Category Archives: Holidays

Sweets From Christmas Past

Posted on by
Reply

This year, I have been helping clean out my older sister’s home and have found a wealth of treasures interspersed with many questionable items. A lot of the pieces of paper and absurd objects are the same ones I sorted through 30 years ago when my mother died. My sis has been the collector and curator of all the things and could not bear to throw them away. Items I thought long discarded were tucked into drawers, on shelves, and in boxes under beds. This tendency to hoard was passed on to her via our mother’s genetics. Still, it has grown with time because she also inherited our father’s flawed arterial flow issues. I so want to talk to her about the abundance of pictures, recipes, and scribbled notes, but the time to do that has rapidly faded. Indeed, time itself has grown thin and fragile as she sits each day in a lovely memory care facility. She is not yet totally lost to us but wakes every morning closer to that shadowland where both sorrow and joy escape from her mind like air from a pinhole.

Our conversations these days are about the past because it is still somewhat clear to her. In the present, she is tired and confused, but when we speak about the old days, she remembers the abundance of love and joy of the Christmas season. We have no indoor pictures of our childhood, no Christmas mornings, no laden tables. The reason for that is simple. Our only camera was a little Brownie box with no flash attachment. I’m sure it was an expense my parents deemed too extravagant, but the pictures in my head more than suffice. Do I recall them accurately? I’m really not sure. Driving back by the tiny house we lived in as children, I’m certain it had to be cramped, but I never felt that way. I’m also sure my mom had to pinch pennies, but I never felt deprived, certainly not when I sat at the table on Christmas day.


Our love language was always food. Our mom was unquestionably the best baker of all the moms we knew, certainly the best in our church and school. One of the most lasting memories both my sis and I have of Christmas were her jam cakes. I have her recipe, and I can make the cake, but Mama took it to a professional level. Of course she made coconut cakes, banana cakes, chocolate cakes, and spice cakes which many felt were tastier than the rich heavy jam cake. The secret to the jam cake was its keeping power. Heavy laden with raisins, nuts, molasses, spices and coated with a caramel candy icing, it could be shipped safely anywhere in the world. That is precisely what she did every year in the months before Christmas. By the 25th, every relative and friend of the family had one of Mom’s delicious cakes to enjoy. My sis and I recall helping make them, measuring flour and spices onto dozens of squares of wax paper to make them ready to sift and incorporate into the liquid components of the batter. To understand the scope of my mom’s cake operation, I am including an early recipe from her notes that gives the prices of the components. You might need to cut it down a bit if you want to make it. It’s for sixty cakes.


Did I mention that my mom worked full-time, was an officer in the chamber of commerce, and was an active worker in our church? I am unsure how many other things she did because she never bragged about her accomplishments. Plenty of other people did, including my sister and I, who know best what an amazing person she was. Christmas was never the same after she left us. There are moments when I envy my sister, who has forgotten so much. It seems to have fallen to me to remember everything in the same way she saves the physical bits and pieces of our lives. We each have our role. May the holiday season fill you with the joy of happy memories.


Joy To The World

Posted on by
Reply
Mr and Mrs Claus making their rounds, 1980’s

I want to share this picture of Santa and Mrs. Claus (my mom and dad) because it represents the best of the season to me. If you will indulge me for a minute I will tell you their Christmas story. It begins in 1932 when my mom was 13. She had recently moved from the rural mining and farming community of Echols Ky, just north of Paradise, to the big city of Beaver Dam Kentucky, population 1,036, to attend high school. She was living in a boarding house with her brother as there was no educational opportunity past 8th grade at home. While Echols was only nine miles down the road, this was the early 1930s when reliable transportation was a luxury for country people. My mom had often ridden a horse to grade school and walked when the horse was not available.

My grandfather, Claud Burden, always put the education of his seven children as a priority. Like Loretta Lynn’s papa he worked all night in the coal mines and farmed during the day. Still they were richer than many of their neighbors because my papa owned the little country store/post office/gas station that was the heart of the community. My grandmother or one of the children took care of the customers during the day. My mom, the oldest girl, took over the running of the house and caring for the babies when school was not in session. There were no lazy children in the family, but I know my mom’s labor was sorely missed when she headed off to high school.

