Partying Priorities and Puzzle Pieces

               Never a hard-partying kind of girl, I look to New Year’s Eve with a sobering recollection of my first New Year’s Eve as a parent. 

               As young adults, couples greeted the New Year in each other’s homes, having dinner, eating chips and dips, sipping adult beverages, and watching the ball drop at earlier and earlier hours. Add a baby or two to this mix of partying and parenting and the story of the Last Whoopty-Do New Year's Eve springs to mind.

           

David was right at four months old when we received one of those fantabulous invitations for a New Year’s Eve. It was a glittery event complete with Dinner, Dancing, an Open Bar, and Breakfast at the Pinnacle Club (Top of the 100) in Memphis. Of course, we said, “YES!” and plans were underway. The most critical component of the plan: a baby-sitter.

            Talk about friends. Our next door neighbors volunteered for David to spend the night at their home. After all, they had a couple of young children who would be sleeping away and they did not plan on going out on the town, anyway. Again, we said, “YES!”

            What a trip! The “in crowd” boogied and gyrated around the dance floor in the most current form of group line dancing and slow dancing, all to the music of a live band. The night flew by. We called our neighbors and David was sleeping like…well, a baby. “Remember,” we said, “if he wakes up, don’t turn on a light, don’t speak to him, just give him the extra pacifier, and he’ll go back to sleep.”

            The last of the real party-goers, we drove home sometime after the midnight celebration and breakfast, an early hour on New Year’s Day. We fell into bed about 2 AM. At 3 AM, the phone rang and we heard, “WAAAHAAHHAAA!” in the background. “NO!” we mimed with a silent scream.

This baby wanted his mommy. In the driveway, David was passed over to welcome the New Year in his own home. He was wide awake and smiling that smile I’ve never been able to refuse. He did not go back to sleep until the Tournament of Roses Parade was winding through Pasadena.

            I was bleary-eyed and in one heck of a cranky mood. It was the last time we said, “YES!” to a New Year’s Eve Late Night Party ‘til You Drop Event. Partying on New Year’s Eve became a dinner out with kids completed by the highlight of the evening: a luscious dessert, most likely laced with double chocolate, whipped cream, and a cherry on top.

New Year’s Eve Party Priorities do change. Tonight, David is beyond a pacifier and my husband and I are fitting the final pieces into a puzzle Richard gave him and we all started on Christmas Day. Talk about a night of togetherness. It makes for a much happier Black-eyed Peas kind of morning. 

December Storms

December weather must have offered Camden, Arkansas, one heck of a ride in 1931. December can bring snow mounds or storm debris; it’s ever so chancy in Arkansas.

Under a tornado watch at the moment, I sit in my comphy writing and reading chair at home in Clay County, thinking of how many warm Christmas seasons I’ve witnessed. The December of the Smurf Car is one, the pedal-car gifted to David by Thomas one hot Christmas Day, I recall. We opened the windows rather than turn on the air-conditioner in Memphis.

During another fateful December, we out-distanced a tornado outbreak, driving from the Pyramid’s showcase of the Arkansas Razorbacks basketball team toward home with sirens blaring around us. The tornado tracked east as we drove that same direction, but paralleled our Walnut Grove Road to the south, headed for the Dogwood subdivision and Houston High School in Germantown rather than Walnut Grove Woods in Cordova.

It’s not a new thing, this unsettled, warm weather. Mid-South Decembers are volatile, to say the least.

In one of the chapters in The House on Harrison Street, a December tornado tears up the Methodist Church and the Ouachita County Court House in Camden, Arkansas, both situated across the street from the house where Mother and her brother Gordon huddled with their parents, their grandmother, and their aunt, Janie:

“Get up! Get the children. Downstairs! Quickly.”

Ella Gordon must have been startled awake as the wind howled with a deafening roar. Her daughter and son-in-law awoke, also, and Claude bounded out of bed, sensing what was just out the front window roaring toward Harrison Street. As he approached the bedroom door, he heard his mother-in-law, “It’s a tornado! Everybody downstairs! I’ll get Janie.”

            Claude must have grabbed Gordon, age six, and Mildred jostled Margaret, age 8. A mid-December storm, December 12, 1931, surprised everyone.

            Shaken awake by fear and the roar outside, both Margaret and Gordon hurried with their parents and grandmother down the stairs, most likely toward the back hallway, the lowest point in the house, the smooth concrete, cold storage area used to keep all the jams and jellies, peas and beans the family canned and preserved. They could have stolen a peek outside as they were hustled past the windows in the stairway; they might have gaped at the hundred year old trees being whipped about, their naked branches reaching toward the ground.

