Memories of Christmases Past

When I think of Christmases of my youth, I remember the delicious smells of home cooking, going to a Christmas Tree farm with one of my brothers up the hill from where we lived in New York City in a residential neighborhood to buy a tall Christmas tree, and listening to Christmas music as we decorated the tree with a wealth of treasured ornaments from Christmases past. Of course, mom or one of my siblings made some hot cocoa or a Christmas drink with eggnog and nutmeg. The living room bay windows always were decorated with holiday lights and wreaths too and the tree was anchored just in the middle of them for all to see its spendor.

My father was a wonderful gourmet cook of our family. He cooked fantastic roasts--pork, turkey, beef, or lamb; he knew all the secrets of cooking with herbs and making homemade gravies and mashed potatoes. Having him around during the holidays meant less work for mom since he was always a helpful husband and father too. He was not above doing dinner dishes after cooking and shopping if mom wasn't feeling well either.

When dad passed away of a heart attack during the Thanksgiving weekend of my fifteen year, mom was devastated and just threw up her hands and cried. Being the youngest of her five children, I wish someone had told me to help her out more than I did, but I felt that just keeping up my school work and the few chores I helped with--like grocery shopping or assisting with the laundry or dishes, was all I could manage. I hopelessly listened to her crying in her bedroom for a few months after his passing. But somehow mom returned to work after those Christmas holidays and paid all the bills. Later I found out that dad had taken out enough insurance so that she could pay off the rest of the house and even renovate the old coal furnace to gas heat right after he died. The end of that year--on Christmas day, mom tried her hardest to make our Christmas dinner as special as dad always had, but she had always appreciated his cooking and never learned how to make his homemade gravy and stuffing exactly as he had. She managed to finish cooking the dinner with my sister and I helping in the kitchen and also with clean up, but we really felt his absence. He had always sat at the head of our dining room table and cut the meat. While we fixed our mashed potatoes into volcanoes with gravy in them, he used to laugh and say, "and his belly shook when he laughed like a bowlful of jello!" and his did too!

The whole family knew that more money was spent on good food than any special gifts for mom and dad because they felt that having good food was more important, but we had a house, enough food, clothes on our back, and what was the greatest gift we ever received was the feeling of love between my parents and for all of us and our relatives and friends. When he was alive, being as religious as he was, we always went to mass at the church up the block from us before coming home on Christmas morn to give each other our presents and take the pictures that he always lovingly expected to be taken of the family.

One of my fondest memories was of the family pictures from Christmas before dad passed. And over the years, I've learned to make roast turkey and ham for Christmas for my husband just as I did for my children when they were little. Good cooking, good photography, and good conversation amongst family and friends are three gifts that my father and mom, who also past away several years ago, gave us all. After all, contempory traditions like dinners at restaurants and cafe visits are nice, but I reminisce about those early memories when my parents and othe relatives in Christmases past! I can only wish that everyone can be as blessed this Christmas or at least in their Christmas past memories this year!