Good Mornin’! Good Mornin’!
With the recent cold snap, Bing is definitely telling us, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!”
But you know, I always have to have Mr. Gene Autry as a secondary source that Christmas is around the corner when I hear him singing about Rudolph.
So, yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and he’ll be here before you know it. Oh, and Bumbles bounce! Lol …
Christmas traditions are incredible. My grandmother, Bibbie, would start making Christmas candy for the whole family in early December if not Thanksgiving.
Chocolate fudge, pralines, date nut loaf and even her version of the Chex Party mix or as we refer to it, “Trash.” I’ve never made any of it enough to perfect it and always forget what I learned before I attempt it again. I did get pretty good with her Trash last year and made a few batches but then again, it’s the easiest of the bunch to create.
As a kid, I can remember my dad making the rounds to his farm suppliers around Christmas and bringing home holiday treasures. A canned ham, a smoked salmon and lots of other goodies that folks gave out to keep their farmer clients happy.
It was always a tasty surprise that lasted pretty much the whole month. There’d be a gadget here and there but it seems like most businesses gave out some kind of food item. I miss these adventures and traditions.
Buying fireworks was always another great fun Christmas tradition. Whatever money I could scrape together, Robert Nelms and I would head to the fireworks trailer by the bridge on the outskirts of Greenwood. We’d get home and blow up stuff and shoot off bottle rockets at each other. There were other shenanigans like the time I accidentally lit his fireworks bag on fire thinking it was in a pile of trash and I was trying to get warm.
We had hunkered down in the brand-new trash container in the curve at my house on Three Mile Lake Road. I jumped out once I saw what had happened but Robert stayed in valiantly trying to save his fireworks while they shot off all around him. I don’t think he’s ever forgiven me to this day.
Other traditions include the many Christmas Cantatas that combined the local Inverness churches and the Christmas concerts put on by the IA choir and madrigals that I proudly was part of.
There were many more traditions that made Christmas special each year across the Delta and we’ll talk about more in this space this month.
But hopefully the special traditions take us back to the Reason for the Season as we celebrate Jesus’ birth. I reckon the three wisemen could have wandered in with a free ham and smoked fish but they had their own tradition that we read and celebrate each year as well.
They gave the baby Jesus gold, frankincense and myrrh. I’m sure Bibbie could have worked wonders with those as well.
What are some of your favorites Christmas traditions?
