It’s my daughter’s 37th birthday, and I wrote an acrostic poem for her today. She’s celebrating on a trip to Arizona with her boyfriend, and they’re enjoying their time together, exploring the sights!
My daughter’s birthday
Arizona gift trip
Loving the cactus desert weather
Living the good side of life
Out for adventure
Rock-hounding enthusiast
Youthfully energetic
*She sent me this picture of a random cactus with this explanation: “We stopped for a wee and a fill up. This cactus was at the gas station. We’re 20 minutes from Tucson.”Classic Mallory text. I’m so happy that she is celebrating her birthday today!
From the Yule Log recipe notes: A French Christmas tradition that dates back to the 19th century, the cake represents the yule log that families would burn starting on Christmas Eve, symbolizing the new year to come and good luck ahead.
After baking the Yule Log cake and spreading and rolling it with heavy whipped cream in an inside whirl, my daughter went to work icing the cake to look like a tree log.
When her masterpiece was complete, she thanked me. ”Without you, I probably would have given up.”
Her comments stopped me in my tracks. I hadn’t offered much of anything other than simply being there. I’d been the one to make the mistake of flipping the frosting onto the floor. Fortunately, it had landed like Mount Crumpit, allowing me to scoop off the top of the mountain and then clean up what was touching the floor, saving what was usable for the bark frosting and discarding the rest – – while she stood there laughing (shhhh…..don’t tell anybody this part).
But it sure got me thinking about the Yule Logs of our lives and the teamwork we need to conquer their challenges to reach their summits. I thought of the lessons I’d learned.
Even if the Yule Log had been a complete disaster, the experience making it was the blessing. Togetherness in the kitchen is sacred, and things happen there that can’t happen anywhere else. There is conversation, laughter, mistake making, and forgiveness.
The one who reads the whole recipe and sees how overwhelming it will be may be less equipped than the one who has never read it and sees the whole journey as merely a series of small steps. Some of us work on long range plans, some on short range plans.
Sometimes supporting someone is just a matter of presence and encouragement – nothing more.
Just because she’d never made a Yule Log didn’t mean she couldn’t turn out a masterpiece. I’m pretty sure Michelangelo had never painted a Sistine Chapel ceiling before, either. He nailed it on the first attempt, and so did she. Not only was this Yule Log gorgeous, it was also delicious.
I need to stop counting the obstacles and focus on the possibilities. Dollar General sells $15 mixers on Christmas Eve, and they do the same work as the top of the line Kitchen Aid mixers. The gas oven is the same 350 degrees that an electric oven is. There are bowls that will appear out of nowhere when you need another one – some plastic, some metal, some glass. You get a second wind somewhere at the beginning of a long task, and it will see you through.
Without each other, we can accomplish much more than we can accomplish alone.
There is both starting power and staying power in support and encouragement from others to make it to the finish line.
When I wonder why I’m standing in a kitchen on Christmas Eve never having guessed I’d be making a Yule Log, that’s the time to listen for the lessons that life is sending my way through the blessings of my children. It’s in the unfamiliar, uncertain places where we draw on faith and learn our greatest lessons.
I need to do a better job of expressing to each of my children how very proud I am of each of them and how much I love them. They do things that terrify me and things that amaze me.
It isn’t luck or magic that is needed for any of this. It’s prayer and divine intervention, and they are not the same things.
In the years ahead, my hope is that the moments of making this Yule Log burn warmly, living on as embers that remind us that the living of life is in the journey, and it isn’t for the faint of heart. It takes each other, and it takes willingness and courage. It takes a lot of work, and there will be mishaps. It takes forgiveness and laughter. But most importantly, it takes faith, hope, and love.
8 O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
At 8:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve, my daughter and I began our first-ever Yule Log baking adventure in our pajamas in a rural countryside VRBO kitchen that was unfamiliar to us. When our Kentucky family got together to plan the Christmas dinner, everyone decided to divide the menu and each prepare a dish. Ever so daringly and boldly, she volunteered us to bring a Yule Log. She’d found an ambitious recipe online and had shopped for all the ingredients. She measured them into bags and brought them to the rental house.
