LOVE, WAR AND CHRISTMAS
By E.E. Kennedy
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| Our family, circa 1955. That's me on the left. |
I grew up in a very
Christmas-friendly family. My mother, especially, made sure we enjoyed all the
traditions and frivolities associated with the holiday. I believe it stemmed
from her own childhood in the Great Depression, where a minister and his wife raising
three children had very little to give each other.
Even when she became an adult, WWII
shortages and rationing made things we consider common today almost impossible
to obtain. “What do you want for Christmas?” her elder brother asked her one
year during the war. “A box of Kleenex and a streakedy-stripedy piece of
candy,” was her sarcastic reply. Sure enough, that was what she found when she
pulled off the wrapping, and she never forgot her disappointment. I’m sure
that’s one of the reasons she made it her mission to make our Christmases
memorable--and then some.
Mommy, as we called her, was
scrupulously honest the rest of the year, but when it came to Christmas, she
didn’t hesitate to lie, sneak and make up stuff, all so we’d have a
breath-taking Yuletide morning. “All’s fair,” she would say, paraphrasing an
old cliché, “in love, war and Christmas!” Santa was one such prevarication. She
wanted us all to believe in the old guy. Once, I found a cache of small toys in
a bedroom drawer and asked her what these were. “Oh, Sugar, Santa must have put
them in the drawer for safekeeping,” she said. “Let’s leave them
there and see who he gives them to later.” I bought it. After all, I was only a
kid.
We lived in Northern New York State,
near the Canadian border. My mother was a wartime transplant from the Deep
South—Alabama—and brought traditions from there, such as a delicious fruit dish
called Ambrosia, consisting of oranges and shredded coconut. (Nothing else; she
was a purist.) If it snowed, we made “Snow Ice Cream,” which seemed to also
come from a popular southern recipe. A big bowl of fresh snow was doused in
milk, sugar and vanilla and eaten quickly, before it melted. Another tradition
was called “Christmas Eve Gift,” where the family member who said it first on
Christmas Eve won. There was no prize, just bragging rights. Even today,
cousins and aunts call us on the phone and yell “Christmas Eve gift!” when we
answer, just to get the drop on us.
Though you could cut her Dixie
accent with a knife, she embraced the “Yankee” traditions, too. She made tourtiere,
a dense and extremely rich French Canadian meat pie. It became the
Christmas Eve meal. She pulled out all the stops, using heavy cream and adding
my favorite, mushrooms, to the filling. In order to keep up Santa’s
globe-trotting reputation, Mommy and Daddy would travel to Montreal to get
candies from around the world for our stockings. (I have no idea when they had
time to do this; perhaps when were in school? After all, the big city was just
an hour away.) I especially remember some wonderful hard candies filled with
exotic fruit preserves—quince, for instance. I’ve never encountered quince
outside of a poetry book, but we had quince candy!
I remember decorations that I don’t
see much of today. On a table in the living room, there was a little kind of
gold-colored contraption involving a candle, which would slowly whirl little
angels around in a circle and there were also thin strands of a silvery
substance called tinsel which we draped generously on the tree to represent
icicles.
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This was before my little sister was born.
We look serious, but we were just back from the midnight service and were ready to get to sleep!
(Please also notice the tinsel!) |
Of course, the real reason for
Christmas was never very far from our minds. We would round up our friends in
the neighborhood and stroll from house to house, singing “Away in a Manger” and
“Silent Night” in well-meant harmonies. My mother was always the one who had
hot chocolate and cookies ready for the singers. And we never missed the
midnight candlelight service at our church. It was the one time we were allowed
to stay up that late. We would each bring a “white gift,” a canned good wrapped
in white tissue paper that would be given to the less fortunate.
I think my favorite Christmas Eve
memory was at the conclusion of those midnight services when we would
emerge from the warm sanctuary, our feet crunching on the ice and the moonlight
sparkling on the surface of the newly-fallen snow. The stars would twinkle in
the inky sky and I would wait until the very, very last minute to blow out the
candle I carried as “O, Come All Ye Faithful” still rang in my ears.
Right before we went to bed in our
new flannel pajamas, Mommy would gather the three children in the living room
and my dad would read the Christmas story from the Bible. I don’t remember much
about the gifts we got the next morning, but the warm, safe feeling and the joy
of receiving the newborn baby Jesus into the world rings down the years in my
memory.
As writers, we are instructed to
write about what we know. Those who knew my mom will recognize her in Amelia's
descriptions of her own late mother. And although my mother struggled
with health issues during much of her life, she ended it well: loving God,
always thinking of others and firmly fixing herself in the memories of her
grandchildren as the "Pixie Dust Grandma." So, thank you, Mommy, for
the wonderful Christmas memories. When I write my mystery series, I can't help
but make it cozy. Now you know part of the reason.
~~~~~~~~~~
Ellen Edwards Kennedy, aka E.E.
Kennedy, is the author of a cozy mystery series about a high
school English teacher. The stories are set in the Adirondack region of
NYS, where she grew up. The fourth one in the series, Incomplete Sentence,
will be released February 1 by Sheaf House Publishers. Ellen and her
husband live in North Carolina. Her website is www.missprenticecozymystery.com
