Happy Monday, again. I look forward to all Mondays, as they’re my 52 Chances a year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with you.
‘Tis the season of holiday traditions. The 10 most common may be exchanging gifts, decorating (inside and out), baking cookies, making a gingerbread house, watching Christmas movies, listening to Christmas music, writing to Santa, reading The Night Before Christmas, driving around to view Christmas light displays, and wearing ugly sweaters.
Other popular traditions include donating (time and/or money) to a variety of causes, making candy and/or fudge, using an advent calendar, participating in Elf-On-A-Shelf antics, singing Christmas carols, hosting and/or attending a holiday party, and mailing greeting cards.
Incidentally, this is Christmas Card Day. One holiday tradition that seems to be diminishing is the mass postal mailings of Christmas cards. I think sending cards still happens as much as ever. However, many are digitally sent, these days – especially through social media platforms.
More than forty years later, since Mom wrote that (pictured above), people are still making similar comments about old traditions seemingly going out of style. Maybe somewhat – but I think a lot of them are just transforming into the digital age like everything else.
As I said, Christmas cards are still being sent. But more are sent electronically, now, instead of the hard copies that we handed out or mailed through the post office – what the younger generation nicknamed “snail mail”. I love to display the cards I receive every year.
I save all of my old Christmas cards, too. I traditionally display the past years’ cards in festive baskets. The current ones, I hang around the entry to our living room. Mom and Dad hung theirs on and around a large mirror in their dining room, as well as using baskets for old cards. I remember my grandma’s holiday cards, hanging on the back of her front door.
When I look back on my own childhood, so many of my favorite memories involved our old family traditions mixed with new ones that Mom and Dad created for us. I carried them on in my own family, creating a few new ones, too.
Every year, I recall helping Dad put together our artificial Christmas tree. First, sorting out all the branches by size and then sticking them in the “trunk”, one by one. Before we could decorate it, Dad traditionally secured the tree to the ceiling and side walls with hooks and fishing line – so none of us kids (or our pets) could knock it over.
Then Dad checked all the bulbs, before putting the strings of lights on the tree, as well as the topper. Afterward, we’d help Mom decorate the tree – hanging the ornaments, tinsel, and candy canes. I remember stringing up popcorn for garland, with my own children, for our tree.
Other decorations our family put up, included Mom’s little Christmas village on top of the piano and our empty stockings, which hung, on hooks, from the fireplace mantel. They were always “magically” filled before we got up on Christmas morning with fruit, candy, and little trinkets.
Here’s a re-share (pictured below) of the top 10-plus stocking stuffers list that I made a few years ago. The order may have changed a bit but, overall, these popular stocking stuffers have remained steadfastly the same throughout the past decade.
In our house, when I was growing up, a plate of cookies and glass of milk were customarily left out for “Santa” on Christmas Eve. Nowadays, for some, this tradition has evolved into leaving “Santa” a healthy snack.
My siblings and I would try to catch Dad, taking the cookies, but never could. Yet, we’d always find the plate empty on Christmas morning. My own children tried to do the same, to no avail. Now that me and my husband are empty nesters, we obviously don’t continue that particular tradition anymore.
Along with decorating the house for the eyes to enjoy, traditional Christmas music was usually playing on the stereo for the ears to enjoy. New Christmas songs come out in every genre, every year. Some people still prefer the old classics, some like the new songs, and others like a mixture of both. I prefer the mixture, myself.
Mom also usually had many wonderful seasonal scents wafting through the house. When she wasn’t making cookies and other yummy holiday treats, she often had a simmering pot of homemade potpourri on the stove, to give off all the wonderful aromas of the holidays. When time has been tight, I’ve bought the cookies and treats.
THE CHRISTMAS FEELING is basically a simple hope for peace and good will, no matter what other trappings we’ve attached to the occasion through the years since that single star lit up the sky over Bethlehem. No matter what other customs and traditions mankind has attached to Christmas or the celebration of it, the humble wish for ‘peace on Earth, good will towards men’ remains strong among those who thrive on hope and cherish what is good. – Gloria Pitzer, Gloria Pitzer’s Secret Recipes Newsletter (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Nov.-Dec. 1990, Issue #147; p. 8)
Every year, all around the world, hundreds of millions of people commemorate the Christmas holiday with many different traditions. American Christmas Traditions, as seen at TheSpruce.com, by Robin Bickerstaff Glover (Updated 3/20/19), lists many of the same wonderful traditions that my family enjoyed for decades.
In the U.S., our holiday celebrations, customs, and beliefs are incredibly diverse. After all, we are a melting-pot-nation; where numerous nationalities, even within a single family, mesh together in harmony, mixing old and new customs together. Mom came from a blended family, where they celebrated Hanukkah and Christmas together.
Another fleeting holiday tradition – which I remember from my childhood and happily continued with my own children, for many years – is creating a Christmas candy/gingerbread house. Incidentally, National Gingerbread House Day is being celebrated on Thursday.