            The storm didn’t last long. It jumped and hopped neighborhoods, picked up, set down, wrecked havoc through any area it touched. What must have been an especially violent tornado, the first ever for Camden, tore up the downtown area; the beast reigned destruction wherever the funnel landed. Damage was significant throughout the incorporated area, even in a south neighborhood around Chestnut and Maple Streets. One child was killed in the outskirts of Camden where the storm made its exit. Many residents of Ouachita County close to Camden City Limits were severely injured, and property damage registered in the tens of thousands of dollars, hugely devastating in that era.

            Tornados usually form in volatile air masses and follow a southwest to northeast path, carving a trail of destruction where they choose. Camden, positioned on the Ouachita River bluffs, experienced this tornado that must have moved about indiscriminately because it arrived from the north and traveled south, hitting Greenwood Cemetery located in the north part of the city, inflicting wind damage on its trek to downtown.

Photo: Ouachita County Historical Society archives. First Methodist Church, December, 1931. Visible is Jefferson Street. Harrison Street runs perpendicular at the center of the photograph. The fencing surrounds the Court House property. (According to church records, the Board of Trustees had debated renewal of storm coverage just two weeks prior. They voted to renew the policy and dodged the bullet of financial devastation.)  

It dropped on top of the Methodist Church, gutting it west to east, threw debris onto a car dealership and garage behind the church on Jefferson Street. After smashing cars and caving in the dealership, the massive storm jumped across Jefferson and demolished the “pride of Ouachita County,” the gorgeous, massive, red brick court house built in 1888 and completed the following year.

            The children and their parents, their grandmother and her sister and ward, their aunt, lived across the street from this devastation and their home suffered only roof damage, wind damage, and took scattered debris from the rampage into the yard. The Courthouse was gutted; only a few of the outer walls remained standing. The bronze statue of Justice which stood atop the courthouse pergola was found near the river, south of town.

            The Methodist Church suffered the same fate with the sanctuary completely blown apart. The communion table inscribed IHS was lifted by the wind, removed from the altar, and transported to the court house lawn. There it was set down, intact, with little damage whatsoever. The steeple somersaulted down Jefferson Street.

From their shelter inside the house on the corner of Harrison and Jefferson, this huddled family watched the devastation. They knew they had escaped injury and possible death, left to ponder how such disaster could occur immediately across the street and their home be left virtually untouched. How the house must have shuddered and ripped, yet bravely stood against the horrors of the rampaging wind.

It withstood other horrors, too, including a fire ten years later. But that’s another story.

The House on Harrison Street will be available in early 2016.

Kitchen Saints: The Gordons at Christmastime

           I have called on the Gordon kitchen saints once again.

Gordon Rocks have been made (double batch) and shared. Christmas would be incomplete, however, without another traditional favorite of the Gordon clan: boiled custard. If the South is not your home, if your stomping grounds are not from around these parts, you may be unfamiliar with this traditional delicacy.

            Custards are often baked into pies or refrigerated and eaten with a spoon like a pudding. Not so for boiled custard. Taken either sip-by-sip from a small fancy-shaped glass or used as the base for egg nog, boiled custard is always served at Christmas gatherings of the Gordon family. The gentle thickness of boiled custard is just right for putting a little milk-like mustache on a toddler’s lip; boiled custard initiated a babe into the folds of Gordondom.

Ella Gordon and family lived across the street from the Methodist Church where she occupied a front pew and had a women’s missionary society circle named in her honor. Ella Gordon was a “t-totaler,” a duty and obligation lady, but at Christmastime, all bets were off. Ella sent for “good whiskey.” 

Mind you, she never bought it herself. She sent a man to the liquor store and listened for the secret knock at the door so Aunt Bessie might retrieve the hooch. The whiskey or brandy was not for drinking, but for cooking. That's altogether a different situation, don't ya' know. The liquor would “cook out,” and the finished product would be all the more moist or flavorful due to the addition of the booze.

Lifting the lid to the cookie tins filled with Rocks could set a sober person into a spin with one whiff. Egg nog shared with little Gordons on Christmas Eve sent them to their beds earlier than they had planned – about passed out from the nog’s not-so-secret ingredient. Thomas would literally stagger to bed, all the while begging for more.

