How I still Believe

 I Still Believe

 We are deeply ensconced in the annual Holiday marathon of activity.The turkeys were barely out of the oven and the decorations were already up all over the restaurant. Keep in mind Thanksgiving came early this year, so yes we do have an extra week of celebrating . When your establishment is in the heart of the city and the tree lighting falls traditionally the Friday after Thanksgiving, you have to be ready to go by nightfall. My decoration elves worked overtime to get our place fabulous just in time. The good news is now we are all set right up through the New Year.

 Whether you celebrate Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza or any other form of worship that I am not familiar with, the key is to celebrate. Celebrate the season with the people who mean the most to you and spend quality time with them between the craziness. Looking back on my past love affair with Santa, I cannot say I remember the year I started wondering if he was real. Christmas in our house growing up was always magical. From the hand sewn button count down advent calender to the felt stockings and door knob decorations, my Mom's house was festooned with stations of Christmas Wonder. I must have spent hours rearranging and playing with the manger set in the living room. Our elves that sat on shelves cost 50 cents and came in red or green from Woolworth's Five and Dime. Remember the store with the lunch counter in the back? The" magic wire" appeared on our tree the year I climbed all the way to the back to get an unopened gift and CRASH, the tree came down. I still have the lamb that went to the shattered blue and silver ornament that was part of a set depicting each character from the scene of the manger. That set probably came from Woolworth's too. If you have kids and your tree does not have a magic wire, GET ONE!

Noooo Not the Choir Boy

   The felt doorknob decorations had pictures of Santa, Frosty, an Angel, an Elf and Mrs Frosty. In this handmade collection there was also a Choir Boy that none of us three girls ever wanted on our doors at night. We would switch the decorations around and put choir boy on someone else's door and then hide our favorite one ( mine was Santa of course) in our room until bedtime and replace our door decoration only to wake up sadly with choir boy back on our door. Maybe it was the elf on the shelf who moved them in the middle of the night. So I asked my mother this year for a photo of those doorknob decorations, and she sent me a package containing four of them. She sent my older sister two and gave me the remaining four to share with my other sister. Needless to say my poor little sister is getting The Choir Boy. Yep It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

 Gift giving was a Hollywood game show production at times with the largest and best gifts being saved until the end and sometimes even the end of the day. We went in order from youngest to oldest one at a time. I think this was my Dad's way of preserving every moment and making the day last. There was no mad dash for the ripping open of the gifts like the Running of The Bulls. I think by the time I was 10 my parents wised up and started hiding the stockings in our rooms, so they could sleep an extra hour or at least until the sun broke the plane of the horizon. My sisters and I would be so excited the night before we would sleep together in one room and then gather on the bed to open the stocking stuffers. Some of the best gifts came crammed in those handmade socks like Charlie perfume, Lip Smackers lip gloss in the flavors of Good and Plenty and Root Beer, Life Savers in fold over books with Christmas scenes, Tootsie Roll banks, and an all time favorite of the decade Toe Socks! Among all those treasures were at times spoof prizes like free drug rep pencils and Lilly prescription notepads, or Hardware store calenders and Guida's Dairy key chains. They were priceless and they were ours.

Our Christmas collection of music was a total of five vinyl records with Bing Crosby and Perry Como belting out the great classic Christmas carols. And speaking of carols, I grew up in a time when our neighborhood went house to house singing Christmas carols to  neighbors.My Mom made everyone's favorite cookie and stored them in the Big Blue Tin up high on the back refrigerator. You knew the big day was close when we gathered around the fire to make real popcorn balls.This production, like every other aspect of my childhood had a specific procedure ( go figure, my Dad was a surgeon). From the popping of the corn in the Westinghouse Bubble popper ( 3 batches I recall) to the sorting of the kernels in the top of the turkey roasting pan to the boiling of the golden syrup to the exact soft ball stage, this was an all night affair. It seemed like it took forever for that sugar mixture to heat up. When the components were assembled they were brought to the fireplace room and we slathered our hands with raw butter to prevent them from getting burned by the syrup. First of all yuck and second of all it really did not work. Then the syrup was poured over the sorted popcorn and the balls were rolled together and dropped onto cookie sheets lined with Cut Rite wax paper. When they cooled, they were twisted up into wax paper balls and safe guarded in the Charles Chip potato chip can. These chewy snowballs of popcorn and syrup were heavenly.

