Holiday meals and family blessings through the years

With the holidays just around the corner, I’m reminded of the importance of family.

Growing up, we often spent Thanksgiving and Christmas Day at my grandparent’s house on my mom’s side of the family.

My most memorable Thanksgivings and Christmases were during my later teenage years.

We’d all sit around and visit and then eat.

My grandmother, who I called Me Maw, could prepare and cook a Thanksgiving or Christmas meal for a dozen or more family members faster than some could get the pans out of the cupboard.

Having seven children, she cooked a lot of meals on a wood-burning stove. For years, she worked in care centers, at schools and on river barges as a cook.

My grandparent’s lived in several places, including north Tulsa, Owasso, a Tulsa suburb, and with my aunt Alice and Uncle Ron in southeast Tulsa.

In the mid 1970s they lived in a three-bedroom prefab home in the county near Coweta, Oklahoma, about 35 miles southeast of Tulsa.

My grandpa, who I called Pa Paw, always raised a large garden, and he had a few cows, including an old Jersey cow. My mom loved to milk the old cow and bring home fresh milk.

She’d used a churn and make fresh butter and cream.

I wouldn’t drink the fresh cow milk. Mine had to come from the grocery store.

My grandparents raised and butchered a cow and pig or two each year.

My grandmother and Mom often mixed up a batch of head cheese.

Head cheese is often called jellied meat loaf or meat jelly and is made with flesh from the head of a calf or pig. It is usually eaten cold, at room temperature or in a sandwich.

Despite its name, the dish is not a cheese and contains no dairy products. The parts of the head that are used vary and may include the tongue but do not commonly include the brain, eyes or ears.

My mom would challenge me to eat a spoonful of head cheese for $1. Once I polished off the first round, she’d challenge me to a second round in which I most often did not partake.

When my grandparents butchered a cow or pig, my grandmother would make scrambled eggs and brains.

I may have eaten it without knowing better, but if I did know, as with the head cheese, I’d pass on the tasty delight.

They raised chickens out back of the house. I can still see my grandmother standing at the kitchen sink gutting chickens while sweat ran down her arms. She always stuffed the gizzard and neck in a plastic baggy and placed it inside the chicken before putting the birds in the freezer.

My mom and her siblings grew up poor. When she got sick at age 12, my grandfather would carry her to the doctor in town on a homemade bed placed on the plow pulled by a tractor because they didn’t have a car or truck.

The doctor wanted to try one more medicine, and if it didn’t work, he wanted to carry her to the Mayo Clinic.

My grandparents didn’t have any money to take her to the Mayo. The doctor said he’d cover the bill.

He gave her a penicillin shot, and it cured her.

They moved all around in the Bootheel of Southeast Missouri. I remember hearing my mom talking about living on Seven Ditch outside of New Madrid. The roads were known as ditches in that part of the state.

They lived in shacks and used the heat from the cookstove to warm the house. Baths were taken in a #3 washtub, and when you had to go, that meant a trip to the outhouse.

My mom and her siblings picked cotton during the summer months and enjoyed a Pepsi once a year on the Fourth of July.

Oftentimes, their Christmas gifts from Santa were an apple, orange and nuts.

Santa always left an apple, orange and nuts in my stocking.

My mom worked a deal out with Santa as a reminder to my brother and me what she had to endure in life.

I have no idea what roughing it in life means. I’ve never done without or gone hungry.

Anyway, back to the holidays.

My mom made cakes for years, and people would hire her to make wedding and anniversary cakes, birthday cakes and various character cakes.

For the holidays, she enjoyed making a broken glass cake dessert to carry to family gatherings. It was made with lime, orange and strawberry gelatin, placed in a cream filling topped with graham cracker crumbs.

She’d often make white divinity, a nougat-like confection made with whipped egg whites, corn syrup and sugar. She also enjoyed making fudge.

I enjoyed eating both of the tasty delights as a youngster.

Nowadays, I enjoy the holiday meals with my Iowa family.

I love the family gatherings and all the good food. I enjoy listening to farming stories.

I encourage you this year to gather and reconnect with your family. Outside of a relationship with God, family is the most important blessing in life.

Put the politics and the troubles and worries of life on the back burner and take a few moments to give thanks to God for all of His blessings

Have a great week, and always remember that “Good Things are Happening” every day.