My mother loved to be in the kitchen. Her baking skills were enhanced by the Christmas Spirit as we slid into December, usually pushed along by a rainstorm. It was a great time to keep the oven warm, staving off the dark chill of the year’s shortest days. And she did. Fruitcake – she loved it – I will never understand why. Thumbprint cookies. Berlin wreaths. Scotch shortbread. Christmas cutouts, shaped like stars and trees, crunchy with red and green sugar. Divinity, a tricky candy dependent on the humidity, which was just about always too high, perched as we were on the edge of Bellingham Bay.
She would hoard her store in 3 pound coffee cans in the dark recesses of the kitchen cupboard where we couldn’t find them, not to be touched until the big day. I remember my older sister interrupting her at work, calling to beg her to tell where her favorites were. Absolutely not. Christmas was Christmas; not a moment sooner would they be hauled out. I can tell you that they were worth the wait.
So I was thinking, why not bake a memory? We New Hampshirites got our first snow of the season in the night, followed by dripping rain. A great day for baking, and not much else, as the temperature hovered right around freezing. I found the recipe in my 1965 Betty Crocker cookbook, which is older than my marriage. I just can’t seem to part with Betty. Some of the favorite recipe pages are so graced with dough that I can easily turn to them. Sort of like tabs in a notebook, only stickier. Christmas bread. Apple crisp. Butter cream frosting. Oh, Betty! Thank you. You taught me so much.
The memory I baked is still a secret, as Christmas is yet to come. Someone somewhere will get a surprise in the mail. A Christmas memory, all wrapped up and ready to nibble. I’m ridiculously happy. Joy to the World!!!