For the Love of Christmas (11 page)

The Proof Is in the Pudding

By Donna Rushneck

M
any families have a special custom that puts the joy and magic in Christmas. For us, it is Mom's chocolate bread pudding, as traditional as the wreath on the front door.

My older brother Bill liked the pudding soaked in milk with a sprinkle of sugar. My younger brother Jerry and I mounded it with whipped cream.

“You kids are ruining a good thing with all that stuff,” Dad always said. “It's perfect right out of the pan.”

We took for granted that Mom and her chocolate bread pudding would always be part of Christmas. But we unexpectedly lost Mom to cardiac arrest one October. Gloom hung over the family and drained all joy out of the upcoming holidays.

As the only daughter, I opted to host Christmas dinner and wanted to surprise the family by serving pudding. On a Saturday morning in early December, I decided to give the recipe a trial run. I got out Mom's oldest cookbook and, on a tattered page marked by an old Christmas card, I found a recipe—for plain bread pudding. To my consternation, there was no alternative listed for chocolate. I scanned Mom's other cookbooks, as well as my own, but none of them offered a chocolate bread pudding recipe.

A lump crowded my throat. Then I thought to call Aunt Cora. But she didn't know how Mom made the family favorite, either.

“I remember that your dad once said he loved bread pudding and wished it could be chocolate,” Aunt Cora said. “Maybe your Mom just experimented until she got it right.”

If Mom found a way,
I thought,
so can I.

As I prepared the recipe from the tattered page, I vaguely recalled “helping” Mom make bread pudding when I was a young child. I remembered her adding cocoa to the sugar, so I stirred together equal amounts and added them to the rest of the ingredients. Although there were lumps of cocoa in the batter, I figured they would dissolve during the baking process.

When I lifted the pudding from the oven, it looked strange. Spotted. I spooned a bite, blew on it, and nibbled. The chocolate lumps tasted bitter.

I felt my eyes sting with disappointment, and I slumped in defeat at the kitchen table.

“Why are you sad, Mommy?” Eight-year-old Shelley snuggled against me.

“I tried to make Grandma's Christmas pudding but it didn't turn out right.”

Shelley stared into the pan. “That doesn't look like Grandma's pudding.”

“It doesn't taste like it either.” I forced a smile through my sigh.

“I helped Grandma make the pudding last year.” She reached for the open cookbook still on the table. “I remember how.”

She pointed at the recipe. “Mommy, you put the sugar in a bowl and add the rest of the stuff.” Shelley smiled ear to ear. “And I'll do the important thing that Grandma said makes the pudding special.”

My first inclination was not to repeat the fiasco. But Shelley was so eager and confident that I decided to chance it.

While I poured sugar into the mixing bowl, Shelley read the handles of the measuring cups. “Grandma said to use the cup with the one and a three on it.”

She spooned cocoa into the one-third cup then dumped it into the bowl of sugar. Using the back of a spoon, Shelley pressed the mixture against the bowl.
Just like Mom once taught me,
I suddenly realized, my childhood memory sharpening.

Shelley squeezed the brown beads of cocoa between her fingertips. “Grandma said it's really important to get out all the lumps.”

As I watched my daughter's little fingers working the batter, I could hear my mother's directions to me when I was a child helping her bake:
“Now, Donna, this is an important job. Mix the sugar and cocoa really good.”

For a few moments, I was a little girl again back in Mom's kitchen and I could feel her patient ­presence.

A few weeks later, I produced a perfect chocolate bread pudding for our first somber holiday without Mom. Every face brightened when I brought it to the Christmas table.

“I didn't think we'd ever have this again.” Dad cleared his throat. “Now it feels more like ­Christmas.”

I put my arm around my daughter. “If it weren't for Shelley, we wouldn't have the pudding.” My eyes pooled and my voice cracked. “She remembered the part that makes it special.”

More importantly, so had I. I'd been reminded that Mom's love would always be with us—just like her recipe for chocolate bread pudding.

Mom's Chocolate Bread Pudding

Donna Rushneck

Yield: 6 servings

8 slices of Italian bread, with crusts

1/3 cup cocoa

1/2 cup sugar

3 large eggs

1/4 tsp salt

4 cups milk

1/4 cup butter or margarine

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

2. Grease a 9 x 13 baking dish.

3. Tear bread into chunks and place in baking dish. Add cocoa to sugar and blend thoroughly until all cocoa lumps are gone.

