"Because of our traditions, we've kept our balance for many, many years. Here in Anatevka we have traditions for everything... how to eat, how to sleep, even, how to wear clothes. For instance, we always keep our heads covered and always wear a little prayer shawl... This shows our constant devotion to God. You may ask, how did this tradition start? I'll tell you - I don't know. But it's a tradition... Because of our traditions, everyone knows who he is and what God expects him to do."
Two days after Thanksgiving, in between basketball practices, the tree crew arrived. Matt and Ryan were hard at work out of doors where November took a deep breath before winter and permitted farmers time to finish harvest, or apply fertilizer, or rebuild terraces and cut brush, and encouraged those with Christmas spirit to hang greens and lights before the calendar turned. Those of a more prosaic and tidy nature postponed these more ethereal tasks for the mundane physicality of leaf raking and winterizing.
No matter. On all counts, the pursuit of these enterprises aligns neatly with at least one definition of 'tradition', be it "convention", or "custom", "upbringing" or "practice". As Tevye proclaims with great solemnity, "Because of our traditions, everyone knows who he is and what God expects him to do."
The year 2017 has been an echo chamber with terms like "unprecedented" and phrases like "this has never happened before" ringing off the walls of the public sphere.Whether or not there truly is a first time for everything, it is comforting to come to the Advent season and march the well trod path of Scripture toward the Holy Child in the manger.
"The stockings were hung by the chimney with care..."
Is there a more well worn, but never old, tradition than hanging out stockings? I bought Blake his stocking before our first Christmas: a standard issue model of synthetic red and white fuzz, it is man-sized, the relevant characteristic as far as Blake is concerned. Mine, stitched with glass beads and sequins, was created long long ago by some friend of my grandmother's; three tiny red white and blue bells hang from the sole, possibly designed to warn Santa if one were to sneak a peek before Christmas Eve. As it turns out, my mom also gave her granddaughters cute embroidered stockings when they were little. This allowed me to retire the felt sock I'd made when Lee was a baby...but just for a little while as I pulled out the L and last E of the name and recycled it with a new B and N for Ben a few Christmases later.
It wouldn't be Christmas without someone mentioning Kenzie's BIG stocking and Ben's tiny one...
I love the stockings....they bring back happy memories of Christmas Eves past...the nights we would visit Grandma Nelson's house where the kids would bounce on the mountain of winter wear on Grandma's bed and the aunts and uncles and cousins would eat cheese and crackers and cookies and candy in the kitchen. There would be pop for the kids and an open bottle of Maneschewitz wine on the counter....something I hadn't seen since I washed communion glasses as my duty during confirmation class in Orland Park....Grandma's house was overheated from all the family inside; a plume of steam escaped each time someone went in or out her front door. On those Christmas Eves, we would ride back home through the starry night to the sound of Iowa high school Christmas choirs on KMA...the Westboro version of the heavenly host.
By then, the hour was late, but there was still one task to do after the kids were in bed: while Blake managed to eat just one more Christmas cookie and drink a glass of milk (Santa's ), I'd lay out each stocking atop the bags of goodies Santa had picked out for each family member. The house was as quiet as Silent Night and putting out the little presents was a labor of love, the dark a fitting prelude for the joy that would come in the morning....
Tradition! Means cookies! In anticipation, we throw the kitchen drawers open wide in search of the cookie cutters and stretch the definition of Christmas to the nth degree in order to include our favorite shapes. Of course there are Santas to dress in red and white and angels in gold and leaping brown reindeer to munch when one or more legs break off in the frosting. There are bells in every hue and stars in every size and Christmas trees to trim with chocolate chips and an avalanche of sprinkles. The old tin cutters from my mom and granny include the ever popular Christmas moon...the "poinsettia" that looks more like a sunflower...and a great big leaf I have dubbed the holly while placing three red hots for the berries. I am fairly certain we have expanded the repertoire of Christmas cookies with the Christmas dinosaur...and why not? There is, after all, a big pink thunder lizard on our tree.....
We decorate. We bake.
We celebrate....
....and we worship...
Tradition brings us to the Christ Child's manger bed as shepherds, as part of the angelic host, as wise men from the east and the innkeeper with no room.
Sometimes Mary and Joseph have worn long underwear with chickens roosting overhead and sheep crunching hay.
And sometimes Mary and Joseph are shepherds themselves over a very lively live Nativity.
Being a part of the Christmas story indoors or out; hearing the words of Luke echo through the church as the piano plays and bells chime is part of our Christmas tradition. Grandma Millie created many of the costumes from drapes and sheets, scarves and scraps. Now her great grand children carry the shepherds' staffs and sing in the children's programs during Advent.
“Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.”
On the first day of Christmas, the postman brought to me...
A 4# wheel of Baby Swiss Cheese....
