I can still hear my dear Aunt Helen gleefully requesting a refill on Christmas Eve. What a great time it was with the anticipation of Santa and the cool presents he was sure to bring. This blog is meant to jog your memory as you reminisce about traditions you experienced during this holiday season.
The season usually kicked off with a trip to see the real Santa at J.L. Hudson’s department store in downtown Detroit on Woodward Avenue. What a wonder as an entire floor was dedicated to every toy imaginable. If you had already made your Christmas wish list, better check it twice because you would be sure to be making additions. The only way we were pried away from Santa and the toys was being bribed with a trip to Sanders Ice Cream Parlor – hot fudge sundaes!
Speaking of food, what about the obligatory fruitcake? What in the world! I would watch and help as my mother would concoct this relative of a large hockey puck. I immediately knew that this would not turn out well when the “fake” fruit was unwrapped from the wax paper (does anyone ever use wax paper anymore?). What was this stuff – certainly not the kind of fruit that I was accustomed to? More times than not, I was absolutely right about the fruitcake. No one ate it, and most was tossed out or given to some unlucky recipient as a present who then probably tossed it out after thanking my mother profusely for such a wonderful/homemade gift. In retrospect, perhaps the Cherry Kijafa was the only way to make this “treat” palatable. No wonder Aunt Helen kept saying to please pass the bottle.
No remembrance of the season can be concluded without mentioning the Christmas carols. What a group of standards – some great, some average, and some downright confusing. No offense meant to anyone, but “now we don our gay apparel”? Despite the fact that the radio starts playing these almost immediately after Halloween, some of them remain my favorites, yet some have become banal and commonplace. If I hear “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” one more time this season, I am going to drink the Cherry Kijafa dry. By the way, have any of you ever tasted chestnuts or have you roasted them on an open fire?
All in all, Christmas is a great time filled with warm memories. Merry Christmas to all our readers.