4. In large bowl, add cocoa/sugar mixture to eggs and beat until creamy. Incorporate salt and milk.

5. Pour mixture over bread and dot with butter. Let stand 15 minutes.

6. Bake covered for 30 minutes. Remove cover and bake an additional 30 minutes. Remove from oven when a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. (A little additional baking time may be required.)

The Pied Pepper

By Jaye Lewis

P
epper was a brown and white, floppy-eared bundle of warm puppy breath. He was given to me on my tenth birthday, and from the moment he was placed in my arms we became the best of friends. We were ­inseparable.

Pepper was smart, too, a regular circus dog. He learned each trick in a single lesson. Except one: Pepper couldn't learn to sit up and beg. I held him up. I supported his back. But Pepper always went limp and slid to the floor. Of course, I hated for anyone to see that side of Pepper. Instead, I showed off his other tricks.

When someone asked if he could beg, I an­swered, “He would if there was something worth begging for.”

On Christmas Eve, Pepper settled himself near the heavenly smells drifting from the oven. When my mother lifted out our family favorite, a deep-dish pumpkin pie, Pepper did it—he sat up straight, curled his little paws, and begged!

He sat, candy cane stiff, for a long, long moment.

“Why, look at you!” Mom's throaty laugh was as warm as the pumpkin pie she placed on top of the stove. She covered all the holiday pies with a long sheet of waxed paper and glanced at the clock. “Get your things together. It's time for church.”

After the midnight Christmas Eve service, we invited friends home for coffee and pie. We drove to our mobile home and tumbled out of our cars, shushing one another in the darkness of the late hour and trying not to laugh.

The first thing Mom did was brighten the small room by plugging in the festive tree lights. In spite of the excitement of company, Pepper didn't bother to greet us. He didn't budge from his cozy spot on the couch near the oven.

I sat next to Pepper, but he didn't even look up.

All of a sudden, my mother gasped. “Oh my goodness!”

Mom was choking. No, she was crying. No—she was laughing.

Laughing?

“Come look at this, everyone.” Mom shifted the wax paper from the pies. Sitting in the middle of four untouched fruit pies was the deep-dish pumpkin—with a carefully eaten-out center. On either side of the cavernous hole were two little paw prints.

I knew Pepper was in for it. He had spoiled the sacred pie. Now he was going to die for his dastardly deed, and it was my mother who was going to kill him.

“Pepper,” Mom commanded, “come here.”

Pepper's head popped up. He knew that voice. Everybody knew that voice. Even if you didn't have a tail, you found one just so you could tuck it between your legs when you heard that voice.

Pepper slithered reluctantly off the couch and slinked to my mother. With his head hanging, he cowered at her feet.

She bent low and held the Christmas pie in front of him. “What did you do?” Her face was stern. “Did you eat this pie?”

The rest of us eyed each other, held our breaths, and waited for The Lecture.

“Pepper!” Mom peered into the small dog's face and ordered, “Beg!”

Pepper jerked to attention. He sat up, back ­ruler-straight and front paws perfectly curled.

“Here, Pepper.” Mom's face softened as she placed the prized pumpkin pie on the floor. “Merry Christmas. You earned it.”

Pepper had finally found something worth begging for!

Yuletide Traditions:
Cherished Customs and Memories

Log Cabin Christmas

By John Winsor

S
ometime after midnight, the snowstorm stopped and bright stars pinpointed a carbon void. The fleeing storm cloud still cloaked the moon; there were no beams dancing across our floor. I tucked the goose-down quilt under my chin and scooched over to the warmth of Tish's body and smiled with anticipation of a day filled with family and Christmas tradition.

We woke to the smells of brewing coffee, sizzling bacon, and pine logs burning in the fireplace, to the sounds of footsteps and muted conversations and laughter. Our three kids, their spouses, and our eight grandkids were here, all fourteen, for the annual celebration at our cabin nestled along a freestone river in northwestern Wyoming. To relieve Tish of the chores, they'd formed interfamily teams to cook, set the table, and wash the dishes.