On the second day of Christmas, my true love brought to me..
Two slabs of ribs
and a 4# wheel of Baby Swiss Cheese....
On the third day of Christmas, the FFA sent to me...
Three bricks of Cheddar
Two slabs of ribs,
and a 4# wheel of Baby Swiss Cheese.
On the fourth day of Christmas, Chriscakes threw at me...
Four flying flapjacks...
Three chunks of cheddar,
Two slabs of ribs
and a 4# wheel of Baby Swiss Cheese
On the fifth day of Christmas, the UPS man saved for me,
Five wines from Napa...
Four flying flapjacks,
Three chunks of cheddar,
Two slabs from Jack Stack,
..and a 4# wheel of Baby Swiss Cheese...
I'm not going to carry this parody to its logical conclusion. But...let there be no doubt that I could! Experimentation and tradition summed year by year yield a food pyramid of ever increasing height and girth, the limiting resource being that of time. There are only so many days on the holiday calendar and one must needs spend one's time in pursuits other than cooking...or eating.
Forget the sparkle of jewelry...forget red bows on luxury cars...even forget i-thises and android-thats...the most personal gift one can give is food, and whether it be homemade or handcrafted, a luxurious treat from afar, or the essence of a favorite memory, like Proust's madeleines, it is the one present that can be tailored expressly for the giftee from the gifter.
Tradition. Tradition is the ribbon tying Christmas pasts to Christmas presents. Tradition leads me to stock up on butter and powdered sugar for the frosted sugar cookies we will decorate after the children are out for Christmas vacation ; some of the cookies will be Christmas stars...and flowers...and moons...cut with the soft tin cookie cutters my mother used and then passed along for generations of cookie sprinklers to come. Cookie day is a tradition eagerly awaited as much for the general gaiety and camaraderie as for the resulting sugar high. For the sixth day of Christmas, let's sing about children a-frosting...
I'm not a fancy baker, but what I bake, I bake often. The winter apples in storage are still firm though beginning to wrinkle. Vast heaps of peels fill the sink and chopped apples become loaves, each batch a pyramid unto itself: four cups of apples, three cups of flour, 2 cups of sugar, 1 cup of oil. The loaves used to line up two by two like animals in the ark...Sunday school teachers, school teachers, mailman, busdriver, choir director, neighbors, open houses.... a dozen or two stacked like bricks for a Farm Bureau hospitality room. I can't see the bottom of the fruit crisper yet, but I will before New Year's. Every day of our holiday song will find apple loaves a'baking.
So much sweetness, so much nostalgia, so much candy wrapped up in our Christmas. Way back when, Santa Claus would leave Laura and me a bag of Russell Stover candy straws in our stockings every year at Grandma and Grandpa Froerer's on Greenberry Road. Orange, yellow, green, and pink...the pink cinnamon sticks were carefully rationed and savored. Alas, Honeysuckle Straws are extinct..not even an image available on Google! At Granny's, homemade candies: sticky divinity, peanut brittle, cubes of butterscotch and chocolate fudge waited to be picked over with molasses cookies and lebkuchen. Alas! My sporadic efforts at candy making result in pans abandoned in the snow, contents fused to the steel and glass. Instead the candy dish on the dining table sparkles with shiny Snickers and peppermint puffs, dark chocolate Treasures and York Peppermint Patties in holiday red and green. The candy dish was a present from Ann and Matt soon after we moved to this house. One way I fulfill my role as grandma is to make sure this candy dish reflects the bounty of the season, just in case Josh asks if he may have a piece of candy five minutes after he comes to our house.
On this eighth day of Christmas there's a candy dish a 'shining.
Trips to the airport and trips to Target; anniversary celebrations and last minute props for Christmas parties and programs; all that windshield time surely earns a stop at Starbucks. What'll be today? Gingerbread Latte'? Peppermint Mocha? A Spicy Flat White? Or hard core caffeine with a Cranberry Bliss bar on the side? Just three more days to go...and I've got 12 stars! Make mine a Caramel Brulee' a steamin'.
Christmas Eve day, one of my favorites of the year. We eagerly anticipate the joy of Christmas morning. The lights of the tree, the lights of the town warm and brighten as the culmination of Advent looms. I have three coffeecakes to prepare for Christmas morning: a dozen eggs, 5 sticks of oleo and 40 oz. of cream cheese. The dough for each cake must be kneaded and mixed by hand, chilled for two hours, then rolled and raised on the radiator in the kitchen before it is baked. This hands on, hands in baking is perfect for the quiet reflection appropriate to Christmas Eve. Often, these cakes are what I bake last, after the last package is wrapped and the house is quieted....Three cakes a'bakin and two mugs of eggnog on Christmas Eve.
.
On the last day of Christmas, the postman should bring me....
