Christmas Candy

 

I was at the grocery store today and come upon a candy display  that transported me back in time.  It was what I consider Christmas candy, although I suppose it is available all year. 

But when I was growing up, I only saw it this time of year, and the only time I remember it being in our house was right before Christmas.  On some magic day, usually a week or so before Christmas day, my granddaddy would come home from work with two or three big cardboard boxes filled with oranges, apples, nuts and Christmas candy.  For some reason, I think he got the bounty from Walt Thompson’s store on the square, although I have nothing factual to base that on.  Walt Thompson’s store was one of the last old country style groceries I remember in my hometown, with a huge wooden cheese block where he sold bologna and hoop cheese sandwiches.  There was a big glass case near the front door with jars of penny candy, creaky wooden floors and an indefinable smell that probably had something to do with the coal fueled stove he heated the old building with. 

I can remember the excitement I felt when those big boxes of holiday treats appeared near the front door.  Orange slices, coconut bon bons in pretty colors, chocolate drops, and my favorite coconut haystacks.  I never liked orange slices, but they were my daddy’s favorites.  I don’t particularly like any of these candies now and I’m not sure I ate all that many as a child.  But they meant Christmas to me, just like the smell of oranges and the sight of King Leo candy sticks.  Those were my granddaddy’s favorite and he always got at least a tin or two as gifts.  I liked the lemon flavored King Leo sticks.

The oranges were used to make my grandmother’s ambrosia, a blend of orange segments, coconut and a few maraschino cherries on top.  What people call ambrosia now has whipped topping and marshmallows added, but that’s not what I grew up with – it was just basically oranges and coconut, served in fancy little sherbert dishes that still live in my china cabinet.  My spell check just flagged “sherbert” and tried to tell me to change it to “sherbet” but I didn’t fall for it.   I always follow rabbit trails, so I had to look it up.  They are the same thing, and the spelling with the “r” is older.

There were always bags of English walnuts, and mixed nuts in the shell.  I’m not sure why we needed the English walnuts, since we had all the black walnuts we could ever want stored in baskets in our wood shed.  But I remember my mother and grandmother sitting in the living room with the nutcrackers, shelling and picking out nuts for candy, cakes and cookies.  Mama always made several jam cakes, one for us and a few as gifts for family or close friends.  She made them ahead of the holidays and stored them in a lard stand in the coldest room of the house.  I don’t have the courage to make even one jam cake, but she made a bunch, using blackberry jam from blackberries she picked in early June.  I wasn’t a big fan of jam cake, but I loved the caramel icing and always hovered around the kitchen to lick the bowl.

Then there was the ham.  I don’t think I’ve ever eaten anything as good as my granddaddy’s country ham, cured with his special blend of sugar and salt and hung in the smokehouse to age until it was just right for cooking.  He boiled the ham in a lard stand – we must have had numerous lard stands at that time.  I don’t know what happened to all of them!  Then he wrapped the whole thing in an old quilt and let it “sit” overnight.  The last step involved placing the ham in a big old black roasting pan and covering it with his blend of sugar, salt, pepper and perhaps other spices before baking it in the oven.  He used to prepare several hams besides ours.  One or two went to relatives and one was served at the local KP lodge for their Christmas dinner.  That first slice was almost ceremonial, dark pink, almost red, with little flecks of white.  The flecks of white meant it was cured just right.  There was nothing to compare it to – today’s “store bought” product can’t compete.  I was talking to a friend of mine not long ago about country hams and he reminded me of something I had almost forgotten.  When the ham was down to the scrappy part and starting to dry out, my grandmother would chop every bit she could manage off the bone and grind it up for what I guess was called ham salad.  She would use an old black grinder that was probably used for grinding sausage too and mix the results with mayonnaise.   My friend Mark said he still makes it with his leftover country ham and adds pickle relish to it for sandwiches.  I don’t remember pickle relish in my grandmother’s version but it’s been a long time since I even thought of it.  I think it was one of those things that had no recipe – it just was.

All my Christmas memories do not involve food.  There was church too.  I have always attended a small country church and we always celebrated the holiday with a Christmas program.  If we had enough children, we did a play.  I think I still have copies of some of the plays we did – they were in little pamphlets that we got from somewhere.  Sometimes we did a nativity scene re-enactment, especially if we had a suitable live baby that year. Some of the babies were more suitable than others.  I remember one Christmas when the newborn Jesus was sitting up in the manger drinking from his baby bottle.  No one seemed to mind.  We dressed in the usual bathrobes, with towels on our heads, tinsel halos and aluminum foil covered angel wings. 

If sometimes the wise men wore tennis shoes or a shepherd looked more like a ninja warrior than a shepherd, or one of the angels yanked baby Jesus out of the manger, it still touched our hearts.  No one can be untouched watching a bunch of little angels and shepherds crowded around a homemade manger while the choir sings "Silent Night."