The rising sun brushed the top of snow-­covered Pilot Peak, creating an alpenglow, a reddish tinge that plunged down the mountain as the sun climbed. The entire world snapped into vivid colors, a vast cerulean sky, miles of untracked snow, emerald green pines, and darker-tinged spruce, all framed by white mountains slashed by dark granite outcroppings. A fine Christmas Eve day.

Someone rang the old locomotive bell perched atop a log pole near the front door—five minutes until breakfast. We joined family on the couch, warmed by the fire, drank hot chocolate and coffee, and made plans for the day: Get the kids dressed for a crystalline ten-below morning, snap on cross-country skis, track to the forest through unbroken snow, spend an eternity selecting the perfect Christmas tree, cut it, sled it back, put it up, and, after all that effort, chow down again.

I watched each of the grandchildren—aged five to twenty—take turns with the ax (some with guidance from their fathers) to fell the tree. After lunch, the grandkids took great joy in decorating it, particularly when they found the holiday ornaments containing photographs they'd given Tish and me when they were young.

I watched and remembered my own excitement when I was their age, and later, a different kind of excitement when helping our children, John, Susan, and Tom. I realized this tradition of joy and anticipation now spanned three generations. Feeling the passage of time, I backed off to let them take the lead with their own children.

After the tree was decorated, naps taken, grace said, dinner served, and dishes washed, we gathered near the fireplace and watched flames crackle around the logs.

Someone distributed sheets of Christmas carols and began to lead us in song. Several grandchildren rolled their eyes and slunk away but, after hearing a chorus of “Jingle Bells,” the slinkers returned and took up voice.

After we'd sung out, we read aloud Christmas stories about Mary and Joseph and Bethlehem and the three wise men and Baby Jesus.

Finally, Susan urged the children to bed “because you-know-who might be coming tonight.” Older kids cast knowing glances, while the believers hustled about the kitchen, selecting cookies, pouring milk, and placing plate and glass on the half-log bench in front of the fire.

Someone suggested they should leave a note for Santa, and everyone wanted to write their own. The little ones grabbed a piece of paper and a crayon, flopped on their ­bellies in front of the fire, and drew passable words and symbols of love and hope.

All the little kids hustled to their cabins to say their prayers and go to bed. Finally, it was quiet in the main cabin.

After a while the older ones, nonbelievers, drifted back from the circle of cabins, and we pulled boxes from hiding places. They helped me don the outfit: black boots trimmed in white, red baggy pants, a pillow tied to an already ample waist, a red, white-trimmed coat, wide black belt, and white gloves. Fourteen-year-old granddaughters Becca and Caroline did their special work: rouged cheeks, colored lips, adjusted white wig just so, combed beard, and perched glasses on nose. Not too far down, not too high, but just right.

After final inspections, I was escorted—just like I had been each of the past nineteen years—to the back door, out of sight from the other cabins. Tom handed me a huge sack filled with brightly wrapped gifts, and John handed me the sleigh bells and said that he'd return to his cabin and turn the porch light off when all was ready.

The snow was calf-deep, soft, silent, and a full moon rose on the eastern horizon, casting tree shadows. Bright reflection from the snow turned the cabins into black silhouettes. Slipping through the trees behind the cabins, I circled until I was in position. I waited for the signal.

The porch light snapped off.

Sleigh bells tinkled, the ring slicing through crystalline air, echoing in the night.

Hunched over by the weight of a sackful of surprises, I waddled past the cabins, ignoring excited movement at ­windows.

“Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas!”

I heard a door open and spotted little fellas scrambling onto the porch, held in check by their mom and dad. “Hi Santa! Hi Santa!” they shouted and waved.

I acted surprised and laughter rolled from deep inside my belly. I waved back and toddled through moonlight and snow toward the main cabin. Later, after I stacked presents under the tree, I sat by the fire nibbling a cookie.

Daughter-in-law Bridget sneaked back into the room. “When I put the boys back to bed, little Harry said he would never get to sleep. So I asked, ‘Why not?'”

“And what did Harry say?” I asked.

Eyes moist, she gave me a hug and whispered, “‘Because I have Santa's laughter in my heart.'”

A fine Christmas Eve, indeed.