Christmas Memories
This isn't always an easy time of year. Actually, it can be the most stressful time of the year, can't it? Expectations are high, so fulfilling those is stressful. Memories of those gone or not present can be sad, and so much more.
We begin to reminisce in the weirdest places at the most strange of times. Have you ever seen a person standing in a store with a blank look? Shopping in the grocery store (I have the strangest desire to call it a market instead these days...wonder why?), the smells and sights of various aisles...the bakery aisle always reminds me of the first time we went to the new Shop Rite on Barnum Avenue next to the new McDonald's...
Just kids, we had the wildest times shopping. We hung out in the magazine and toy aisles - newly added to stores in the late 60's. Shop Rite was brand new, and the bakery was bangin'. Cookies that you could smell being baked, bread that was warm. Mom would rarely buy from there, not always trusting it, but we begged and begged for cookies. Mom didn't bake, so it really was just an exercise in "how to get what you wanted". Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't.
Then there's the cleaning aisle. Mom didn't like to clean either...but she was a good delegator. I got the bathroom job, so Dow cleaning bubbles scent always reminds me of those first times I had to clean the toilet. Dad was a clean pee-er so it was pretty easy. In back of the toilet (you know that spot) was horrid because of the dark, I think. Our bathroom was tiny, and we only had one so it wasn't so bad. Definitely easier than with 2 guys! After all, girls usually hit their targets in the potty at home.
Then there is the mall...the candle stores, with their scents of heaven and baking, and flowers. All the baking in the house was my responsibility. Mom hated to, so once I could hold the portable mixer, she showed me how to use a cake mix and bake it up. The next step was using the old spritz cookie press, with the handle that you turn. I learned quickly, and saw a commercial for a Presto Cookie Shooter one year before Christmas. That went on my list, and I got one. Thrilled, I used that Cookie Shooter till Jeremiah was in high school and it broke (all plastic, except for the motor, a piece finally snapped off).
I still search for that damn piece of equipment in every thrift store I go to...Nothing has ever come close to it. I still make those damn cookies every year, batches in green, red and "regular"...Christmas trees, poinsettias, hearts, bells, with "beadies" and sugar. My kids remember them, and make sure they are being made. The Louisiana kid got hers today, and said that's all she really wanted!
I stood in Bed, Bath and Beyond, and thought about all the cooking supplies my mother-in-law always got for me for Christmas...pans, and aprons and cookbooks were the typical gifts every year for over 30 years. Every year...think about that. Opening up a gift that you knew was a comment on your ability to feed her son, then her grandchildren. I still have a few of the cookbooks because I do use them. Especially the community ones. Those are great - from all over the place, they have tried and true recipes for every day meals, and great desserts. The aprons? Well, I have one left. And I used the turkey pan the past 2 years instead of a foil pan.
I picked up the rest of the ingredients today at BJ's for our dinner...manicotti with meatballs and sausage. My Dad's Aunt Jenny, my great aunt, taught me to make manicotti with crepes, the Northern Italian way. It is my go-to fancy meal that can sit on the stove, and be made the day before. Dirk makes the meatballs and sausage. I added eggplant last year. Eggplant that was from the farmshare, and is easy to make as well...all cooked and frozen, it just needs a construct with ricotta and mozzarella and sauce. Yes, we always called it sauce, even had a dinner we called sauce-a-lone (figure that out!).
Walked by the photo counter at CVS this week, and thought about the pictures we shared earlier in the year of my sister Nancy. They were of her coming of age, and adulthood, shared by her friends with us. I used them, along with what I have, to make a Shutterfly book for this year's book. It will bring on tears, I think, and laughter, but it's the memories I'm hoping for. Our shared niece and nephew, after all, didn't know her. She moved south, and wasn't a regular part of their lives, like she was with our kids. They didn't do donuts in the snow at midnight with her, or see her boobs in the morning after a sleepover. She had some serious boobage!
Making cookies makes me think of the kids who won't be home with us this year. Jeremiah is still off on this year's journey, and Casey is in New Orleans and it is just impossible for her to come "home" this time of year. She has a life, after all, with her dog and cats, and a job where it is too busy this time of year to leave. I know we will see her in the New Year, and enjoyed a visit in September.
I'm thankful that this year we will have one kid home, and other family as well. That Dad is still with us. That we have sisters with us, that our friends and extended family have little ones with them who come to run around and make things crazy. That we are still here to enjoy this day, even with the expectations of perfection that go unfulfilled. That we have memories of Christmas past and hopes of Christmas futures, and the present to enjoy.