By the time we arrived back from the only open store, a Dollar General on the backside of nowhere, we were well into the Christmas Eve hours when children are tucked into bed and elves begin working their magic. And we needed more than magic. We needed divine intervention. Lots and lots of prayer – my One Little Word for 2023.
The recipe looked intimidating. We watched the video of the woman making it to try to ease my apprehension. So much had to go right, and I was fearful of a flop.
The old whipped-cream-on-the-nose baking pose
To ante up the challenge, we were using dishes that weren’t ours, cooking in a gas oven we didn’t know. The cardinal rule in baking is to “know thine oven,” and this beast was a complete and total stranger from another realm.
Somehow, though, after all the beating of the egg whites with sugar to form stiff peaks and folding in that mixture with the flour and egg yolk and cocoa, she pulled a perfectly baked chocolate sponge cake from the oven, ready to be inverted onto parchment paper and rolled in a thin white towel and placed in the coolest part of the room to set before spreading the heavy whipped cream on it and re-rolling it. My daughter was unflappable throughout the whole process, but my nerves were on edge the entire time. I was trying not to show it.
The cake is ready when it springs back into form when pressed
We watched the recipe video again when it came time to unroll the cake and spread the layer of whipped cream on the inside.
The entire process involved phases of blending, folding, baking, setting, cooling, spreading, rolling, unrolling, and waiting. It also involved a lot of laughing to keep the nerves under control. It felt a lot like walking across a landmine with someone who didn’t know we were on a battlefield with so many potential pitfalls.
As every step turned out, my daughter smiled through the entire process. She was baking a miracle as I stood amazed. Turns out, she hadn’t read the entire recipe before she started. Each small step was not overwhelming to her. I, on the other hand, saw every mile of the long journey and knew how risky it could be.
It came time for the rolled log to be iced, and her artistic flair came out in full force.
She evened out the chocolate buttercream frosting into consistent thickness and began her artistic presentation using a fork to make bark lines, even making an elliptical shape to make it look more knotty and authentic, like an owl might pop its head out at any moment and ask us whoooo we were. She softened a Hershey bar and began the tedious process of shaving thin chocolate curls with a sharpened knife. And she placed peppermints in a Ziploc bag and crushed them to look like shimmering snow to top the Yule Log.
And when her masterpiece was finished, she stood back and admired it with pride.
“Look what we did, Ma! Thanks for making it with me. Without you, I probably would have given up.”
I hugged her close, thinking, No, dear daughter. This is all your creation, not mine. I never would have even attempted it. You are far more courageous than I will ever be.
She inverted a mixing bowl to cover it like a cake lid and placed it in the refrigerator to chill overnight. I admired her accomplishment and thought of that Yule Log as a metaphor for all the ways we need each other.
And we hugged goodnight, looking forward to sharing it with family on Christmas Day.
Kitty and Randolph always stopped by my grandparents’ house in Blackshear, Georgia on Christmas Day with a big, round, heavy tin of fresh-baked fruitcake cookies. The grownups would sit in the parlor on the antique furniture by the silver tinsel tree and talk and talk and talk, while my brother and I would figure out ways to steal cookies. We didn’t know we weren’t supposed to like fruitcake cookies, so we liked them – and still do. We are among the small percentage of the population who can actually savor a slice of fruitcake with a cup of coffee.
My grandparents were natural social distancers back in the 1970s, but Kitty and Randolph were part of their small circle of friends- close enough to make it past the front door. Kitty was always smiling and laughing, but Randolph was quiet and reserved.
My maternal grandparents lived life unto themselves. They both worked – she in the Sears Catalog department in downtown Waycross, Georgia, and he for Seaboard Coast Line Railroad in Waycross. Both worked hard and came home at the end of the day to each other, their impeccably clean house, and their manicured lawn that they took great weekend pride in landscaping during the warm months.
