074 Light frenzies

Christmas Light Frenzies

I stopped channel surfing recently to watch a program about people who have taken to decorating their yards for Christmas to a stupendous level. 

It amazed me how many hours of work, efforts, and enormous numbers of lights go into these displays. The creativity and the amount of “stuff” that can be crammed onto a house and yard is astounding.

The usual explanation is that the design grew and grew over the years, that people expect them to do it, and that they love doing it for the children.

I don’t make a special effort to drive around and look at these displays, but do enjoy seeing such yards when they are on my route.

On my evening walking route, I walk the same route so I have been able to watch the neighborhood decorations grow as Christmas approaches. 

The funny thing is that I usually comment that the tastefully decorated home is much nicer, but I find the over-the-top decorations are much more fun. 

Maybe not cheating when this many?

The inflatables are interesting and often make my dog Tootsie bark, but don’t they seem like cheating?

Luminaries are nice because often a neighborhood cooperates to set them up, but wind, rain, and snow can ruin the effect.







I wonder, though, what is it like to live across the street from one of these mega-displays. There must be a huge number of cars driving by as soon as the sun goes down. If the neighbors of the light-frenzy displays have windows that provide a view of the dazzling spectacle, I bet blackout curtains or shades or plywood cover those windows!

Thanks to those home owners who remember what it is all about.

                                                                                   Trish

073 Christmas recipes redux

Christmas Recipes over the Years

After researching the most liked and disliked foods on the table for Christmas, I am a bit amazed that there are so many  surviving baby boomers.  The rich foods and the quantity of foods we consume over the holiday season are staggering.  We probably all have clogged arteries and weigh at least ten pounds too much.  And, of course, it was all the fault of our mothers! It’s always the mother’s fault!

The most favored foods you can guess – turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy and that daggone green bean casserole that was created in the 

Campbell’s test kitchen in New Jersey for a way to market mushroom soup! Ironic and iconic.

Here is the list of most unpopular holiday foods: Brussel sprouts, tofu, oysters, mushrooms, red cabbage/sauerkraut, heavy-handed use of garlic (on what???), fruit cake, and plum pudding.  

With the exception of tofu, all of these made an appearance some time or other at our house.  I need to add one more item to the list.  One year we went to Connecticut for the holidays.  At the table, I served myself a large helping of what I thought to be mashed potatoes…NO, TURNIPS!!  So not on my top 10 list.  

Another year, we had dinner at a relative’s home--and there it was--a tofurkey!! 

Nope, didn’t try it.  

A typical Christmas dinner at our house was turkey, country ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, and some very weird stuffing recipe (thank goodness, for Stove Top), green beans, peas, squash casserole, and 

sometimes a sweet potato casserole with brown sugar and some “pretty fruit” on top, cranberry sauce (homemade with lemon or orange zest--awful), some sort of Jello salad mold, rolls, butter!  THEN, for dessert there were several kinds of pies (apple, pecan, and maybe mince) with ice cream or bourbon sauce (I am rolling my eyes and shaking my head--nasty stuff) and a platter of cookies and candies.

My plate was mashed potatoes  with a gravy swimming pool and a spoonful of peas for the swimmers. I still like peas in my pool! Maybe six green beans if coerced. 

That’s it.  

I much preferred the cold turkey sandwich and a Coke after everyone had gone home.  Yep, that’s me – Ms. Scrooge. 

Along with all this food came all the relatives.  We lived in a large 1850s house with plenty of room (according to my parents).  There was a children’s table as well set up in the TV room. However, as we all know, the children who have not seen their cousins in a year don’t want to sit with these strangers but rather with their parents.  OH, PEACE AND JOY!!  Or WHINE AND IGNORE! And, for the most part, until tears, we were ignored or told to go “back to the TV room.”       

[A typical Max action, but not Max]

Let’s mention--Ta Da: Tryptophan!  Yea!  Thank goodness for tryptophan.  Yes, it is in the turkey, but also we ate all those carbs-producing melatonin.  And, just perhaps, a bit of overeating and some alcohol added in.  Yes, please enjoy your Christmas dinner, then go home, and take a nap.  I want to read my new Christmas present books, anyway!

Just for fun, l reviewed a whole lot of websites and old cookbooks of my grandmother to see what has been popular over the years.  Picture this:  1947 – The White House.  Mrs. Truman served tomato consommé, olives, turkey with chestnut dressing, giblet gravy, cranberry jelly, mashed potatoes, asparagus, plum pudding and assorted nuts and candies. Not much changed for nearly a decade – broccoli replaced the asparagus and oyster stuffing instead of chestnut. 

There must have been some sort of rebellion in the 1960s.  We move from turkey to duckling with orange stuffing, wild rice, a Jello fruit wreath.  In 1960, the most popular menu was roast beef with roast potatoes, green bean casserole, apple salad (?), and French fried onion rings.  Dessert was a holiday decorated cake and coffee.

In 1975, (getting ready for the Bicentennial, I think), came roast goose with onion dressing, braised chestnuts, applesauce, green bean casserole, cranberry/pecan molded salad, and plum pudding.   

