Mourning

It was the evening of October 18th, 1985. I remember the exact date, because I had accompanied my (then) boyfriend, Tom, and his mother to a Tex-Mex restaurant to celebrate her birthday. Tom’s mom and I had spent little time together during the two years I had been dating her son. I felt as buoyant as the bright, helium balloons hugging the ceiling of the cantina. At the same time, I was nervous and anxious to please. Mrs. Phillips was a “proper” Southern lady.

Later that evening, Tom and I—his mother was not with us—were sitting on his ugly, sturdy couch striped in bachelor-brown colors, when he declared: “Well, I guess we ought to get married.”

There was no kneeling or “prithee,” but a decisive suggestion by this man who had been pegged by his friends and family as “not the marrying kind.”

I don’t remember if I said yes to the question hidden in his declaration, but I do remember sliding from the couch to the floor where my purse was and retrieving a snippet of a newspaper ad hidden in my wallet. It was a picture of an engagement ring. I tossed it into my beloved’s hand.

“How long have you been carrying this around?,” he asked.

“Oh, for about a year,” I replied with exaggerated eyelash flutter.

*****

We were to be married almost ten weeks later on December 21st. The planning was fast and furious. Early on, I took my future mother-in-law to lunch to share the plans with her. In her gracious way, she informed me I had misspelled Tom’s father’s name in our engagement announcement in the local newspaper.

Later that week, I found out that Tom’s father had died on DECEMBER 21st in 1972. Almost blubbering, I approached Mrs. Phillips and apologized for my—for setting the date for the wedding on the calendar day her husband had died.

She tried to console me and said: “Now, we will have something happy to celebrate on that day.”

*****

A longing for my childhood home ambushed my heart when Tom and I were driving home to Memphis after a three day honeymoon spent in the Ozark Mountains. It was Christmas Eve. I felt like a little girl again on a night-time car ride “gone looking at the lights” in the country. As Tom and I passed decorated houses, I exclaimed about the Santas and reindeer on roofs, hundreds of lights strung on double-wide trailers, and the front-yard nativity scenes with plastic Holy Families.

The transition from honeymoon to the first Christmas dinner with my husband’s family felt awkward to me. Tom’s mother was not my mother. I did not feel free to hug her or re-share the details of the wedding with her. I wanted my mother. Mrs. Phillips was kind, but I sensed a welcome cloaked in caution. Since Tom’s father had died, it had always been her and her sons at the Christmas table.

*****

I sat still and silent—a feat for me—as the gift-giving and unwrapping began. We took turns opening our cards and reading the sentiments aloud. Gifts were opened. Quiet thank-yous were said. The wrapping paper was smoothed of its wrinkles, folded and saved to be used again.

I was a naive bride immersed in my own sorrow about leaving the familiar and cleaving to a stranger whose holiday tradition seemed stripped of joy. I was unable to recognize the power of grief to isolate and insulate a family from intrusion.

All I could think about were the festivities taking place at my aunt and uncle’s house three hundred miles away. Torn, crunched wrapping paper would carpet the floor, and ribbon would stick to shoes. The tree would be real and huge. Someone would be banging out “Silent Night” on the out-of-tune piano, and the women in the kitchen would be having simultaneous conversations about new babies, holiday weight gain, and which gospel quartet would sing-in the New Year at church.

I wanted to go home.

Feasting and Fasting

Tomorrow we feast!

We focus on the joys of a full table and a full stomach.  thanksgiving-feast

We honor the achievements that come out of the kitchen and take note of the flavors.  Whether it is “just like moms” or “please pass the salt”, we think of this meal in reference to similar meals from other years.

We look at the good in our lives, if only for a moment, and honor it as a gift that it is given us.  We respond, as best we are able to, to those we are gathered with and to the Source of All Gifts, with gratitude.

We give thanks.

I worship in a faith tradition that regularly moves between seasons of feasting and fasting, of celebration and repentance.

I stink at fasting.  In recent attempts, I find myself a weak puddle of well-meaning intention and flabby will.

But, in many ways, I stink at feasting as well.  I get caught up in the tasks, the work, the needs and I don’t take time to bask in the joys, the smells, the moments of the feast.

