Where Mom Made Christmas Feel Like Christmas
If you had walked into my childhood dining room during the holidays, you would have known immediately that my mom loved Christmas.
Actually, you probably didn't need to wait for December.
We had a Christmas tree up year-round.
Yes. Year-round.
Popcorn garland and everything.
Long before keeping a Christmas tree up past January became something people debated on social media, Joan had apparently decided the calendar wasn't going to tell her when she could enjoy hers.
And really, that tells you quite a bit about my mom.
She loved the holiday season.
Not just Christmas Day.
She loved everything that came with it—the food, the baking, the decorating, the traditions and especially having people together.
At our house, Christmas wasn't a day.
It was practically an event season.
There Was Always Room for One More
Our holiday gatherings were big.
Family came. Friends came. Neighbors came.
I'm fairly certain Mom's philosophy was that if someone needed somewhere to be, we'd simply find another chair.
And then she'd feed them.
Boy, would she feed them.
There were pans of German-Russian pigs in a blanket—and no, I'm not talking about cocktail wieners wrapped in dough.
In our house, pigs in a blanket meant cabbage rolls filled with ground beef and rice and cooked in tomato sauce.
Mom didn't make one little pan.
She cooked for a crowd.
Always.
And that was before we even got to the sweets.
Peanut butter cookies. Peanut brittle. Glass candy. Fudge. Aunt Sally's molasses cookies.
I developed my own highly sophisticated holiday strategy of eating so many treats before dinner that I no longer had room for actual food.
You'd think I'd learn.
I did not.
Mom Made Things Special
Our dining room wasn't particularly subtle.
There was a large carved William and Mary dining set, red-and-white gingham curtains and an old Garland range decorated with antique kitchen tools.
The buffet held Mom's good china.
And when the holidays came around, she used it.
Gold-trimmed plates.
Candles.
Centerpieces.
A properly set table.
Mom understood something I've come to appreciate much more as I've gotten older:
You don't need a special occasion to use the good things. Using them is what makes the occasion special.
She knew how to make a home feel festive.
More importantly, she knew how to make people feel welcome in it.
Those aren't necessarily the same skill.
Mom had both.
The Dining Room Was Never Just for Dining
That table saw a lot more than Christmas dinner.
After the food came the cards.
Kings in the Corner with Grandma could get surprisingly serious.
My siblings and uncle kept everyone laughing. People stayed at the table talking. Someone was always wandering back toward the cookie trays.
And sometimes the holiday production spilled completely into the kitchen.
I remember one knoepla-making session with Grandma stirring the pot, Mom cutting dough and the rest of us mixing and rolling.
It was messy.
It was busy.
It was loud.
Nobody was standing back admiring how beautifully coordinated everything looked.
We were in it.
That's what I remember most about holidays at home.
Mom didn't create Christmas for us to look at.
She created Christmas for us to participate in.
Years Later, I Found It in a Book
When I wrote Oliver the Owl: A Sweet Season, I knew I wanted the story to feel like Christmas.
But not simply because there was a tree or cookies or holiday decorations.
I wanted it to feel like home at Christmas.
Oliver and his mom bake together because that's the kind of holiday memory I understand.
Hands busy.
Something sweet in the oven.
Someone teaching.
Someone learning.
A tradition being passed along without anybody stopping to announce that a tradition is being passed along.
Even the red-and-white check on the recipe pages has a connection to home. Those gingham curtains from our dining room had apparently been sitting in the back of my creative brain all these years.
Funny what sticks.
A Sweet Season, Indeed
I named the book A Sweet Season because, on the surface, it fit.
Christmas.
Cookies.
Baking.
Sweet things.
But when I think about my mom and the holidays now, the title means more to me than that.
Mom made the season sweet.
She made the food.
She set the table.
She pulled out the good china.
She welcomed people in.
She kept the traditions going.
She made sure Christmas felt like Christmas.
And somewhere in the middle of all that cooking, decorating, card playing, cookie stealing and glorious family chaos, she gave me the memories I would eventually use to create a Christmas story of my own.
So when I look at this photograph of my childhood dining room, I don't just see the furniture anymore.
I see Mom.
And I can almost hear the house when it was full.
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