A Candlestick: Nostalgic candy making

Loving the season all the way around! This is a time of thinking of memories of past Christmas celebrations. The memories seemed more vivid of those Alaskan times because we have had a cold snap that has hung on a bit! That coupled with snow that has stayed in place just all seems so familiar.

We got ready to hunker down and gathered a couple of lamps, matches, covered a curtainless window with beach towels. Then Terry remembered our little food room partitioned off in our garage (it's a storage shed. let's call a spade a spade! looks like a garage but it's a shed!) Anyhow he devised a hole in the wall to place a small air conditioner to keep temperature right during summer heat. He pulls it out at the beginning of fall and then covers it up. Well...he remembered it wasn't taken out and re-covered. It got a bit stormy in here with him insisting that he was going to go yank it out and replace it. It was a yes/no back and forth word war. You can't!/I can! etc. etc.

So...we went out and he found the breaker box needed to be switched, or something or other, and it was so hidden behind shed stuff, even he admitted he'd have to do something else. I wanted to stack bags of wheat to block it and he kept saying ...No. No. No. I can do it! I came back into the house to get a little portable heater that he wanted and when I came out...there he was panting and leaning up against the shelves BUT he did it! It was a moment of victory that he yanked it out and replaced it with the cover he had made eons ago!

Back in the house to bring some firewood in. for just in case. 2nd spousal war of night. We had no wood that we could bring in! Oh, we had wood but it was in a tote, covered in snow, stacked on the fence side of garage, no lights, no certainty as to which tote the wood was in! he has a tote of kindling....a tote of ready-logs...a tote of medium wood etc.etc. He was upset that he didn't have us ready as he'd always done and I was upset that we weren't ready and didn't know how on earth I was going to go out and find the wood. Then we both got a grip and settled down. We were toasty warm. We were fine. We could wait until daylight to get some wood.

That being said...a holdover from frozen pipes in my past!...I wasn't able to sleep without some water trickling in a sink! He understood my precaution, even though he did remind me (more than once!) that our water line would not freeze. Been there done that and have had my fill of frozen water lines! trickle away little faucet!!!

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In our high school days, at one point there was a fad that was considered so cool...if your Dad had a white shirt then you wore it to school. oh, my. so very cool. another fad, and it was fun, you coordinated your clothes with your boyfriend when you went out. Mostly going out, was a school dance. Terry and I married out of high school (we were 2 babies, for sure!!) and then when our first baby came along, sometimes I'd dress all 3 of us in colored matched clothes. For some reason on Sunday I thought of that time and decided to dress Terry and I in sort of matching clothes.

Maybe it was the new white shirt I'd bought him but something clicked. I was wearing black and decided to have him wear his black suit and a black/white tie that was sort of like a shell I had on. He is great about letting me pick out something, if I want to (which is not all of the time). He has been trying to go to Church for weeks and we were both happy that he was going to make it!!! I told him we matched and he just smiled at such foolishness. Sitting in Church and I stared...What!??...he is wearing navy blue!!

All of this jabber to say...I'm thinking my cataract surgery did not hold!! Things are blurry again! Colors aren't true!! today the light hit just right and I saw cobwebs! oh, no!! I don't want to have it again! I know of people that did have again but I don't want that! That is irritating!!

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We are loving every minute of having the Book of Mormon read to us!! What a treat! We sit and read along as we are being read to and it's just so wonderful!! Hooray for technology and hooray for a very modern Church that embraces all of the techie stuff and makes it all available for low/no tech folks like us!

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The late 1960's we were in Anchorage and went to the wonderful 3rd Ward. Fantastic experience with amazing people. A huge education for me on learning about the Gospel, and how to be LDS. I thrived. I loved it. There was so much going on all the time! This was when we went to Church seemingly every day! It was a different era and one that I just enjoyed immensely.

There was a recipe that came out through RS and made the rounds. An uncooked candy. It made a vat full of dough! Almost 3# of powdered sugar and at least 1-1/4 pounds of melted butter! I made this gigantic batch of goodness and my children and hubby, & me too!, really thought it was the best ever! You mixed this mass, rolled it into balls and dipped it in melted chocolate chips along with melted paraffin wax!

Yes! you heard me right! Every year I'd threaten my boys to leave that wax alone and not use it on their sled runners. They would get in the box that had four flat pieces of wax and sneak it out. I don't remember how much was used in the recipe because at some point...we were told to not do that!

Our daughter got married and she kept up the tradition. When her girls were born, their Daddy bought a little red wagon to pull them around the neighborhood. Every Christmas he would load the girls and all of the bags of candy and go to all the neighbors and then he'd also take some to work for office workers.

when the girls were about a year old, they moved into their home. A brand new area of houses. It's been about 19 years and all of the neighbors are still the same folks! a little Americana for sure. So now those babies are seniors in college, home for Christmas, carrying on the tradition and again...pulled the red wagon and delivered the candy. I think they delivered 21 bags.

something just tugs at my heart, for simple things that are repeatedly done consistently over many years and the heart connection that happens.

When we moved to Homer, in early 70's the making continued and a friend asked for the recipe and they started their tradition also. She had two daughters about the age of Jeanee. This year those girls, now adults like Jeanee, let her know that they were making the candy as always.

Old age settling in....just touched my heart to hear from Dina and Ann. You don't need to do pazillion things and always be changing things out. Settle on something and repeat it yearly and suddenly you have a tradition that triggers memories of a lifetime. I hope you Mothers, with children still at home, have something yummy that is becoming a part of your family for the rising generation as far as tradition. Something that can be made and shared. My kiddos sometimes ate so much of the dough, while rolling the balls, that they couldn't stand the thought of making or eating it ever again. Then the next year would come around and it was a different story