Christmases Past

I'm not sure how an excess of cookies and candies became associated with Christmas unless it's the fact that mothers and grandmothers everywhere decided to make special treats for this special occasion and the tradition just grew.

Although there were very few presents under our tree on Christmas morning, certain treats were never missing. My grandma made chocolate covered cherries well in advance because they had to sit for a while in order for the centers to liquefy. My dad made peanut butter fudge and sea foam (divinity). We could hardly wait until we were allowed to sample these goodies we had only once a year.

Grandma's fruit salad was another treat served only on Christmas day. She started with a can of Delmonte fruit salad from Buxton's store and added canned peaches and pears from our cellar. Then came a small can of pineapple chunks, a small jar of maraschino cherries, and fresh oranges - the only time of year we had fresh oranges. Before we had electricity, our fruit salad was chilled in the smoke house overnight and brought in at the last minute. Sliced bananas were added just before serving. It was wonderful.

Great-Uncle Howard arrived on Christmas mornings carrying a bag of black walnuts he had gathered. After sitting in the kitchen patiently cracking the shells and digging out the nuts, he made a black walnut cake – his gift to our family. Now that I think of it, the only ingredient he provided was the black walnuts. If anyone noticed it at the time, no one mentioned it. Uncle Howard lived alone on a houseboat tied up on 13 Mile Creek in Leon. His gift was a gift from the heart and it was very much appreciated.

Above you see a photograph taken the year I was married. There are my Grandma, my Mom, and my two youngest brothers, H.A. and Johnny. I am proudly wearing the necklace Carl gave me. My little brother, Johnny, is wearing the cowboy outfit we gave him and H.A. has a new shirt. Carl took the picture with his new Argus 33mm camera – the first camera he'd ever owned.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my friends and family. I wish you the kinds of memories that help make this time of year so very special.

Christmas Villages

Ceramic Christmas villages are highly collectible. There are so many villages available that it's hard to decide exactly which one to buy. And most of them are beautiful. Should it be the Norman Rockwell Village? Christmas in the City? The Nightmare Before Christmas Village? The New England Village? The Alpine Village? The North Pole Village? Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. The ever-present ultimate salesman masquerading as an artist, Thomas Kinkade, has so many Christmas villages for sale that one can hardly count them all.

But my favorite Christmas village didn't come from a store. My Christmas village offers a whole lot more. My family and I can stroll through our village and remember what took place in each and every house we've lived in.

There is the snug, low-roofed home where Carl grew up near Buffalo, West Virginia. It was built by his dad. And there is the white Dutch-roofed home where I spent my childhood in Leon, West Virginia – my father's dream come true. Next is our little story-and-a-half house that Carl and I bought for $14,800 in Worthington, Ohio. It contains all of Scott's childhood memories.

And how many people can say they really built their home? We look at our village and see the house we built from top to bottom with our own hands in Marengo, Ohio. We must have been nuts. It was a two-story, 3,500 square foot home with three fire places and a five car garage on twenty acres. It took us several years with a little help from our friends and before we got it fully furnished, IBM offered me one of those opportunities you just can't refuse. Leaving it was especially painful because we left Scott behind too. But only for a little while.

The Raleigh, NC, house in our village was a compromise. Carl loved it. I didn't. But it gave us our first taste of Southern living and a screened porch that just couldn't be beat. When we stroll through our village, we remember things like trying to understand a strange new language – Southern – and trying to be tactful when we were quizzed about our kin. Yankee was not a desirable heritage.

And, last but not least, we come to our current home in Lilburn, Georgia. We have been here for fourteen years and we've learned that, although big cities do offer certain advantages, those advantages come at a high price: Heavy traffic, crime, and more nationalities than one could ever imagine, many of whom have no interest whatsoever in becoming Americanized. It takes us an hour and fifteen minutes each way to go to our eye doctor – if we're lucky. It once took us 4 hours to get through Atlanta on Thanksgiving eve, a distance of 35 miles. Nevertheless, this home contains many happy memories too. We have irreplaceable friends and neighbors here and this is the home where we've built memories with Greg since he was five years old.

So take a peek at my Christmas village. It represents my life. It's the first decoration to go up every year and the last to come down. Seeing the glow from those little windows brings back every room in every house and all of the memories created there. It is the ultimate gift that keeps on giving every year, lovingly created by my husband.