Those Christmases, so full of vivid paperdoll and red wagon and Daisy gun and army men and fruitcake memories, come rushing to mind as I sit here in my living room thinking of my early childhood years when we traveled to visit our grandparents in our metallic blue and woodgrain-sided Buick station wagon through the back roads of rural Georgia, my brother and I lying flat on our backs on a quilt in “the way back” (third seat flattened to a bed area, with no seatbelts, of course) looking up at the stars in the clear night as pine tree tops whizzed past.
My eyes gaze upward to the window over our front door, out to the stars past the pine tree tops, realizing that the years, too, have whizzed past faster than I could have imagined. I’m older now than my grandparents were then, and understand in these years more than ever before how fleeting time truly is.
And I wonder whether fruitcake-filled Currier and Ives Christmas tins with lids of horses pulling sleighs over snowdrifts out by the old two-story farmhouse are still a thing anywhere. I’d like to steal some cookies and tuck myself away in all the wonder of a silvery tinsel tree, reliving just a few moments of those good old days, hearing Kitty tell stories and coffee cups clink and antique chairs creak as folks laughed, before screens came along and disrupted real human conversation.
I didn’t want them to leave, even though we go back to work tomorrow and most of our grandkids have another week of homeschool before they take their Christmas break. Sawyer is in 3rd grade, Saylor in 1st, and River in PreK. Beckham and Magnolia aren’t in their school years yet.
Aidan, the oldest and a teenager, lives in a neighboring county and attends a private school there. He has finally caught – and exceeded – my height. We’ve been back to back and heel to heel for a year now to see when the day would come, and it has happened!
Even though it’s far from our normal routine where we live with three Schnoodles, having part of our family come for a visit is a joy! They are a lively bunch, and they make us so proud!
We love taking pictures each time we all get together. Our daughter in law sets the timer and makes the run to take her place before the click, while we all watch the flashing light and say “cheese” on repeat until it stops. She’s an iPhone wizard!
This year, no one felt like getting dressed for a picture, so we didn’t. It was a rainy, cold weekend and we were busy staying warm and playing dominoes and watching movies and eating nonstop. So we opted for the reality photo, the one where you have to keep calling everyone to get outside and no one can pry themselves off the couch or chair they’re occupying. No one wore anything except pajamas with a coat or robe (and not the family matching kind with the coordinated Tartan plaid that looks planned and professional). A couple of us had shoes on, no girls had makeup on, and one or two of us might have brushed our hair or teeth. We simply ran out in the misty drizzle for a photo to mark the occasion.
L-R: Saylor, Kim holding Beckham, Briar in back, River, Aidan, Sawyer, Marshall holding Magnolia, and Selena
This may be my favorite picture of us ever taken. When our grandchildren are grown and look back on these days spent with their grandparents, this is what I want them to remember – that we were happy just the way we were, and that we chose to savor every moment relaxing together at home. And that we didn’t need a crippling blizzard to know how to stay in our pajamas and drink coffee and chocolate milk all day and stay cozy.
All six grandchildren are here with two parents, their three labs and the two of us and our three Schnoodles. The house has never been more alive than it is right now (you can actually feel its heartbeat thumping, pulsing with the energy of children). We celebrated Christmas together yesterday. During the weekend time, we have watched our small town’s Christmas Parade, baked and decorated Christmas cookies and pumpkin bread, made peanut butter fudge, cooked a big pancake breakfast, played outside and amassed Georgia red clay dirt stains from wrestling in the grass and playing King of the Hill, made pinecone birdfeeders and watched the birds come to an early Christmas feast, taken a walk with the dogs to look for the elusive “Lellow Bear” that has lived in these woods for many years, napped, visited a family friend at the fire station, opened gifts, played board and card games and dominoes because we gave away the Scrabble board, feasted on Lasagna and garlic bread, and ran inside from the drizzle that stopped our fireside marshmallow roast plans. We’ve taken a tour of the camper and talked about all the plants on the front porch, including the ways to propagate them for our nine year old environmentalist grandson to have snips of offshoots of these plant species (he already has five varieties of succulents and cactuses growing in his room). He has shown us how to make his favorite tea. We’ve taken some moments here and there to sit on the swing of serenity and have a brief time of peace before being discovered by someone needing less peace. We’ve thrown the ball down the hall for the fetching dog hundreds of times and tested stain removers on knees of pants and elbows of jackets and shirts. We’ve K-cupped multiple times a day to keep caffeinated enough to keep pace with the little ones and read books at quiet times.