Ella Gordon, also known as Banmama, carried on the tradition of Rocks, Boiled Custard, a multitude of confections, and batch upon batch of salted pecans kept in a Mrs. Seay’s Candy Box. She and her girls also made fondant, shaping colored fondant balls into ovals and pressing pecan halves on either side. Pam and I have tried to replicate a caramel candy known as “Tattee’s Candy,” but we grew impatient and let it remain Tattee’s Soup, still delicious, filled with goo-gobs of chopped pecans, and laden with sugar.

            Banmama also made a Nut Cake during the holidays. The Nut Cake made with lots of eggs, a bit of flour, a healthy cup of pecans, plenty of sugar (a Gordon absolute), also called for a tumbler of “good brandy.” Upon first reading the recipe shared by Mrs. W.W. Brown, Mrs. Chas. Gordon, and Mrs. S.B. Lide, I thought the notation indicated a “thimble” of brandy.  

In re-reading the list of ingredients, it appears this is a fruit cake without the fruit, but plenty of nuts and quite a bit of brandy. I modified the recipe to bake a cake similar to one that a writer friend’s mother made and it is cooling on a wire rack in my refrigerator, waiting to be served with a dollop of whipped cream (or Cool-Whip).

            Baking with recipes gathered from family recipe books brings a warmth to me as real as if my great grandmother, grandmother, her sisters, and my mother are all in the same kitchen. I am in tune with these women and their laughter, their enjoyment of the Christmas season, their unbounded generosity never more present than at Christmastime.

            And, dear cousins, for the record, I also made several batches of palted secans.

Joy Come To You

Joy Come To You - published Clay County Times-Democrat - December 16, 2015

               “Mom, can I open just one little-bitty, teeny-tiny present now?” Small fingers held almost together show about one teeny-tiny inch. “I just can’t wait ‘til Christmas!”

“Christmas Eve will be here before you know it, and you can open one of your presents. Don’t go snooping under the tree. You know what that’ll mean.” Under her breath she chuckled, “You’ll shoot your eye out!” The child did not understand her humor.

How marvelous to be the lucky child who counts gifts under the Christmas tree and opens one on Christmas Eve. Luckier still is the child who can con a sibling into snooping and peeking; it’s a risk because searching through the closets could result in a gift’s prompt return to the store.

Adults celebrating family food traditions prepare tins of candies, cookies, and favorite Christmas dishes following generational recipes. During this joyous December time frame, the kitchen counter is laden with specialty items enjoyed at no other season of the year. Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without Aunt Bethany’s green Jell-o salad.

The tradition of allowing children to open one gift on Christmas Eve, one gift before bedtime, began several generations prior to this one. Pajama sets, most likely patterned Christmas pajamas only Aunt Gladys could love lay nestled in tissue paper; no toy requiring assembly or batteries appeared on Christmas Eve. “Now, put on your PJs and hurry to bed. You know Santa won’t come if you are awake!” How many children never went to sleep, insisting they heard reindeer prancing and sleigh bells jingling! “I’m asleep, I’m asleep. Really, I’m asleep!”

Christmas is filled with family traditions, special events children remember and replicate when they have children and Christmas seasons of their own. One tradition I enjoyed involved the beauty of The Peabody Christmas Tree. We dressed up, spruced up, and traveled down to the The Peabody lobby where ducks paraded. The decorated tree occupied a substantial portion of the lobby, reaching beyond the mezzanine. A musician dressed in a tux serenaded on the Grand Piano, entertaining the holiday-happy crowd with Christmas tunes. We took photographs, sipped specialty coffees, and gulped soft drinks, usually adorned with a long-stemmed cherry, and let the glittery ambiance wash over us.

We’d also map out a route to follow, thrilling at all the houses and yards nominated as “best of the season.” We’d drive by the fancy displays, the addresses advertising orchestrated lights and synchronized music. The Starry Nights drive-through spectacular always topped the Christmas To-Do list.

One tradition held from my own childhood became my own family’s most important tradition: the candlelight Christmas Eve service at our church. Traditional hymns rang out Gloria! Scripture readings foretold of the holy infant’s birth. Families from near and far lined the pews as lights dimmed to Silent Night, the final hymn. We looked at the glow upon each face among all the families represented there.

