December 23, 2006

It’s Saturday, the eve of Christmas Eve, 2006 and I’m looking forward to Christmas day. This year my holiday spirit culminated in a baking spree. Instead of making Sugar Plums this year, I decided to give presents of old fashioned filled cookies, date bars, rum balls, cranberry bread, two kinds of oatmeal cookies, chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies. Still on the baking list is carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, sugar cookies with colored sugar topping, and cherry pie. If I have any energy left I hope to make a lemon crème pie.

The recipes are the same ones Mom used during the years when I, along with my brothers and sisters were growing up and still at home. My sister, Esther, and I have been reminiscing about past Christmases during our instant messaging chats and she reminded me of the Burnt Sugar Cakes, the Devil’s Food Cakes with Boiled Frosting and the Upside Down Pineapple Cakes and the Coconut Cream Pies Mom used to make. We marvel that they were all baked in a wood/coal burning stove, not a gas or electric stove.

Christmas cards always add to my holiday spirit especially when there is news of a new baby in a favorite cousin’s life. Email photos of those near and dear, sent to celebrate the season, bring memories of past Christmases. TV stories of holiday travel delays remind me of long ago when I tramped thru falling snow with presents to put under the tree.

What fun it is to remember the myriad decorated trees I’ve had over the years. One year, when I lived in California, I returned a tree to the Christmas tree lot, demanding a replacement. I had purchased the tree around supper time when the night air was turning cold and misty with dampness, but the lights strung around the enclosure of the tree lot created an ethereal quality as Christmas music played and people laughed and browsed among the trees. I chose a tall, bushy fir and waited for the helper to nail on a wooden stand then went home to trim it.

After the tree had been decorated, it suddenly fell over, scattering decorations in all directions. I stood the tree up again, but before I could finish putting the ornaments back on the tree, it tipped over again. The stand had been nailed on crookedly and I had no way of fixing it. Never the less, I put the tree in a corner with ornaments hanging only on the front branches. When the tree fell over a third time, I removed the tinsel and other trimmings, put the tree in the car and drove back to the tree lot. I gave the tree back to the helper who had sold it to me and demanded another tree with a good stand. I think I must be the only person in the world who ever returned a Christmas tree!

I already know what my presents are but that doesn’t take away my excitement for Christmas day. I’ll be having a wonderful dinner with my son and hear the voices of loved ones as they phone with glad tidings and wish us good cheer. I wish the same for all my readers. May each of you enjoy the season with joy and tranquility. Perhaps the wish we all have in our hearts, Peace and the end to the war in Iraq will be realized.