"That feeling you get on Christmas Eve."
Nearly 35 years ago, Mom lost her mother to brain cancer. Her father had been absent from the family for almost 20 years. As a young mother, her heart broke to think that there would be no more Christmas Eve dinner over candlelight at Mama's house. Christmas Eve had always been a cherished night for her, as it is for most Swedes. She decided that she must maintain the special traditions of this blessed evening among her own small family.
I have grown up loving Christmas Eve more than any other day of the year. Mom has maintained much of the Swedishness of the holiday and has added a few American twists. Many of the traditions of our childhood have been altered over the years, but this one remains the same, and for this I am grateful.
Everyone always thinks that this candlestick belongs at a Hanukah celebration, not a Christmas one. But there are in fact seven candles, not eight, on this candlestick, and every Swedish household has one. Helmer made it for Mom years and years ago, and it has always been a staple at Christmas Eve.
I may be wrong, but I believe this candleholder is nearly a century old. Mom inherited it from her mother who inherited it from her mother.
While Mom finishes preparing dinner, we all gather for our annual family photos in front of the tree. We prefer to take these shots before the grandkids have ranted their hairdos and outfits into a mishmash, and before the Christmas bloating has officially settled in.
I can't tell you how excited we were to have Steve and Vye home with us for Christmas! We are happy that their adventure in Victoria has come to a close and that they've left Eden and come back to Zion. It's as though they never left.
Oh, the joy of cousin time on Christmas Eve!
It's nice to see that the Christmas Paparazzi was alive and well this year.
The menu on the eve of Christmas is nearly as good as the company. This is food we enjoy only once a year. It wouldn't be Christmas without siele. Now I am going to butcher the spelling of every Swedish word in this post. Sorry. Siele is pickled herring, and the Swedes love their raw fish. Notice the cute glass fish dish bearing the specific purpose of housing the siele. This is one Swedish delicacy that I have never even had the desire to sample. I dislike cooked fish. Pickled fish is even less desirable, but Mom adores the stuff.
Amongst my favorite things is the prickey-korve, once again, horribly misspelled. A delicious salami that one can only find at specialty Scandinavian shops these days.
Then there is Mom's homemade Swedish bread. It's the fennel that makes this wheat bread different and delicious. Next to it lays another of Mom's favorites, knackebrod, or crisp bread, or in my mind, a big bite of cardboard. Some things we grow up with never become palatable.
This is my dad's grandmother's homemade mustard. Dad stood in great-grandma's kitchen one afternoon and measured every ingredient as she whipped up a batch of her homemade mustard so that Mom could duplicate it.
I love that we mix the recipes of our Idahoan great-grandmother with our Swedish grandmother in one meal. I think of Great-Grandma Fellows and Mor Mor every year as I slather my Swedish bread with mustard and top it with delicious cured meat and fine cheese. All of the people I love as well as the history they are a part of come rolling back to me with each heavenly bite.
The American part of the meal always includes some ham and funeral potatoes. I guess the potatoes are not so much American as a Utah Mormon tradition. This is made manifest in the absolute shortage of cream of chicken soup and frozen hash browns in the grocery stores this time of year.
It also wouldn't be Christmas without Mom's record player belting out some of our favorite Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas albums from our early childhood.
Mom says that one year, as a little girl, she counted the number of lit candles in her home on Christmas Eve. She counted over 70. They had to turn off the furnace and open the windows. We have not nearly so many lit these days. But there are enough to bring that warm glow that seems to always beckon in the Christmas Spirit.
Even the grandkids enjoy their meal by candlelight.
And the littlest of grandkids get to eat by Fisher Price lantern, because you know, it's safer and you still get the general idea.
This time that we come together and honor our heritage, our loved ones alive and well, and those who wait for us beyond the veil is a precious time. As the candles dance, we are reminded of He who is the light of the world. As we devour slices of warm bread, we remember He who is the bread of life and feel gratitude in our hearts that through Him this family is eternal and these bonds will last through this life and into the next.
No comments:
Post a Comment