Traditions change because families change; circumstances dictate new traditions. It’s important to embrace that change and create new traditions when the opportunity arises. Several churches in our small community offer a Christmas Eve service. There are plenty of festive and colorful light arrangements designed for car tours. The drive-through display at the old Air Force base in Blytheville, Lights of the Delta, is lovely. A home between here and there, in Steele, MO, Lights on the Z, showcases synchronized music and lights with donations going to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, always a worthy cause. Driving around to admire Courthouse Square lighting and upgraded downtown lights can contribute to a lovely evening for adults and children.

As for my grown-up family, I’ve taken to entertaining them with iconic Christmas movies, complete with games and awards, such as membership in the Jelly of the Month Club and our Christmas tree housing a Ty-baby squirrel. A grandchild once received a gift-wrapped bar of soap after guessing a correct answer attached to the question about Ralphie’s bad word. “You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out,” was the classic response to any request made during that evening. Dinner and desserts always coordinate with the movie of the year. Laughter of adults and children mingle, creating memories and new traditions. What Mom would come up with for the next year left family members puzzled, but in good humor.

Family gatherings make great traditions, regardless of the season or the reason. When children are involved, plans need not be elaborate or costly. An antique Advent Calendar passed down from grandmother’s childhood, the proclamation of good tidings of great joy read aloud, a simple moment of planned reflection, a prayer together for Peace on Earth, a grateful acknowledgement of continued health, any heart-felt, shared event is special. The children will remember.

Make memories, honor heritage, celebrate childhood, and magnify the advent of the Holy Child. Capture the wonder and twinkle from a child’s eye and put it in your own – for today, for always, for yourself and for your children. Let joy be your tradition.

Color Me Christmas

Christmas colors reduce anxiety. Red does not signal alarm; instead, Rudolph’s nose comes into focus. Golden yellow candles with evergreen holly adorn light posts throughout our small towns. Lighted angels and fabricated representations of the Holy Family add warmth to winter scenes. Neighborhoods brighten; downtown businesses sparkle. Royal purple candles are placed within Advent wreaths. Christmons in luxurious symbolism adorn ten-foot trees which add a regal appearance to churches in the area. Towns are awash in Christmas colors.

Color and Christmas go together like peas and carrots, Forest Gump would suggest. Coloring pages keep little ones entertained while adults breathe deeply to the count of ten. The eight crayons are all any child would use to give Santa a red suit and the elves a short green costume. Brown reindeer frolic on white snow and Frosty’s eyes are coal black.

Children find a way to graduate to the hefty box of 64 crayons, giving children 56 extra crayons to crush into carpet and jam into pencil sharpeners. Memory of coloring, especially coloring at Christmas, stirs smiles and invites reflection on a simpler, calmer time.

Perhaps that’s why Adult Coloring Books are the hot item for Christmas this year. Said to reduce stress and provide hours of pleasant memories, Crayola and other coloring companies are capitalizing on the adult who longs to return to childhood, even for a few moments.

In my case, I don’t think coloring would relieve stress. As a child, I was slow to develop fine motor skills and was intimidated by displayed art projects produced by classmates. They never colored outside the lines and their color combinations were delightfully pretty. They outlined first and shaded within the outline, to create a masterpiece worthy for the bulletin board. My rendition of a birthday cake showcased the entire cake in jet black with brown squiggles around the bottom edges. My parents thought I needed psychotherapy. When asked why my cake was colored black and brown, my answer was most logical: chocolate cake.

Lately, on the internet and in retail stores, I’ve been intrigued by books of black and white designs, ready to spring to life with color. Intricate designs, mandalas, kaleidoscope patterns provide opportunities for adults to create meditative art. I’ve looked at the patterns and while I’d enjoy coloring those pages, I feel sure I’d stress out; I’d see someone else’s design and think I should have colored mine like theirs. Old habits die hard.

This Christmas, do enjoy the brilliant colors, reflect on outward and inward beauty, and find ways to reduce stress. Perhaps the best way to accomplish that goal is by spending time with a child of any age; coloring pages are optional.

No Time for Hibernation

     It would be easier to hibernate. You know, read the paper, drink morning coffee, go to the gym, come home, sweep up some caked dirt from someone’s boots, do a little laundry, test the thawing progress on next week’s main dishes, admire the Christmas trees, order some things through Amazon, follow through on a brainstorm or two, and ignore the invitation to the Christmas party.

             It’ll mean a holiday outfit, heels, and a smile. That might be a bridge too far.

            Then, I flip the switch for some music to elevate the attitude and David Foster’s orchestra plays “Carol of the Bells” a rendition that lifts my mood immediately. Before I can blink twice, John Williams “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas” from the Home Alone soundtrack raises the roof. “Christmas Eve in Sarajavo,” the signature piece for the Trans-Siberian orchestra, rings through the rooms and I’m a new creature, ready for Saturday night and a Christmas Party, the first of the season.