Some years, I’m busy working and don’t have time for all of my holiday traditions – crafting, decorating, baking, fudge-making, card-sending, shopping. I’m a lover of old traditions but, like Mom, I’m also a lover of time-saving shortcuts. Like most everything else, I think old traditions evolve more than fade away, due to money or time restrictions.
For instance, my kids weren’t crazy about gingerbread, which is used in the traditional candy house construction. Every year, the walls and roof of our gingerbread house went into the trash, after all the candy and frosting was removed and eaten. [NOTE: In next week’s blog post, I’ll be sharing Mom’s Christmas Hard Candy recipe.]
I hate waste. Therefore, I decided to replace the gingerbread walls and roof with something the kids liked – graham crackers (as pictured above). That not only eliminated the waste problem but also happened to save me a lot of time, since making the gingerbread was a lengthy process in itself.
According to Holiday Traditions of the United States…, the tradition of “feasting” during the holidays is characteristic of all nations, with only the regional menus differing. Many of our current combined traditions come from our diverse ancestors who immigrated here from so many different countries, bringing their customs with them.
We like to combine and transform traditions. For example, as the article (mentioned above) explains, a lot of our Christmas carols came from England and Australia, whereas the decorated evergreens are a German influence. The man in the red suit, known to us as Santa Claus (aka: St. Nicholas or St. Nick), originated in Scandinavia.
Santa’s arrival down the chimney, to fill stockings with fruit and nuts, is reminiscent of the Netherlands’ folklore. Additionally, his sleigh, being drawn by reindeer, may have begun in Switzerland; and our annual holiday parades may have been inspired by the Latin processions.
Over the years, America’s influence fattened up Scandinavia’s “jolly old St. Nicholas” and blended all the different traditions. He magically came down everyone’s chimney on Christmas Eve, leaving gifts and filling stockings with treats – as in the classic holiday story. Later, we added a ninth reindeer, with a shiny red nose.
LAST THOUGHTS…
Secret RecipesTM was born from requests by Mom’s readers, when she was a columnist in the early 1970s. She found that many people wanted to know how to imitate famous food dishes and products at home.
I received a wonderful email from Becky Smith on Black Friday, requesting Mom’s German Chocolate Cake recipe…
I visited your site today and it is a wonderful tribute to your mother. I am sure your mom would be so proud of you and what you have done.
Back in the 70s and 80s I received her newsletter, and I have several of her cookbooks. I had a lot of fun experimenting with her recipes.
I am looking for the German Chocolate Cake recipe she had. I know it started with a yellow cake mix (and the recipe worked beautifully) – but I do not know what else. I also do not remember which book in which it was published. I know I do have that book, but, unfortunately, we moved and it is packed up in a box somewhere. I might never see it again. I thought I may have copied it to a recipe card, but it does not appear I did so.
Would you be willing to provide me this recipe? I, obviously, have not made it in years, but I suddenly remembered it. I do know I absolutely have it, but I do not know where it is.
I found it quickly through the Master Index I’m creating for all of Mom’s cookbooks and newsletters (at least, the ones I have – as I’m missing a lot of her newsletters). Hopefully, I’ll complete and post it early in the new year, including links to the free recipes Mom and I have shared so far.
So cheers to our digital life because here it is (and it will also be available on this website’s Recipes tab) as seen in her self-published cookbook, Eating Out at Home (National Home News, St. Clair, MI; September 1978, p. 45). As always, I’m asking only for proper credit if you care to re-share it.
Thanks for visiting! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my memories of my mom, her memories, and other related things. If you have any questions or comments or a recipe request, feel free to email me at [email protected]. You can also find me on Facebook: @TheRecipeDetective.
IN CLOSING…
In honor of TODAY, being National Pastry Day, here’s Mom’s copycat recipe for “Danish Pastry Dough”; as seen in… Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 155). [A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3rd Edition)]. As always, I’m asking only for proper credit if you care to share it.
P.S. Food-for-thought until next Monday…
December observes… National Pear Month, National Write A Business Plan Month, Operation Santa Paws (which runs the 1st-24th), Root Vegetables and Exotic Fruits Month, Safe Toys and Gifts Month, Worldwide Food Service Safety Month, National Human Rights Month, and Universal Human Rights Month – among other things.
Tomorrow is… Dewey Decimal System Day, National Lager Day, National Human Rights Day, and Nobel Prize Day.
Wednesday, December 11th, is… National App Day and National Noodle Ring Day.
Thursday, December 12th, is… National Ambrosia Day and National Poinsettia Day.
December 13th is… National Cocoa Day. Plus, as December’s second Friday (for 2024), it’s also… National Salesperson Day.
Saturday, December 14th, is… National Bouillabaisse Day and National Alabama Day. Plus, it’s the start of… Christmas Bird Count Week[s], which is a 3-week celebration that always runs December 14th through January 5th. [See Mom’s recipe for “(Winter) Pudding For Birds”, on Saturday, on the Recipes tab.]
Sunday, December 15th, is… National Cupcake Day.
…50 down, 2 to go!