We’ve found half-eaten marshmallows in the pantry and little pieces of games and random things here and there – – including six grapes, four smushed into the floor. And we’ve showered at the oddest times, just to stagger for hot water so that all ten of us wouldn’t get the shower shivers.
And we’ve tasted sleep.
But we have not indulged in the entire entree of sleep.
Today is my brother’s birthday, and I’m blessed to have him as my brother. He didn’t log in as me on my computer to type this – I’m writing all of this of my own free will.
One of the best gifts we can give our dad – and the best way to honor the legacy of our mother – is to get along. And we do, without any prodding or threats.
It hasn’t always been that way, though.
When we were little and played Matchbox cars, we fought a little bit over the purple car with yellow trim that we called Mrs. Wentworth. And once I accidentally knocked my mom and Ken as a baby off the bike by running into them when we were all out on a bike ride. Plus, there was that time he’d gotten a new roller donkey for Christmas, and he fell off and was crying in the middle of the Christmas festivities in the living room and no one was helping him up, and I was the closest in reach to him.
I think he’s forgiven me for all of that, and he’s turned out to be a wonderful person, despite the odds for Preachers’ Kids.
Boo Radley, Ollie, and Fitz hiking the red and white trails of FDR State Park in Georgia. I do not own the rights to this music.
Our time on this Thanksgiving getaway is coming to a close for now, but instead of starting the campsite breakdown as we normally do on the last afternoon of our camping adventures, we took an impromptu hike with the boys on the trails of F. D. Roosevelt State Park in Pine Mountain, Georgia. I’m sharing a video of their tail-wagging joy as Boo Radley, Ollie, and Fitz traversed the terrain.
We met another couple hiking, and the wife observed, “Looks like you have your own sled dog team!” I chuckled because I am always referring to them as our sled dogs. When my sister in law walked them with me this week, she was surprised by how hard they pull. I told her that if there were snow on the ground, we could put on skis and they’d pull us all around the campground. Truth.
Our Georgia State Parks offer different types of clubs for kayakers, canyon climbers, dog walkers, and cyclists. Tails on Trails seems like it would be a healthy challenge for the two humans belonging to these three canine trail enthusiasts for 2024, so already I’m thinking of working it into a yearly goal.
As we sat around the campfire last night, I turned on the green sparkle lights and watched them dancing like tiny fairies in the trees as I reflected on what I loved most about the week- being able to get away and enjoy time in nature with family, spending time with each other and with our dogs, and truly taking time to give thanks for our blessings. Time. Togetherness. Thanksgiving.
These are the parts of the week that meant the most to me.
As I reflect on last night’s campground fire, I reflect back on Thanksgiving yesterday and the month of November with all its blessings, thinking of Gladys Taber’s Stillmeadow Calendar. Her books, many of them, are divided by month and season. To open November, she writes, “Teatime comes early at Stillmeadow now. I hang the kettle over the embers, bring out the toasting fork, and open the sweet-clover honey.”
The campground where we are staying is full. Driving through yesterday, we noticed a few empty spots, but as the evening progressed, campers slowly arrived and set up for Thanksgiving gatherings. It may seem odd that folks would choose to camp on Thanksgiving Day, but many of them may be going to feast with nearby relatives and prefer sleeping in their own space. Some may have dogs and find that travel is so much more affordable with pets when they can bring them along. Others, like us, feel a heightened sense of gratitude when we are close to nature.
