“Christmas Past” Revisited
I spent a recent rainy morning baking goodies for Christmas. One thing led to another and as I sliced the “Santa’s Whiskers” cookies, memories of holiday preparations and events from my childhood came to mind.
If we had a “cold spell” in our part of the state in early or mid-December, Daddy and the other men in the community butchered hogs. Today at your place, tomorrow at mine, next week at Mr. Busby’s farm, etc. This meant plenty of fresh made sausage for Christmas breakfast. I got to help stuff the ground seasoned meat into the casings made from 5-pound sugar sacks, usually the Holly brand which had a sprig of holly on the bag. Mother cut and sewed the bags so that the rolls of sausage would be about 3 inches in diameter,
Mincemeat pies were always part of the Christmas dinner. I still can remember the smell of homemade mincemeat. I don’t know where she got the suet, since no one that I remembered butchered cattle, but she ground the heavy beef fat, apples and raisins, added molasses, spices and I don’t know what else, and cooked it on the back of a wood heating stove for what seemed like a long time. It smelled so good!
The rest of Christmas dinner was as today, traditional. We never had turkey; but usually ham, and an old fat hen stuffed with cornbread dressing, seasoned with lots of sage. Candied sweet potatoes, mashed Irish potatoes, both from the mound of root vegetables that my folks had buried at harvest time, along with carrots and canned green beans were part of the meal.
The Christmas program at school was always an important social event in the community. All of us kids did something: maybe it was reciting a “piece” or being part of a group that sang. I remember one year the really big kids, there was one boy and one girl in the 8th grade, did a manger scene with somebody’s little baby. It cried all the time the rest of us sang “Away in a Manger”.
The coming and going to the schoolhouse for the Christmas program could be an adventure if there had been a recent snow storm, or a lot of rain. These were dirt roads, about a car and a half, or one wagon wide. There were not wide shoulders, so passing on-coming traffic was tricky. I remember Daddy always saying he hoped we didn’t meet anyone on a curve or going up a hill. Those families that came to the schoolhouse by wagon had an adventure. The wagon bed was lined with a thick layer of hat, covered by old quilts. The children snuggled into this and covered up with more quilts. I wished that I could do that, but never did ride in a wagon in the snow.
Not necessarily at Christmas time, but at least a couple of times each winter, we had a special treat. After a particularly heavy snowfall Daddy took a large pan out to a clear area and filled it with snow. When he came back in, he and Mother mixed sugar and vanilla with the snow and we had “snow cream”!
This Tidbit in Time shared by the Hot Spring County
Historical Society
The Heritage, Vol. 32, p.23