Now its Christmas

So now it is Christmas, and all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. So true at Grandma’s house, because if you got out of bed, the wrath of Grandma would crash down upon your head—and you knew Santa would not leave you anything.

We always went down to Grandma’s in the summer and at Christmas to see the Porters and Big Mama. Big Mama passed when I was 13. I really missed her.

This is what we did at Christmas. We put a stocking on the mantel, and if you didn’t have a fireplace, I guess you hung it somewhere Santa would see it. The stockings were for little toys, hair pretties, and school supplies like pencils, a pencil sharpener, and crayons.

Then came the shoebox. Yes, a shoebox was placed under the tree where the fruits, nuts, and some small candies were left. And raisins—but not the kind you see nowadays. These raisins were actually on a stem, like a cluster of grapes. They were very sweet.

The Christmas trees were mostly pine. Once in a while, you’d have another evergreen, but pine seemed to be the tree of choice. It really did make the house smell good.

At Christmas, Grandma Porter would make a coconut cake and a pineapple cake. Big Mama would make a fruitcake. In the middle of the fruitcake there was an apple soaked in whiskey, and whiskey all over the cake. They should have called it a drunken cake, but it lasted forever with all that alcohol.

Years later, when I was in my mid-20s, my husband and I moved down to Ansonville, North Carolina, to live in the VonCannon house. It was vacant because Big Mama had passed, and the Porters were living in a small retirement community with their own little detached apartment.

I just had a thought: the Porters were Southern Baptist, and Big Mama was a Methodist. Do you think the division was a religious war? We will never know.

But I do know that the Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians would take turns rotating “dinner on the grounds.” All the Methodists and Presbyterians would go to the Baptist church the month they hosted it, and the next month it would rotate to another church.

It all seemed to work out pretty well. Everybody brought a dish. The tables were set up in the recreation hall, and this was after a church service of gospel singing and preaching—so worked up that the preacher would be sweating.

I did learn to make biscuits while I was down there. You had to make biscuits, or you’d be ostracized from the community—like the Amish. I became a supreme biscuit maker.

One thing Grandma Porter helped me learn was how to make biscuits. But when I asked her for the recipe for the coconut cake and pineapple cake, that’s where the espionage started.

The icing on the pineapple cake was a hard icing that was cooked and poured over the cake with pineapple in it. The coconut cake had a softer icing, not as hard, with coconut in it. I do know Grandma Porter used a real pineapple and a real coconut when she made her cakes at Christmas.

But when I asked her for the recipe, I think she left out one or two ingredients or gave me the wrong measurements. It never turned out like hers, even though I went item by item, step by step. It should have worked, but it didn’t.

When she passed, she took those recipes with her, and she’s probably up there on some cloud baking pineapple and coconut cakes.

Another thing we did at Christmas was go to different churches to hear their Christmas services the week before Christmas. They had little pageants, and the children dressed up to perform the nativity while we sang Christmas songs.

After that, the brown paper bags appeared. You may be wondering what in the world a brown paper bag has to do with Christmas. Well, I’ll tell you. Each bag was filled with two or three pieces of fruit and a little candy—not much, because you didn’t want to spoil Christmas. Every child and adult received one to take home.

This only happened in the country. I never saw it in Virginia. I think it must be a Carolina paper-bag tradition they kept secret.

At Christmas, Grandma always cooked a ham. That’s right—you’re in the South, so pork has to show up sometime during the holidays. It was a smoked ham, not the kind you’d have for breakfast. You could eat on it all Christmas Day with biscuits or ham sandwiches.

There would always be potato salad, deviled eggs, celery stuffed with pimento cheese—which was exotic, you know—some vegetable like green beans, cabbage, or butter beans, and the beacon of the South: biscuits.

We also visited my mom’s brother, Uncle Bill, and his wife, Aunt Ann, during Christmas week. Aunt Ann always made a German chocolate cake from scratch, and it was absolutely delicious. I’ve never had one as good as hers. The funny thing about her house was that items would disappear.

The disappearing items weren’t due to a ghost or poltergeist. No, it was my cousins. They would sneak plates, silverware, or glasses and hide them in a deep ditch like a ravine, covering them with leaves.

These items weren’t discovered until years later when the house was finally sold and cleared out. They found five or six sets of dishes, silverware, and glasses.

Back in Virginia, we put up a Christmas tree even though we were going to Carolina. They put electric candles in the windows. Everyone else had white bulbs, but not Mom and Daddy—no sir. They had blue. Daddy said it looked calm. Later, they added little wreaths like the ones in Williamsburg, hanging above the candles.

Mama once sprayed the tree with fake snow. Daddy nearly had a heart attack. He said, “Eunice, what in the world is this?” She said it was snow. He said it didn’t look or smell like any snow he’d ever seen. That was the only year we had fake snow.

When I was little, I didn’t want to go to Carolina for Christmas because I was afraid Santa couldn’t find me. Mom and Daddy assured me they left a change of address with him. My brother had no such worries.

In school, we always made Christmas ornaments, no matter what religion you were. Mama hung every one of them on the tree. Some were pretty strange-looking, but we thought we were Rembrandt or Picasso, and they were fabulous.

For New Year’s, we got to stay up late to watch the ball drop or listen to Lawrence Welk or Dick Clark. Mama always made traditional New Year’s food: black-eyed peas, stewed tomatoes—or Hoppin’ John—greens like cabbage, collards, or turnips, and pork. Since we had ham at Grandma’s, Mama made a pork roast, Daddy’s favorite, with mashed potatoes, gravy, and of course—biscuits.

The peas and tomatoes were for good luck. The greens symbolized prosperity and money. Pork stood for prosperity and good health. And it was said that if a dark-haired woman was the first visitor to enter your home on New Year’s Day, you’d have a year of good luck. Somehow, I don’t think that works—but we’ll go with it.

So may I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.