 Old Fashioned Popcorn Balls

1Cup Sugar, 1/2Cup Molasses,1/2 Cup White Karo Corn Syrup, 1/4 Cup water, 1/4 teaspoon salt.

Bring this mixture to a boil stirring until it boils and cook until 260 degrees on a candy thermometer. Test a drop in cold water to be sure it hardens. Remove from heat and add.

3Tablespoons of Butter , 1 Teaspoon of Vanilla

Pour this mix over 4 Quarts of popped corn unsalted mixing with a wooden spoon. Rub butter on hands and form balls quickly.

There you go, my gift to you!

We put our tree up just a few days before Christmas and it never saw the New Year, because that was considered bad luck in Scottish households. Our tree cam from the back yard. We cut a Blue Spruce each year and planted four more in the spring. On a recent trip by my old house, sadly, the Christmas tree lot was stripped barren. Specific ornaments were allowed to be placed by children and precious special ones were left for the grownups. My mom was a tinsel gal, but you had to place each strand one by one gently on the tree. you were not allowed to just
 toss it on. Tinsel back then was hardcore aluminum not synthetic. We saved each piece every year ( of course we did, we saved everything) I have never put tinsel on my trees, and my boys try to sneak it on every year. I probably did it wrong as a kid and have never gotten over that. Our tree, however has never seen the new year and I consider myself extremely lucky. Fortunate enough to have a beautiful healthy family that will gather on this Christmas around our tinseless tree to celebrate our traditions.


  I do not specifically recall a go to Christmas meal, but I am sure it was delicious. I do , however remember my grandparents starting each supper with a cup of decafe instant coffee and a half a saccharine. It was a treat to set up the coffee because you got to use the tiny salt spoon to scoop up the saccharine from the crystal dish. It has always been the little things in life that give me the greatest pleasure.

Elves and Fairies do not mix well

I still believe in the Tooth Fairy and Santa because I believe in myself. Never giving up on Santa means I can stay forever young on the inside and be that little blonde girl in pajamas opening Ants in The Pants , Easy Bake, Creepy Crawlers or my Red Record player or the  Big Girl Real Typewriter. This year during the Christmas Elf hiding, treasure hunt gathering, mad dash,my middle schooler lost a tooth and placed it under his pillow. Well the Tooth Fairy went to bed earlier than the child as often happens when they reach this age. My go to "Did you look under the covers?" was not going to work again because he had tossed the entire bed and searched this time. So I tried to outwit him and stage the Elf with the cash and a note from The sleepy Tooth Fairy. Friends, let me tell you this is a bad idea! I still do not know if it was the fact that I forgot him or he just suddenly realized there is no Tooth Fairy and innocence was slipping away. I had to go to work and he had to get to school, so there was little time for  patching this up. He was so angry he called his Father a naughty word and stomped out to the car. I was finally able to get from him that I could have said I was sorry. The thing is I did say it, he just did not hear me. So he went off to school in a snit. I dropped him at the front door and came home to clean his room and place the I Am Sorry photo on his pillow. It was then I got the recording from school telling me He was not in school. That space of 10 minutes was frightening. ( I know where all your thoughts just went, because mine have not left that place since it all happened) Well of course he was there, I just thought maybe he skipped school to teach me a lesson. Well, I did learn many lessons that day, and my children continue to teach me quite often what I need to know to be a better Mother. Sometimes people say i am sorry and we just don't hear it

Impossible Sadness

Forever in my thoughts

 This is the second time my lighthearted blog was interrupted by a tragedy. Only this time, the words are lost. Sadness, over whelming sadness from the senseless loss. 20 beautiful young souls went to school today dreaming of Santa Claus and they met the Devil. I love my children. I want PEACE for Christmas and every day after that as well. There is no explanation for this ugliness Count your blessings and pay it forward every day, not just because of Christmas or a horrendous tragedy. Please be kinder and nicer to everyone you meet. Make a difference in your family, community, nation and world. So often these tragedies change our community and our nation for a period of time, but the passage of time slips away and some people tend to lose perspective.

I still believe, I am just going to need a little more time.
Bee El

Tears from Heaven at The Vigil in Milford