The church has an artificial tree now that we put up on the first Sunday of Advent.  But in my young days, we used a real cedar tree.  I will never forget the year my neighbor friends cut down a cedar that brushed the ceiling of the church (and our church has really, really high ceilings.  By then the adults had turned the entire thing over to us older kids and we had no adult supervision that I can remember.  Lonnie and Tony hauled this huge tree to the church right before the program and we managed to get it up and decorated with yards and yards of tinsel garland and all the ornaments we had collected over the years.  It was a sight to behold. Every person who walked in the church stopped and stared, open-mouthed.  Lonnie and I had a conversation about it a couple of weeks ago in the buffet line at the local restaurant.  I don’t remember anything about what kind of program we had that year, but I can still see that tree in all its glory.  My mama fussed at me – she disliked tinsel garland and always said we choked the tree to death with it.  After the program, everyone received a little bag with an orange, an apple, a few nuts and a candy bar.  I didn’t care much about the apple and orange, but I was always in suspense over what kind of candy bar I would get.  I don’t think it occurred to me to ask the big kids handing out the bags for the kind I liked.  We didn’t have a Christmas program last year because of Covid but we did this year.  We don’t have enough kids for a play, but we get together and sing Christmas songs.  This is the first year I remember that we didn’t have the little bags of fruit and candy.  I guess we forgot about it.  Next year I’m going to remember.  I don’t guess I can talk anyone into a live cedar tree that touches the ceiling, and someone probably has thrown away all that garland.

Sables Under the Tree

 

It should have been a peaceful scene with the lighted Christmas tree, a fire blazing merrily in the fireplace, a comfy recliner with a plush blanket.  Add 80 pounds of supercharged collies and an elderly sheltie who just wants to get out of the way and serenity became Rocking Around the Christmas Tree, or more accurately, Rocking the Christmas Tree. 

Sophie is two, but sometimes thinks she is still a small puppy.  Three-month-old Scout thinks he’s a grown-up dog but is all puppy.  Their favorite game, other than WWE wrestling, is a combination of tug-of-war and keep away.  Often it morphs into all three.

Right now their favorite toy is a square plastic container they confiscated from the kitchen.    When they both managed to get hold of it at the same time, it became a prize they both were determined to have.  Scout was zooming around the couch, sometimes with the toy and sometimes in pursuit of the toy. Sofie tried to head him off at the pass and made a grab for the prize.  Frosty the Snowman got in the act too.  Frosty is a motion activated figure that sits at the end of the sofa table.  When motion is detected, he sings his signature song and dances to the beat.  The first few times he burst into song, Scout stopped dead in his tracks and stared at him.  After several times, I considered getting up and turning him off, but I was awfully comfortable under my blanket.  Sometimes I couldn’t hear Frosty anyway, with the barking of two crazed collies.

Every now and then, Sophie came over to my chair and looked up at me, like, “Did you see that?”  Then Scout discovered that he could jump up into my lap and almost tipped my chair over.  It was at this point that Phoebe, the senior dog, took refuge behind the Christmas tree, turning it almost a quarter turn around.  Another turn or two and I will have to consider putting more decorations on the back side of the tree.  (She turned it back around when she emerged later that evening.)  Maybe I need a fence.

If they could write a letter to Santa, they would ask for lots of treats, sticks and bubble wrap.  Luckily I order enough from Amazon to get a steady supply of bubble wrap and the high winds we are having provide ample sticks.  The bubble wrap makes a fine tug-of-war subject and has the added fun of those popping noises.  It’s a race to see how quickly they can flatten every section. 

Maybe this obsession is why they aren’t afraid of fireworks.  They probably think they are just exceptionally large and noisy air pillows.  For me, they are my best present.  The words of “Santa Baby, slip a sable under the tree, for me” echo in my head this time of year.  I’ve never had a sable like the one in the song, nor have a I wanted one.  No fur coat can warm me like a sable and white collie snuggled next to me nor warm my heart like the antics of my collies, even when they are driving me crazy.

Sometimes I feel like I am running a daycare for a roomful of toddlers on a sugar high.  Sophie and Scout don’t need sugar for a rush.  Just living seems to be enough for them.  The simplest things, like a red plastic container, a cardboard box or a sheet of bubble wrap send them into ecstasy.  They don’t care about the calendar – to them every night is Christmas Eve and every morning is Christmas.   Scout is still at the age where multiple potty trips are necessary during the night.  In theory, he is the only furry creature in the house that needs those trips, but according to the other three dogs, he cannot be allowed out alone.  However much I insist that the trips could be very quick, they insist that a patrol of the immediate area (and sometimes beyond) is necessary.  No matter how quiet the night or how peaceful things seem, they bound out the door, taking off in all directions on high alert.  You just never know what might be out there.  I envy their enthusiasm, but even more, I envy their ability to return to bed fifteen minutes later and immediately fall asleep. 

