Christmas Traditions

Every year my mother and my grandmother would exchange Christmas Cakes.
Each November as far back as I can remember, my mother would buy candied cherries, fruit peel, almonds, raisins, and whatever other ingredients she needed to bake her Christmas cakes.

She followed an old recipe, carefully measuring all the ingredients into the biggest mixing bowl in the kitchen. The batter was golden with sugar, butter, eggs and flour. Mom's cakes were "light fruit cakes".

As was the tradition at that time, we children were called into the kitchen one by one to stir the batter. Each of us took a turn with the big wooden spoon stirring the cake batter - for good luck. My mother was from Holland, so this might have been a European tradition - I don't know.

Mom had very old baking tins which came apart for washing. These pans weren't greased with butter wrappers, but lined with some kind of brown paper. Then the cakes were put into a very low oven to bake.

Once cooled, Mom would wrap them in cheesecloth soaked in sherry and put them away until Christmas.

Every December the mailman brought dozens of Christmas cards to our home. There were oodles of cards from friends and family. It was such an exciting time of year! Packages would arrive and Mom would whisk them away upstairs to her bedroom and close the door. We were not allowed to peek!

But when Granny's Christmas cakes arrived, they were opened right away. After travelling half way across the country, they deserved to be opened and enjoyed. And were they delicious!

Those cakes were "dark fruit cakes", made with molasses and lots of nuts. I secretly liked them best.

I went to look for my mother's Christmas cake recipe this year and I couldn't find it. Will have to do some research on the net and see if I can find an old-fashioned cake like Mom's.

What about you? Do you have memories of Christmas traditions?