We begin to reminisce in the weirdest places at the most strange of times. Have you ever seen a person standing in a store with a blank look? Shopping in the grocery store (I have the strangest desire to call it a market instead these days...wonder why?), the smells and sights of various aisles...the bakery aisle always reminds me of the first time we went to the new Shop Rite on Barnum Avenue next to the new McDonald's...
Just kids, we had the wildest times shopping. We hung out in the magazine and toy aisles - newly added to stores in the late 60's. Shop Rite was brand new, and the bakery was bangin'. Cookies that you could smell being baked, bread that was warm. Mom would rarely buy from there, not always trusting it, but we begged and begged for cookies. Mom didn't bake, so it really was just an exercise in "how to get what you wanted". Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't.
Then there's the cleaning aisle. Mom didn't like to clean either...but she was a good delegator. I got the bathroom job, so Dow cleaning bubbles scent always reminds me of those first times I had to clean the toilet. Dad was a clean pee-er so it was pretty easy. In back of the toilet (you know that spot) was horrid because of the dark, I think. Our bathroom was tiny, and we only had one so it wasn't so bad. Definitely easier than with 2 guys! After all, girls usually hit their targets in the potty at home.
Then there is the mall...the candle stores, with their scents of heaven and baking, and flowers. All the baking in the house was my responsibility. Mom hated to, so once I could hold the portable mixer, she showed me how to use a cake mix and bake it up. The next step was using the old spritz cookie press, with the handle that you turn. I learned quickly, and saw a commercial for a Presto Cookie Shooter one year before Christmas. That went on my list, and I got one. Thrilled, I used that Cookie Shooter till Jeremiah was in high school and it broke (all plastic, except for the motor, a piece finally snapped off).
I still search for that damn piece of equipment in every thrift store I go to...Nothing has ever come close to it. I still make those damn cookies every year, batches in green, red and "regular"...Christmas trees, poinsettias, hearts, bells, with "beadies" and sugar. My kids remember them, and make sure they are being made. The Louisiana kid got hers today, and said that's all she really wanted!
I stood in Bed, Bath and Beyond, and thought about all the cooking supplies my mother-in-law always got for me for Christmas...pans, and aprons and cookbooks were the typical gifts every year for over 30 years. Every year...think about that. Opening up a gift that you knew was a comment on your ability to feed her son, then her grandchildren. I still have a few of the cookbooks because I do use them. Especially the community ones. Those are great - from all over the place, they have tried and true recipes for every day meals, and great desserts. The aprons? Well, I have one left. And I used the turkey pan the past 2 years instead of a foil pan.
I picked up the rest of the ingredients today at BJ's for our dinner...manicotti with meatballs and sausage. My Dad's Aunt Jenny, my great aunt, taught me to make manicotti with crepes, the Northern Italian way. It is my go-to fancy meal that can sit on the stove, and be made the day before. Dirk makes the meatballs and sausage. I added eggplant last year. Eggplant that was from the farmshare, and is easy to make as well...all cooked and frozen, it just needs a construct with ricotta and mozzarella and sauce. Yes, we always called it sauce, even had a dinner we called sauce-a-lone (figure that out!).
Walked by the photo counter at CVS this week, and thought about the pictures we shared earlier in the year of my sister Nancy. They were of her coming of age, and adulthood, shared by her friends with us. I used them, along with what I have, to make a Shutterfly book for this year's book. It will bring on tears, I think, and laughter, but it's the memories I'm hoping for. Our shared niece and nephew, after all, didn't know her. She moved south, and wasn't a regular part of their lives, like she was with our kids. They didn't do donuts in the snow at midnight with her, or see her boobs in the morning after a sleepover. She had some serious boobage!
Making cookies makes me think of the kids who won't be home with us this year. Jeremiah is still off on this year's journey, and Casey is in New Orleans and it is just impossible for her to come "home" this time of year. She has a life, after all, with her dog and cats, and a job where it is too busy this time of year to leave. I know we will see her in the New Year, and enjoyed a visit in September.
I'm thankful that this year we will have one kid home, and other family as well. That Dad is still with us. That we have sisters with us, that our friends and extended family have little ones with them who come to run around and make things crazy. That we are still here to enjoy this day, even with the expectations of perfection that go unfulfilled. That we have memories of Christmas past and hopes of Christmas futures, and the present to enjoy.
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