate pour the bottle out on the ground. (I knew better. The masked man held them at shot-glass point and made them drink the stuff! I know this because I knew my roomie wouldn't waste free Scotch, even the blended variety...)
Christmas SWAG. Oh, the stuff we would get. From Life Savers Story Books (every year, you could bet on it!), to clothes, models, toys, and other stuff, we were fortunate. Some years were leaner than others, but we never went without. I recently came across a picture of our back yard, with two brand-new tents airing out. One year, we received air rifles--but not Daisy's OfficialRedRyder200shotrepeatingactionrangemodelairriflewithacompassinthestockandthisthingthattellstime (my Mother- and Father-In-Law did, however, give all their young'uns each a shiny new Red Ryder a few years ago). Nope, these were original, genuine pump action Crosman Model 760 pellet rifles! Yes, sir, the Big Time! Another year, we got Marksman air pistols that could shoot darts--you know the guns, the ones that look like .45 automatics and where you can literally watch the BB dribble out the muzzle. We got pretty good at tuning them up.
Spending time with friends. We had a family friend who we knew from Scouting. He and his father had bought a house on Lake Istokpoga after their wife/mother passed away, and we'd head there with them on weekends. Often, we would go go to each other's place for a while over the holidays, too. When his father died, Bob would come and visit us at the house. One year, we (Bob, me, and my brother) took a ride out to the then-new Markham Park range. We spent the afternoon punching holes in paper and trying to educate the pair of young Hispanic gentlemen in the lane next to us how to feed and care for their veritable armory's worth of small arms--they go so bad that the Range Master had to show them the gate. The funny part of the day came later, when we were cleaning the firearms. We had some PVC-framed furniture on the patio, and the webbing on the chair I was sitting in failed--voom, and I went from looking across the table to staring at the bottom of the table. Bob thought that was hilarious, and as he was laughing his ass off, his chair followed suit. Yeah, who's laughing now...
When we were younger, we would visit a couple of other families we got to know through Scouting. Both families were Jewish, and it was interesting to see how they celebrated their holidays. One of the mothers was raised Catholic, so their family celebrated both. We used to joke about whether it was a Christmas tree or a Hanukkah bush. We lot touch with one of the families in the early 1980's, but the other family has kept touch with ours throughout the years.
Spending time with family. Yeah, as kids that was a given. But as we got older and moved away, it was great to come home again. My immediate family now is my brother and sister-in-law, whom I have seen once (for a few hours, tops) about six years ago. My extended family (cousins, aunts, uncles, etc.), I haven't seen in a loooong time (my Grandmother dies in 1992, so it has been that long or longer!).
I haven't even seen my in-laws (who live an hour away) since last Christmas.
Once COVID-19 gets tamed, I'll have to change that. Because without family and friends to celebrate with, Christmas just isn't Christmas, is it?
Thanks for reading. I want to wish each and every one of you a safe, happy, and healthy holiday season. As the old-timers say, Season's Greetings to all of you!
Be good to one another, and I bid you Peace.
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