It’s a special gift dogs and cats have that should have been given to humans.  One minute there can be all manner of mayhem taking place and within seconds, all is quiet and sleeping dogs lie scattered like empty packages on Christmas morning.  Now, that is a peaceful scene. Their soft snores accompany the noises I make as I toss and turn, trying to return to my own slumber.

 

 

 

 Merry Christmas from all of us at Maple Shade Farm – I wish everyone could have a sable under their own tree!

 

 

Still Hanging On

 

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a pair of walnuts that were still hanging on to a high branch on a tree outside my window.  Shortly afterward, one walnut fell.  Today, weeks later, that one lonely walnut is still clinging to the branch.  It’s a sad sight to me, for some reason.  If I could reach it, I might be tempted to knock it down and get it over with.

I know people like that walnut, clinging desperately to old ways and old ideas, and I have the same compulsion sometimes to give them a whack, perhaps knocking some of their old ideas out of them.

The community my family settled in and has lived in for almost 200 years was fortunate enough to be offered electricity in the 1920s, almost two decades before Rural Electrification brought that modern convenience to the rest of this county.  Knowing what I know about my great-grandfather, I’m sure he was one of the first to sign up.  He was a progressive man.

 Most of the other neighbors in our little bend of the river also were glad to get what must have seemed like a miracle.  But two farms adjoining our property were left out.  Their owners were afraid of the electric lines that would have to cross their land.  I’m not sure exactly what they were afraid of, but it may have been fear that somehow electricity would leak out of the lines and kill them or their livestock. 

Anyway, for whatever reason, the power company had to run the lines a different way to avoid their property.  They totally bypassed the first mile of road frontage and built the lines across my great-uncle’s farm, down the road to the next three farms and an offshoot down our road.  So, even now, the power lines run in a slightly weird way, through the woods and across a big open pasture instead of along the road.

Of course, as anyone could have predicted, when the other farmers in the neighborhood had electricity for a while, the two fearful neighbors noticed it didn’t kill anyone, so they wanted it too.  I suspect their wives may have had something to do with it, after they saw the modern new kitchens with electric refrigerators and stoves and lights that didn’t smoke up the curtains and smell up the room.  So, the power company came back at some point and ran lines off the poles that went to our place, across the holler that runs from the main road to the river bottom, and delivered electricity to those two farms.  Those lines stand as a testament today to men who hung on, like my walnut, to old ways.   And every time I hear someone bemoan modern life and talk about the “good old days” so longingly, I think about those two farmers who, if they had their way, would have been stuck in the good old days with oil lamps and no refrigeration.  Even worse, no air conditioning and no electric blankets.

Sometimes the old ways do turn out to be the best.  Take walnuts, like the one that is clinging so desperately to the tree.  For decades, we have cracked walnuts on the top of our old cistern, using a rock.  It does tend to smash the nuts along with the shells and it occasionally causes a smashed finger for the careless rock wielder.   

But as a simple, low-tech method, it works well.  Once, several years ago, someone gave my mama a nutcracker that was supposed to let you bust open even the hardest nuts with a simple turn of the handle.  As I recall, it was a contraption sort of like a vise grip mounted on a piece of wood, with a metal handle.  I was eager to try it, having suffered several smashed fingers from the old way.  Mama was skeptical.  Turns out, she was right.  For one thing, it was a two-person job – one to hold down the wood part and the other to try to turn the handle.  Almost immediately, the metal part broke away from the wood part.  It was back to the rock on the cistern top, which I still use to this day. 

  I think the nutcracker dimmed my faith in modern technology.  I look through the catalogs with a skeptical eye now at the new, improved gadgets guaranteed to make even the simplest tasks easier and quicker.  Did you know that you can buy a deluxe kit for roasting hot dogs and marshmallows for the low price of $79.95?  A metal stick with interchangeable tips in a special carrying case?  It’s even dishwasher safe.  We have always used a stick.  Simple and disposable and you don’t need the carrying case.  Maybe I should start selling a super deluxe kit which includes several sticks in a sack.  I could sell it for $59.95 and label it as an organic, environmentally friendly marshmallow roasting kit.  I could even give people a choice in the kind of sticks - maple, oak, walnut, or elm.  The dogs love to collect sticks.  I could make a fortune.

Afterword: We had a bunch of tornadoes and thunderstorms over the weekend, after I had written this.  The storm was too much for the lone walnut and it was on the ground when I got up the next morning.  Sometimes it takes a storm to force us to let go.  That’s a philosophical discussion for another day.