          Getting ready for Christmas parties means dressing up, saying Merry Christmas, Y’all!, and seeing new friends in what have become familiar locations. My Scroogie Christmas fault is I long for Christmas Past. It can’t be. This is Christmas Present.

            I vow to enjoy every day of this Christmas season. I will wear my Christmas jewelry and jingle all the way. I’ll make Gordon Christmas Rocks and celebrate RockFest; I’ll also try a few new recipes. Christmas music will fill my house and I’ll laugh when Aubrey sings “Up on the Housetop” at full tilt. What a joy to share Christmas with a four-year-old angel.

            Soon the Christmas presents will start to accumulate in their secret hiding places and one day, I’ll conduct a Wrap Session, to the beat of “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.”

            I love Christmas and everything it represents. Christmas music at church reminds us the Manger is waiting. The advent candles are lighted as we anticipate the Christ Child’s birth. That blessed time is magically blended with Santa’s promise to Virginia and children of all ages.

It’s my favorite time of the year and I won’t spend it in hibernation.   

Sugar Lovers Go Cold Turkey

              Imagine Buddy the Elf’s startled look as he chows down on a whole roll of Toll-House cookie dough. His reply to the FDA and their findings regarding sugar and health might be surrounded in a cloud of…cotton candy. He’d find a way to smile through the upstart suggestion that Americans “cut back on sugar.”

The Food and Drug Administration has gotten well into the sweet-toothed consumer’s business now. Cutting back on fats came first. Cutting back on carbs came next. Cutting calories, cutting red meat, cutting this, that, and the other. Now, it’s sugar.

            Empty calories like empty words may fill a void, but are not satisfying and the body knows it. With few nutrients and few real, meaningful calories, added sugar, such as sugars that are in soda, fills a body for a brief time, but evaporates like a puff of smoke, leaving the consumer unsatisfied.

            Grandma’s secret ingredient for whipping up the best green beans is not really a secret: she adds a “pinch” or two, or three, or more of sugar. No wonder her vegetables are such a hit with the family; even the kids will eat Granny’s green beans.

            Thanksgiving dinner is past and Christmas treats’ aromas lurk around the next bend. Kitchens are busy places; holiday chefs don festive aprons and whop up family recipes of cookies, brownies, candy, and treats designed to satisfy Santa and all his elves.

Health conscious cooks buy low-fat, low-calorie, low-carb, sugar substitutes, all in an effort to satisfy the craving for delicious confections. However, low on one side means high on the other side. Low-fat is laden with sugar.  Low-sugar bursts with fat grams. There is no win, it seems.

            With a picture of fruit on the packaging, one would assume the product contains fruit with its natural sugar content. Drat it all! Fooled, again. Just because a picture is on the label, don’t count on there being much fruit; instead, the strawberry yogurt is loaded with added sugar so the taste will be palatable. Same with fruity drinks, fruity cookies, dried fruit, fruit cocktail, and the like.

            It’s healthier, of course, to cut back on added sugars. Our heart health demands that we sit up, pay attention, and make changes. So, what’s a good Southerner, those of us with a seldom-satisfied sweet tooth, to do? We will look for other ways to satisfy sweet cravings.

            Perhaps humming songs from Mary Poppins would help. She recommends keeping a spoonful of sugar handy to make the medicine go down. Another remedy would be to make sure the kiddos and grandkiddos are around so they can fulfil the request to “gimme some sugar!” An over-abundance of affectionate terms like “Sugar” might spill from the lips of strangers who are not flirting, but who are in the throes of sugar deprivation and crave to speak the word at every opportunity. Perhaps listening to oldie, goldie tunes such as “Sugar, Sugar” or “Sugar Shack” could supply the satisfaction.

            Cutting back on sugar might be impossible, especially as the candy-cane season approaches. Watching the movie Elf is the only solution. Everyone knows that Buddy is addicted to sugar. He says, "We elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup." He pours maple syrup onto his spaghetti. With a flask of “yes, there’s sugar in syrup” kept with him at all times, concealed up the sleeve of his green, fur trimmed coat, Buddy’s antics provide sugar-sensory overload, a sure-fire remedy for sugar cravings. After watching Will Ferrell as Buddy the Elf, sugar-lovers will head toward the refrigerator for cold turkey.