Category Archives: Memories

The Ghosts of Christmas Traditions Past, Present and Future

Emotions, Memories, People, , , , ,

While enjoying a tasty pizza dinner together a few weeks ago, my son surprised Dean and me by telling us he was not going to be spending Christmas Day with us this year, but, instead, was traveling to Atlanta to spend Christmas with his friend, Alex and her family. I acted brave, but cried when I got home, and texted him that I was not ready for my kids to not be with me for Christmas.

I’ve spent the time in between thinking about him not being home on Christmas Day and realized it was okay — he would be there the day after and we could squeeze in a family Christmas on December 26 before Clare left on December 27. We often moved our personal Christmas celebration around when the kids were small because we usually traveled back to Elgin for the actual day.

Andrew and I had lunch earlier this week and he confided that he was a little nervous because he’d never not spent Christmas with us and we had our own traditions. He was going somewhere where they had their own traditions, ones he was not familiar with.

I thought about this and remembered that my first Christmas away from my family was in 1978. I was a year younger than Andrew is now and I was gone from early December through March. That year I did student teaching in London and left Elgin early to spend time with my English friend, Jeremy, and his family. I also recalled that I, too, was nervous — although I’d spent months with this family over the previous four years — because I was not familiar with their traditions. It was wonderful though. I was introduced to wine with Christmas dinner, Christmas cake, chocolate oranges and Christmas crackers.

Jeremy with a christmas cracker toy and silly hat
Christmas cake
Jack pouring wine for Pat

While I never did attempt to make a Christmas cake, I did insist we have wine with Christmas dinner the year after I returned from England. I also always made sure to include a chocolate orange (and a real orange) in everyone’s Christmas stocking. Once Christmas crackers became readily available (and affordable) in the US I always buy a box Christmas crackers which we pop before the Christmas meal, wear the silly hats that come in the crackers, read the lame jokes and play with the included toys.

Mom with a silly hat
Andrew wearing a silly hat
Dean with a silly hat
Wine and Christmas Crackers
Kevin with a silly hat

I sent Andrew a text telling him about that Christmas and that many of the unfamiliar traditions I experienced that year were such fun that I incorporated them into our family celebrations.

His reply made me cry a little again. He thanked me for telling him about my first Christmas away and then said he was bringing chocolate oranges and Christmas crackers for her family.

In which this non-baker makes Christmas cookies

Food, Memories, ,

Our basement remodel is nearly finished and we are in the process of putting everything back to where it belongs. I’m being a grown-up and donating or throwing away things I don’t use or don’t need. It’s a tough process because maybe, someday, I might use the three burner food warmer or the old electric frying pan.

One of the items I thought about donating was a bread maker that was covered in all kinds of disgusting dust including scented cat litter dust, dryer vent dust and construction work dust. After dusting it off (and vacuuming it really well) I made the first loaf of bread it has manufactured in probably a decade. It was pretty good and didn’t taste at all like Fresh Step® with Febreze Multi-Cat Litter. I’m keeping the bread maker.

Another item I considered tossing was a cookie press kit that I bought when the kids were young because my mother (despite being a hoarder ) gave away the cookie press kit from my childhood. I have fond memories of making cookies with my mom using her cookie press kit like the one below.

vintage cookie press with discs
Vintage cookie press

I mostly remember the cookies made with the Christmas tree disk. We’d dye the dough green before putting the dough in the press chamber. They always were brown around the edges and a not-very-pinetree-green color on top.

Dean looked at the discs in my kit and marveled that they could become cookie shapes. I decided to make cookies to see if I wanted to keep the kit, so set to work softening butter and preheating the oven after finding a recipe online.

Before I continue — I am not a baker. I can bake, but I don’t make a habit of it. I think I like the idea of being a baker, but it always seems a tad too much trouble. Anyway, with the recipe in front of me and the oven preheated, I proceeded to make the dough and figure out the cookie press.

It took me a while to understand where the chamber went, how to open it, how to fill it and how to get the ratcheting thing to work, but I did eventually. I chose a disc that I thought would make a star shaped cookie.

Cookie press loaded to make star shaped cookies
Cookie press loaded to make star shaped cookies

I was right. Star shaped cookies were created from the disc.

Cookie stars with sprinkles
Cookie stars with sprinkles

After that I tried the Christmas tree, then something with a long oval hole and holes all around it which turned out to be a flower. Maybe a poinsettia?

Here are some cookies baking.

cookies baking
Cookies baking

Finally, the finished product. They were tasty. I’m keeping the cookie press. I may make cookies again in 2026.

delicious cookies
Delicious cookies

Camping Meal Memories

Food, Memories,
Example deal from woot.com
Example deal from woot.com

I check woot.com every day and a lot of time they have deals for dehydrated meals — the kind you might take camping or have in your pantry to prepare for a disaster. My brain always says “yuck” but something else in me says “yum.” A couple of years ago, visiting the family lake house in Wisconsin, I saw a container of dehydrated beef stroganoff and had a strong desire to make it, but it was there for my nephew to make in case of an emergency, not for me to make because I wondered what it tasted like. Besides, I told myself, it probably was disgusting.

Jack and "Cinder"
The cook, not cooking

Why, then, does part of me that want to eat dehydrated food? Not because I am a wilderness camper. Not because I like disgusting things, but because I have a memory of loving the food that Jack Burgoyne made for us in 1976 when I accompanied his family on a “caravan holiday” in Scotland. Normally his wife, Pat, cooked but when on vacation — at least that one– Jack made dinners and they were, as far as I recall, always from a freeze-dried packet. And, to me, they were delicious.

So that’s why I always stop and ponder buying a bucket of freeze dried lasagne or curry or Jamaican jerk rice with chicken from woot.com or consider making freeze dried beef stroganoff on trips to the lake house — memories of a long-ago trip to Loch Sween and a week in a mobile home on the grounds of an ancient castle and meals made by a kind and good and funny and wonderful man who left this world too soon.