The 1980s and 1990s became more casual.  The hostess does a turkey (or alternative meat) and all the guests bring a potluck side dish or dessert. 

Entertaining myself by flipping through the magazines at the grocery store checkout line, I learned both the traditional turkey and “ all the fixings” are equally as popular as newer alternatives based on one’s tastes and culture.  Essentially, anything goes.  Maybe the idea of being with family and friends has overshadowed being in the kitchen for days!

So, here’s to your Christmas feast and your nap!  Be safe, stay healthy, and enjoy the holidays.

Glenne       

P.S.  How about some ground- up Xanax in the gravy for a really mellow Christmas evening? Okay, never mind!  Just a random thought!

072 Thanks, Mom & Dad

Give parents a big thanks!

Can you believe the holidays are here! I can’t. What happened to the 11 months that had to pass before we arrived at good old December, the month that does by at warp speed – so much to do and so little time.


Wish we could stop the clock and give us all time to savor a few minutes (or a couple of hours) but you know that will never happen!

So onward and upward to complete all that has to be done – no stopping, stalling, or waiting. As I plod forward buying, wrapping, and baking, my thoughts go back to my childhood and how it seemed like Christmas would never get here. The months and days just wouldn’t go fast enough for anyone under the age of 12.

I definitely appreciate those days and realize how wonderful it is for children --- making a list, visiting Santa, dreaming of what presents will be given and received, helping with the cookie making, and decorations. I wish they could realize how great it is before they make it to adulthood when they become the ones responsible for all the Christmas magic.

No wonder we look back at those good old days and think of how great it was – we got to enjoy it all without doing much of anything. We were in awe of how the presents appeared on Christmas morning exactly as we asked. But now we know the hours of work that went into that special time by our moms mostly with some help from our dads to make it all come out so very, very magical.

I can remember my mom monitored the Santa list making sure she knew what we wanted and that we didn’t go over board. There was always a reality check but it didn’t stop our expectations going over the moon. 

Christmas Eve brought it all to a head as we went to church for the real reason for the season and then home to wait for Santa’s arrival. Of course, he wouldn’t come unless we were fast asleep which didn’t come easy. 

But before you knew it was morning and my older sister was waking me up with, “Santa’s been here.”

This photo of my parents was taken when
we were all young and dreaming of Santa.

If you have living parents, give them a great big thank you for all they have done. If your parents are no longer walking on this earth, thank any parents you know who are fulfilling the Christmas wishes of their children or grandchildren and making the magic happen.

I still find the season a great time of year as most people are a little kinder and cheerier. My children are no longer in my home but in their own so I don’t do as much as I used to but I truly enjoy trying to find that special something to show I how much I care. Plus grandchildren help bring back the wonder of the season with their enthusiasm and love of all things associated with Christmas and the birth of the baby Jesus.

Whatever stage you are in life, remember to enjoy where you are and thank anyone who has been a part of it.

Frances           

071 Thinking about age

Those people look old!

I catch myself looking at folks and thinking “they look old.” After a brief moment of reflection, I realize that they are probably younger than I!

I have somewhat of an excuse—for much of my life, I have been the youngest.

My only sibling, my sister Joanne, is three years older so I was always the youngest in the house. Sometimes it worked to my detriment. My parents loved to tell the story of an early punishment ploy that they realized wasn’t working. They would tell my sister and me, “Tell us who did this or we will punish you both!” I didn’t quite have the logic worked out because I always confessed—no matter who the perpetrator.

But there were benefits of being the youngest. I remember my sister bitterly complaining when I received crinolines just a year after she did. She thought I should have been made to wait at least three years to be the same age as she was because she had desperately waited and begged for crinolines. I don’t know why we had to have those scratchy starched petticoats!

I was born at the end of October and my mother said she had to talk the school into letting me into first grade with other children born the same year. So I was usually the youngest in my class. It didn’t matter much because I was still taller than most of the other kids.

We were military brats, moving almost every two years. Luckily for me, a move from Virginia to South Carolina put me a year ahead so I jumped from Virginia high school freshman to South Carolina junior.

When I went off to Radford College, I was a sixteen-year-old college freshman. I didn’t have much dating experience, and one piece of advice I learned from my older and wiser suitemates was:

“You will never get a date if you don’t clean 

your hairbrush.” After all those years, I am still 

baffled by that one, but I do keep my hairbrush clean.

I ended up as the youngest editor of the newspaper in my sophomore year because the previous editor quit. So when I went from college to graduate school at Florida State University, I was twenty.

After receiving a Master’s degree in Library Science, I was offended by a library users who looked at me and asked me to “go get a real librarian.” 

No one has thought I was too young for the job in many years.

So I have finally relinquished my whiz kid status. I have learned that age is determined by your state of mind, not your chronology. With frequent visits to Florida, I have met so many active seniors who live full lives in their 80s and 90s even though some have severe physical limitations. They are now my models because they are young at heart.

Trish           

I am still the youngest of the Three Savvy Broads!