Of eggnog, horrid cookies, delicious danish, and other fond memories at Christmas

Gardens at Cotehele, National Trust House at St. Dominick, Cornwall, in the snow

Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s meant yearning to do a lot more than our family did as far as Christmas traditions. I suspect it was like that for a lot of urban/suburban families, coming to grips with the consumer society, longing for the older, less frantic society that still populated our grammar school readers, but not our homes―societies in which Pop cut down a Christmas tree, Mama helped the kids create garlands of cranberries and popcorn, and Grandma knitted yet another pair of striped socks, or maybe a scarf, while listening to I Remember Mama on the radio.

Perhaps farm families had lengthy traditions, but we were an urban family, and such traditions as we had were developed on the fly. One of my favourites involved egg nog. To this day, I don’t care for the semi-solid stuff one buys in grocery stores, unless there is a dollop of bourbon in it. My grandfather started adding some to mine when I was about ten. I waited for Christmas eagerly after that, mainly for the feeling of closeness to my beloved grandfather it gave me, and for the honour of being accorded such a treat, and the sophistication it bestowed when I told my friends about it.  (For any Brits reading this, one must remember the Puritan nature of the United States, and realize that it was anathema to allow one’s children so much as a whiff of spirits, never mind a dollop now and again. For anyone reading this, here are some festive alternatives for eggnog.)

My father’s contribution to the family traditions involved the Christmas eve afternoon visits to our house by those who supplied us with various things all year long. The postman (it was always a man back then), the man from Dugan’s Bakery who left the doughnuts and bread, the milkman, anyone who might have done some work on the house, the owner of the local gas station where we got virtually all our gas and had the family cars repaired, a neighbour or two. The men trickled in one by one over a few hours in late afternoon. My father would have a short drink with them, and, for those who had provided services, hand them an envelope with, I imagine, a card and a gift of money. Not that we had much, but my father believed in treating well those who had treated him well.

My mother’s contribution was cookies. She was not a skilful or even a willing cook. But she did make rolled sugar cookies every year, and we had an enormous assortment of cookie cutters, all of which I have retained although I have used them rarely.

My mother generally divided the dough and coloured some green, some red, some blue, leaving some natural. Then she and my brother and I would cut reindeer and stars and trees and sometimes unseasonal shapes such as Easter eggs that we would then tart up with paillettes to look like Christmas tree ornaments.  Always the reindeer had eyes made of Red Hots. Always the stars atop the trees had yellow sprinkles. Always the freestanding stars were totally covered in yellow sprinkles. We might stick a bit of dough on some of the reindeer noses and apply red sprinkles for the Rudolf effect.

My grandmother did most of the cooking, and a great deal of the gift-wrapping for the family and also for my father’s best friend, Jerry. Jerry had never married, but had an extensive roster of nieces and nephews to buy gifts for, and for me, of course. I was crazy about Jerry, and used to ask him to wait for me to grow up so I could marry him. He gave me my favourite childhood gift of all time, an elegant, swirling, big-sleeved dressing gown with red chickens on a white background on the outside, and quilted red satiny stuff on the inside. I wore it until it looked like a vest. And then I dressed my baby brother up in it to play house. (Lord knows, the poor kid should have been warped by what my best friend and I made him do when he was too little to object.)

Life went on, and traditions, along with family members, passed away. A few new ones developed, but very few. So, this holiday season when things are in flux even more than usual―as we await the completion of our new house in a new county in a new country―traditions seem suddenly important once again. Whether developing or remembered, traditions are playing a major role in my current psychodrama.

I would love to have those rolled sugar cookies. Truthfully, they were not delicious. They were only OK, and that meant the ones that were OK were the ones that weren’t singed a bit. (I did mention that cooking was not my mother’s forte.) But we ate them, because they were home made and it was Christmas. My grandmother’s double cookies, some filled with juicy raisins swimming in sugary sauce while others oozed raspberry jam, were much more eagerly consumed, but she didn’t make them every year. Indeed, she rarely made them, time-consuming as they were. She did make  a huge batch for me to take with me to college, thereby ensuring that I would make at least a few friends, although all of them were likely to have a sweet tooth.

My late friend the Rev. Jeffrey Proctor also came from a small urban family with few traditions. But as long as I knew him, each year he made pinwheels, like his mother used to make. Frankly, they were awful. He knew they were awful. His partner, Don, knew they were awful. I knew they were awful, but I also knew I was very privileged to be offered some when the entire reason for their existence was in homage to Jeffrey’s mother. Bless you, Jeffrey, then, now and forever…whatever forever is. I miss you.

And then there’s Noeleen. Noeleen is the best baker I have ever met, and this year I shall miss her annual gift of a homemade danish pastry, large enough to serve eight, wrapped in red tissue paper and a white doily and tied up with ribbon. I don’t think, even if she tried to send me one, that it would get through customs; it’s addictive, and they’d probably think it was a drug.

I never consumed my whole danish at once, but cut it and froze it in separate slices. One year, we had a blizzard a month or so after Christmas and Jeffrey and Don asked to borrow my snow shovel so they could free their car from winter’s caress. They volunteered to liberate mine, too.  I loathe shovelling, so I was happy to sweeten the pot with an offer of Noeleen’s danish and booze-laced coffee to warm them up afterward.

That was a great time. Any time with friends, food and a reason to celebrate is a great time. Traditions? Nice to have, if you have them. If not, make everything you do a tradition…the tradition of making lovely times, and recalling them fondly to warm your heart at will.