As I was finishing decorating our home for Christmas (and those who know me, having visited our home during this season know that there are a lot of decorations) my thoughts returned to those Christmas' past when I was growing up. While there are many let me share with you but a few that have resurfaced on a regular basis.
Absolutely nothing heralded the coming of Christmas like a very special filled pastry called Horns. They are labor intensive, taking two days to complete. How do I know? Well, I've baked them on a couple of occasions since my mother passed away. I would come home from school, the house would be filled with the delicious smell of freshly baked Horns. Actually our home was always filled with delicious smells because my mother was always baking something. Dad loved his desserts and thus, us kids got the benefit of his taste buds. As I came through the front door Ma would offer a hot Horn or two with a cold glass of milk and I knew that Christmas was just around the corner.
The second memory centers on the Christmas Tree. It was a European tradition and since both sets of my grandparents had come from "the old country" Ma kept the tradition. This tradition met that us kids didn't see the Christmas Tree until Christmas morning. Santa would bring the gifts and the fully decorated tree. The thrill of waking up Christmas morning was not only the presents, but seeing the glorious Christmas tree. I really don't know how my mother did it because when I put up our tree (to get the tree straight, string the lights, hang the ornaments and then the tinsel ... one tinsel at a time ... it would take me nearly two full days. The European tradition didn't survive since we would have a Christmas Open House early in December. I just don't know how my mother would do it in one evening after we had all gone to bed. Unbelievable!
When we moved to Miami in 1948 a new tradition was started. My brother Ralph would go into one of the vacate lots in our Miami neighborhood and cut down one of the small pine trees to serve as our Christmas tree. With the construction of new homes those vacate lots disappeared and so did the availability of trees to choose from. One year Ralph cut down and drug home numerous trees. None of them met our mother's approval. It would be the last year we cut down our own tree because he finally got fed up and went out and bought us a REAL Christmas tree! No more pine trees for us.
The last memory was a little practical joke I played on my mother. There was a couple of years that I would wrap every present but my own. This one year, when I got finished wrapping all the presents, I had some wrapping paper left over soooo, being the practical joker in the family, I simply wrapped up all the "left over" wrapping paper and put my mother's name on the tag. On Christmas morning when she finally unwrapped her "special" present all she could say was, "I knew I had more paper! I knew I had more paper!" This kind of explains why all of my presents were wrapped in newspaper. This memory still brings a smile to my face.
Do you have a favorite Christmas memory?
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