So how does someone prepare a Thanskgiving feast at a campground, in the absence of an oven?
It takes a little prior planning, but the key is to keep the menu simple. We were cooking for 6 adults. My sister in law brought banana pudding from our favorite local restaurant, dressing she prepared at home, and a gallon of sweet tea, a half gallon of unsweet tea, and strawberries with dip. At the campground, we prepared the turkey, green bean casserole, rolls, sweet potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and cranberry sauce.
The turkey cooked all night on low. I purchased a Jennie-O Turkey Breast, 8.73 pounds, the largest size that would fit in my crock pot. I inserted a crock pot liner, then washed the turkey and placed it in the pot, skin side up. Next, I added about two cups of bone broth (not chicken stock, but actual bone broth) and then sprinkled half a package of dry ranch dressing mix over the top of the breast. Then, I closed the lid at 7 pm and set it on low to cook all night. We are inside a camper, so we do not have to worry as much about bears.
The turkey cooked all night, filling the camper with the great smell of a forthcoming Thanksgiving feast. Even the dogs could hardly wait!
The rolls and cranberry sauce may have been the easiest sides to prepare: King’s Hawaiian Rolls in a bag, and a can of Ocean Spray Cranberry Sauce did the trick. The sweet potatoes were steamed in the microwave in a bag. I purchased two 1.5 pound bags of Simply Perfect Sweet Steamers, which took 8 minutes per bag. We added a touch of butter, then sprinkled with cinnamon and turbinado sugar. The macaroni and cheese was also prepared in the microwave. We prepared a four-pack of individual microwave tubs and combined them in one bowl.
I brought an extra crock pot for the green bean casserole. Again, I used a crock pot liner and mix the recipe right in the bag, gave it a good stir, and set it on low for two hours starting at 10 a.m. I increased it to medium for the last half hour.
If you’re wondering how we run the microwave simultaneously with two crockpots, we pull extra power off the post outlet. Most campers can’t handle all that power, so we bring an extension cord and run it off the second outlet on the electric post. From there, we set up a small table and and outlet strip for the crock pots to keep doing their thing. This frees up the picnic table for us to gather and eat.
Thanksgiving Day was chilly, but we kept warm in the tent we placed over our picnic table, making our dining room! We used a small space heater to warm the area, and after dinner we moved outdoors to sit around the fire and talk before we had dessert. My sister in law plugged in her electric lap blanket to stay extra warm and snuggled in with one of the dogs.
I reflect on the day and count all of our blessings – family, health, dogs, food, warmth, and each other. And I look forward to closing my eyes and drifting off – the best kind of tired and happy!
Lately, I’ve been rereading Gladys Taber’s books, just for the sheer comfort they bring. I can slip through the veil of now and step back in time, to a day when things seemed simpler and more appreciated. My wish for you today is that you find a deep inner peace, full of gratitude for the simple joys on this Thanksgiving Day. Whether you share it with a multitude of people or alone, take time to reflect on the blessings!
This is from Stillmeadow Sampler.
Thanksgiving should be a time of prayer, of feeling humble, and of reaffirming our faith in God. When the grandchildren are propped up on the dictionary and encyclopedia and reach for a turkey wing, I look at them, and pray quietly that they may live in a world at peace.
***
But when I was growing up, the feast itself was more important. We never tasted turkey except at Thanksgiving, that was what turkey was meant for. We dreamed of it, rich, brown, savory with chestnut stuffing. The quivering cranberry sauce was only for Thanksgiving, too, and oh, the giblet gravy and the glazed onions and fluffy mashed turnips! Turkey for Thanksgiving was as special as the orange in the toe of the stocking at Christmas.
…
After grace is said, there is always a moment of silence at our table. What grave thoughts go through the minds of the younger folk I shall never know, but they have a quiet look. I think of all the Thanksgivings past, and of all the hopes for the future. