I didn’t normally eat very well when I was a kid. If you find that hard to believe, you need to know I was very thin when younger. I was the oldest of nine kids, we were poor and my mom was not a great cook. Let me rephrase that: she wasn’t even a good cook. Meals were not normally something I looked forward to. We certainly ate to live and did not live to eat.
Except for the holidays, my mom had inherited a great cornbread dressing recipe from her mom. Best I could tell it was the only thing that she inherited. This wasn’t one of those awful chicken broth based dressings, or one of those dry corn bread dressing casseroles. This was “real” corn bread dressing made with ground beef and pork and lots of beef consomme’. It was juicy and delicious. I remember the smell of it cooking. I remember sneaking tastes out of the pot before it was ready. I remember having huge servings during holiday meals. I remember it heated over with other left-overs for days after.
There were many Christmases when we didn’t have much. We usually got to pick out one present from the Sears catalogue with a price limit based on how poor we were that year. Some Christmases were better than others but it seems we always were able to have that cornbread dressing. For me, it’s what the holidays are all about. It’s a treasured memory that still makes me smile and warms my heart.
I don’t know if my parents realized they were making memories each year with the dressing. For them it was probably just a precious memory from their own childhoods. I am not sure we can control the memories we are making for our families, children and grandchildren.
I am convinced that we need to provide plenty of material for good memories to be made. We should strive to fill our lives with good and enriching things. A good place to start is our own treasured memories. We won’t be able to hide what’s special to us and it may become special to those we love.
But like I said, we can’t control what becomes a precious memory for others. We need to be prepared that things that are special to us may be special to no one else. Maybe that’s not a bad thing. Maybe the personal uniqueness of memory is a big part of what makes it special.
Christmas is a time for memory making and honoring the memories that have become special to us. Enjoy some memories and make some more and
Be blessed.
Nick
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