Mom on the far right, age 13


Having her days free from household chores gave her time to apply herself completely to her studies. She took them very seriously, but it was the week before Christmas, mom’s freshman year, and Santa was making an appearance at the Beaver Dam Deposit Bank. Mom’s new group of friends from school begged her to walk downtown with them and see all the holiday decorations. I can almost hear their giggles as they dared my mom to go sit in Santa’s lap and tell him what she wanted for Christmas. I’m not sure what she asked for or what he promised, but I do know that four years later she and Santa got in his brand new 1936 Packard touring car and drove across the Indiana state line to get married. You see, the Santa whose lap she sat on was my then 17 year old father, picking up any odd job he could during the great depression to help out his widowed mother. Meeting the shy pretty girl really turned his world around. It was hard times for everyone and I’m not sure how my father managed to convince my mom to cast her lot with him, especially since she was offered a modest scholarship to business college after she graduated. She often talked about missing out on higher education and was always modest about her amazing achievements despite of it.

Mom age 17, 1936
Dad on the far right, sitting on the front bumper, aroung age 20


The years were hard, but the match they made was stronger than any adversity. In the winter of 1942 Mom and Dad were living in Louisville. Dad had not been drafted for WWII because he was older, had a family, but most of all, skills desperately needed for the war effort. He was working in the shipyards supervising a welding crew, building PT boats. They were living in a tiny trailer with their four year old son and Christmas was a few days away. There was no money or time to travel home and not much under the tiny tree mom had managed to fit on a table. As they sat finishing supper one dark evening someone knocked on the door. They cautiously opened it and there stood Santa with a bag of toys and candy canes! You can imagine the delight of that child and those young parents, away from home, living on a shoestring, and here’s Santa with his joyful ho-ho-ho and a gift for their little one. Mother made a vow from that day that she would play it forward and bring the same joy to other children when she was able.

In the 1950’s, back home in Beaver Dam, living in a one bedroom house with her now three children she finally realized her dream. She borrowed $25 from her father and bought material to make a suit and beard for my dad. They started going house to house, first to friends they knew, but soon Santa’s fame spread and he was going to every home of families with children in the county. He also made appearances at churches, orphanages and parades. For years Mom sat in the car waiting while he went inside. Finally she could stand hearing about, but not being a part of it no longer. She made her own suit, bought a blond wig and joined the happy party. This picture is them 30 years later with much upgraded costumes, making a stop on one of their rounds at Christmas. Mom has been gone for 30 years now and Dad for 17, but never a Christmas goes by that I don’t get a note or text from someone in my home town who remembers the excitement and joy of Santa’s visit when they were children.

The world has changed so much since then, but my wish each year is the same, that everyone keeps the spirit of the season all year long, no matter where they live or what they believe. When Santa is driving that sleigh around the world may he bring the gift of love and peace to every house, to every child.

Promises of Paris

Posted on by
Reply

It’s almost 2 AM, too early to wake, but Paris and hunger has roused me from a restless four hour nap. I recall very few times in my life that I have been too excited to eat, but the last few days before my trip have been so packed with preparations and anticipation I have lost track of even meal times. Now with my suitcase ready for zipping, my traveling outfit selected and my job put to bed for the month, my stomach wakes me complaining. I cannot decide it it is too later or too early to eat, but after months of being too bound by responsibilities to take time for myself I find that more than food, more than sleep, I need to write. So, let me tell you about Paris.

In Kentucky where I was reared, many early pioneers left a stamp of incongruent place names across the young wilderness, names that were doomed to be twisted into unrecognizable pronunciations by the uneducated tongues that followed them into that dark and bloody land. My high school French teacher did nothing to dispel the ignorance in myself or my classmates concerning the butchered names. The rules of pronunciation that I learned in class were not applied locally. It was my first husband that made me aware that the Versailles Highway and the palace of the Sun King were spelled exactly the same way, but that Louis would have gone into the French equivalent of a hissy fit if he heard the locals speak the word. We even named the largest city in the state after him, Louisville, but I can almost see his sneer if he heard it spoken. Hopefully, I will not see the same sneer Sunday morning when I arrive in his native land and open my mouth.

