To celebrate our Cookbook of the Week, Comfort & Joy, we're sharing warm memories of Christmas today.
Below you can read a few of our favorites from the book...
Growing up in a large family with quite a few children, there wasn’t much money for treats. My mother was very busy with so many of us that she didn’t make dessert very often. One snowy winter’s day when I was very young, my grandmother came over with a real treat. She mixed a couple cups of cold, thick cream with some vanilla and 2 cups sugar, stirring until the sugar dissolved. She then stirred in 2 cups coconut and put the bowl to the side. Outside she went into the snowstorm and gathered up a huge, heaping bowl of freshly fallen snow. She poured the cream mixture on top and stirred it all very fast. She spooned it into bowls for each one of us and we gobbled it down. As children, we thought this was just the most awesome, delicious “ice cream” treat!
- Peggy Shaw of Kuna, Idaho
Every year my family went to my grandpa’s farm in the backwoods of northeastern Wisconsin about 2 weeks before Christmas. My mother and Gramma packed thermoses full of hot cocoa, sandwiches made with Gramma’s home-baked buns and cookies for dessert. Then Grampa and my father hooked up the big bobsled to the tractor. We all rode on the sled for a whole day of picking and chopping down Christmas trees. We picked ours, theirs, my other grandparents’ as well as one for every classroom in my school…even a very large tree for our school gym! We all climbed up on top of the pile of trees and rode the bobsled home. The next day, my father delivered 7 of the trees to my school. He carried them in, one at a time, and built a wooden stand for each one. Then he took them to the classrooms. My teacher let me go and help until all the trees were set up. We waited and put the huge one up in the gym last. Our family was very poor, but on that day I felt so important and so very proud of my father!
- Barbara Voight of Duluth, Minnesota
Being the oldest of 4 siblings at the time (there were more in the years to come!), I was always Mom’s helper. Christmas was, needless to say, a very exciting time at our house…the most fun time of the year. One Christmas Eve, I could barely sleep. After dozing off and on, I finally decided it had to be time for waking up and starting the day. I woke up my groggy siblings, and being the “helper” made them all get dressed. As a group, we ventured down the stairs, my siblings still rubbing their sleepy eyes. We checked out the tree and marveled at all the gifts. I then glanced the clock to make sure we could run and wake up Mom & Dad...it was only one a.m.! I had to make everyone march back up the stairs, help put PJ’s back on and sneak back into my own bed. Poor kids, I don’t even know if they were old enough to still remember…I must have not been more than 10 years old but it is a memory I cherish. My parents were never any the wiser!
- Brenda Doak of Delaware, Ohio
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