I hope you all had a blessed and joyful Christmas Day. My family is coming tomorrow to celebrate and so you can imagine how I’ve been as busy as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. But it’s a good busy as I get ready to have all my children and grandchildren home for Christmas.
While Christmas is a time for joy and love, it’s also a time for memories. I’m sure most of you, if not all of you, have someone you miss at Christmastime. I miss my parents, and especially my mother who did so much to make Christmases happy for her family. She had certain foods she cooked each year. Lots of candy from caramels to chocolate to divinity. I loved the divinity. I tried to copy her and make lost of candy too for many years. But then the kids grew up and moved away from home. They would eat a little candy, for sure, but not nearly all of it. Darrell and I did not need to eat all of it either! So I stopped making Christmas candy. I still make cookies for Christmas, but I guess that’s more my tradition because I don’t remember Mom ever making piles of cookies for Christmas. She made a fruitcake. It was delicious, but so rich you could only eat a sliver of a slice. To be honest, when I was a kid, I liked my aunt’s cornbread sticks better than the fruitcake. Of course, I did love the candy.
Then one thing Mom always made was crackerjacks. For years, she and Dad grew the popcorn and peanuts to go in it too. But even after she no longer did that, she had the task of making the most delicious crackerjacks ever downpat. I would eat those until they were gone!
This picture is of Mom helping me keep the tradition going after she had dementia and could no longer stay by herself. But she still oversaw the process of making those crackerjacks. In the picture, she’s making sure I have them pressed out right. Making those with her is one of the bright spot memories during those hard years as she slowly declined and forgot so much. Even us at the sad ending time. Well, I’m not sure she actually forgot us. She just remembered us as children and knew she wanted to make sure her kids were all right. It was a sad time, but a joyful time too as my sisters and I walked with her through her final years.
What sweet Christmas memories do you have?
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And as always, thanks for reading. I’m wishing you joy and and blessings at the end of this Christmas Day 2022.