There is a moment at the Thanksgiving table when silence passes over.  In that moment, I hope my heart is reminded to look at what is happening.  To look and to actually see the joys of the feast that is unfolding, to see the goodness at hand and honor it.

adventcand51

For by the time the Thanksgiving tupperware is being loaded into the dishwasher, the leftovers consumed over the course of days, attention shifts to the next great holiday on the horizon.   In just a few days, the deep-purple season of Advent arrives, a holy time which whispers:  “Slow down. Look deeper. The little one, the vulnerable one–He’s coming!  Create a bit of room!” These weeks of anticipation for Christmas, full of parties and shopping and yummy treats, are ironically, a time of fasting.

As faith is whispering a message of internal preparation, the world cranks the volume on its siren song:  “Buy me! Eat me! You are running out of time! Now, do it NOW!!!”  Frenzy and fuss, set to the tune of holiday jingles.

Perhaps if I can have a moment of attentiveness–of clear vision–during the Thanksgiving feast, I will be able to approach the Christmas preparations with new sight as well.  Perhaps, just perhaps, when He comes at Christmas, He will find my heart not stuffed to the gills with worries and outings and lists.

Rather, He will find just a bit of space that is hungry and longing.

Cut from the same dough

When I was growing up, they were simply “Christmas cookies” to me—not butter cookies or cutout cookies. Just Christmas cookies: the quintessential sweet of the season.

Of course, there were many cookie varieties on the platter my mom kept stocked on the kitchen counter throughout the holiday season. I had to taste each of the others at some point—the gingerbread, the mini pecan pie shells, the coconut and chocolate “magic bars,” and the shortbread squares with salty cashews pressed into the caramel on top. But when the platter was offered with the instruction to “just take one,” my small hands only hovered over other choices before inevitably gravitating back to a beloved “Christmas cookie.”

cookietinAs an adult, I consider these classics a family recipe, but in truth, the five-ingredient list is hardly complicated, or a secret: butter, flour, sugar, an egg, and—most importantly—a half-teaspoon of real almond extract (imitation is forbidden!). First, as with all cookies, the butter and sugar are creamed together before adding the egg and almond extract. Then the flour is carefully stirred in. For years I had to hand over the spoon to my mom when the last cup of flour went into the bowl, and for years I was in awe of how strong she was, as I watched her effortlessly finish the job my wimpy arm couldn’t handle.

scookiecutterAfter the dough was chilled (a step I was never a fan of waiting through), my mom and I rolled it out to a careful ¼-inch thick round ready to be puzzled into Christmas shapes. It was with Christmas cookie dough that I learned to use a rolling pin: gently but firmly, keeping the pressure even between left and right hands, learning to lift the rolling pin slightly as it reached the outer perimeter of the dough, so as not to leave the edges too thin to be cut.

Opening up the tin of cookie cutters each December was as thrilling to me as unearthing my family’s boxes of tree decorations. All the old favorite shapes were there—stocking, tree, candy cane, wreath, star, santa, and the gingerbread boy and girl (which we didn’t hesitate to use on non-gingerbread dough)—as well as the surprise of a new cookie cutter or two we had added to the collection the year before. I learned to be strategic about arranging each shape before pressing it into the dough, minimizing the scraps of dough to be gathered and rolled out again. The outstretched leg of the reindeer nicely made use of a little strip of available dough left along the top of a tree’s point, and the positive points of one star could utilize the negative spaces left by another star.

Frosting and decorating the cookies, though, was the best part of the process. The bowls of colored frosting and various sprinkles were laid out on the table, drawing the whole family as if they were a feast rather than work to be shared. Over the years, our approach became increasingly elaborate and creative. Armed with toothpicks, we discovered techniques for swirling two or more colors of frosting in the middle of a star, and for picking up and placing tiny candy balls exactly where we wanted them, along the hem of an angel’s dress. In his teens, my brother went rogue with his approach, transforming traditional shapes into entirely different objects—an upside-down stocking became a hobby-horse, and bell became a space shuttle, with USA spelled out carefully using those small, stick-shaped chocolate sprinkles.