In an effort not to rise above my raising I have diligently fallen asleep for weeks with the headset Rosetta Stone sent me wrapped around my head whispering barely remembered words from long ago. The only thing I have learned for certain is how to ask politely for the toilet and a translator to understand the directions to same. Last night I admitted to a bit of terror along with my excitement. Come what may however I will be on the airplane in six hours, ready or not.

I wish I could say I yearned for Paris as I sat eagerly on the front row of Mrs. Render’s French class but truthfully I just wanted to be anywhere but in Beaver Dam Ky. It was later that Paris assaulted me, so deftly I am uncertain of when the blow was struck. I do know the longing is there and a bit of it seems to be in many of my friends and acquaintances, for when I tell them about Paris they get a dreamy look in their eyes. Some say, well, the people are rude I hear, or the city is dirty, but under it all they know romance waits there in the air, in the water, in the food, and especially in the language. La ville éternelle m’appelle, et je vais…

To be continued…

Excelsior!

Posted on by
1

I sit with a blank page on my laptop watching my reflection in the large black monitor on my son in law’s desk. The picture I see looks like a ghost of either Christmas past or Christmas future, perhaps both. It seems a line has been drawn across my life this year with bittersweet endings on one side and uncertain beginnings on the other…

The long and arduous relationship with my mother in law appears to be coming to an end as she lies in a hospital in Roanoke gravely ill. I have never been able to feign any words of endearment toward her, although I recognize that she has accidently taught me many lessons. It still makes my stomach churn to think of her lying there alone, even though it is doubtful that she is aware of much around her. I cannot count the times I have wished her out of my life, but now I find there is no triumph for me in her passing. I believe that in this I have followed my children’s example of forgiveness and acceptance. My husband’s mother passed before he and I married and my mother lived far away and died when they were young. So with all her faults she has been the only grandmother that has had a relationship with them.

My mother would have been proud of my daughter for taking on the duties of Christmas this year. Although my children do not remember much about my my mother, the ceaseless work and attention to detail Eva showed preparing a wonderful meal for friends and family reminded me so much of her. In contrast, I did not so much as put up a tree this year. I admit that the passing of the reins is not without some trepidation. After so many decades of sitting in the driver’s seat it was strange hearing the words I used to tell everyone else directed at me. “Just sit back and relax”. I have no practice at this indolence and I find it bewildering, like being a child told to stay out from underfoot.

I empathize with my newly mobile grandson who clammers at the baby gate, wishing to be in the thick of things. Looking at him I know I should not waste a second bemoaning times past. Both of us just need to acquire the necessary tools and understanding to function in this new order. It’s nice to have so much in common with him actually, although I doubt he would see it that way. I am bursting with optimism about the future and it is obvious he feels the same. He is unaware of how much I am learning from him about persistence and ignoring barriers.

My favorite inspirational phrase this year is on a card at my work desk, “Life rewards those who let their actions rise above their excuses”. This quote is reportedly by Lee Colan, an organizational guru, and it was passed to me in an email from my director. The same email also quoted Jedi Master Yoda “Do or do not, there is no try”. I am ashamed to admit that although I have read an reread them, I have not taken the words to heart like I should. Instead of doing, I have been trying. As I have watched my grandson Logan progress from being stuck where ever he was placed by an adult to a fearless independent locomotion I recognize his total grasp and application of the attitude I am striving to learn. The fact that he would walk straight off the edge of a cliff with his newfound skills is not lost on me and neither is the inordinately strong and ultimately ineffectual will to live exhibited by my step mother in law. I however have no excuses not to succeed at anything I want. I have the common sense not to walk to the edge of the Grand Canyon and jump, but the health and fortitude to strap on a parachute and leap out of an airplane. I’m not saying skydiving is in my immediate future but perhaps something equivalent, only slightly less terrifying. I’ve never quite overcome my fear of heights you see, but like the young Jedi I am not trying. Let me just say welcome to the fresh new year and give you one more homily, this one from tinybuddah.com.

“Death is more universal than life. Everyone dies but not everyone lives.” ~Alan Sachs