As a college student, making and decorating “Christmas cookies” was always my first order of business upon arriving home after finals. Years later, after having my own children, I could hardly wait for them to be old enough to sit around the kitchen table and decorate cookies with Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Bill. When I eventually met Jason, I knew immediately he and his daughter would embrace the slightly-competitive fun of our family’s cookie decorating marathons. (A man who would scoff at such an activity would be no man for me!)

Our three daughters are now teenagers, and the “Christmas cookie” tradition continues—even beyond Christmas. Somewhere along the line, it occurred to me that “Christmas cookies” could be made at other times of the year, so I began buying new cookie cutters: tulips and rabbits, pumpkins and maple leaves, hearts and snowflakes.

photo (2)A few weeks ago, on a cold Saturday morning, we sat down around the dinning room table, where stacks of naked autumn cookies waited for their sweet, creative disguises. Each of the girls had invited a friend to join us. “I didn’t realize other people even did this any more,” one of our guests said, picking up a toothpick and getting intricate with her design.

The cookies are definitely special—everyone who sees them and bites into one agrees. But for me, it’s the tradition of time spent together—evolving as our family evolves, yet remaining the same from year to year, in a life where it seems nothing really remains the same—that I crave most this time of year.

Coming Home: A Christmas Culinary Experience in Texas

When I list my favorite things about Texas, I always start with foods and drinks: Blue Bell Ice Cream, Tex-Mex, Kolaches, Dr. Pepper, and Shiner Bock. Texas has the great distinction of being home to many very distinct and delicious culinary cultures. The obvious ones, Mexican food and Texas BBQ, produce the glory known as brisket tacos. But the lesser known distinct cultures are those from Germany and Eastern Europe. Texas once was the destination for many immigrants from Germany and Czechoslovakia, and in the broad scape of Texas, these immigrants settled in very distinct and geographically separate communities (some so isolated they still speak their native languages) bringing with them their culinary gifts. The Germans brewed their beer creating for Texans the amber-brown delight of Shiner Bock, which is brewed in the small German community of Shiner, Texas, and the Czech’s baked their bread and made their sausages and gave us the kolache (I’m constantly stunned by the number of people who have never heard of nor tried a jalapeno and cheese kolache).

For my family, Christmas meals are a wonderful sampling of Texas’ diverse delights. My family starts on Christmas Eve by treating ourselves to the best tamales I have ever had, made in a little East Dallas shop, as well as a sundry of other delightful Tex-Mex dishes, all served buffet-style in the comfort of our home with some extended family joining us. I am generally so utterly stuffed by the time the meal is over I can barely stay awake through our annual watching of “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The next morning, Christmas opens with kolaches and cinnamon rolls, but I must pace myself—the true joy of Christmas is our late lunch at my aunt and uncle’s house.

Every year my family spends Christmas afternoon at the Kolenovsky’s house. My uncle is of Czech descent, and he and my aunt make an excellent culinary combo. They put on a feast of feasts, spending weeks gathering recipes and preparing for the Christmas celebration. The group is not large, but we quite literally feel like attendees to a king’s feast as the food is examined and the paper crowns and poppers are arranged upon the table. The dishes are an array of Czech soups, smoked ribs and meats so tender they melt in your mouth, unbelievable dressings and stuffings ranging from classic breaded ones to raspberry jalapeno sauces, vegetarian dishes for my sister and father, rolls upon rolls with the prescience to know that I will eat four (well earning my “muffin man” moniker given to me by my aunt), and another Texas staple: pecan pie and ice cream for dessert. They also choose delightful wines and drinks to go with the meal, and never forget to allow for my family’s addiction to Dr. Pepper. All of the tastes overwhelm me—even the thought of the meal will leave my mouth watering.

At the end of every feast, we generally find ourselves in a dazed comatose as my aunt and uncle read us something full of wit and heart. Sometimes these readings make our bellies roll in laughter and sometimes they make us weep, like the time my uncle read us Rudyard Kipling’s poem about a dog dying just two months after we had lost our dog. These moments are as close as I have been to truly coming home. We spend decades of our lives looking for a place we know with our hearts is home, and on Christmas day, the day marking earth and heaven being brought together for all eternity, my family gathers around for a feast, draws near to our true home in this communion, and eats from the best dishes the land God blessed with His own hand can offer.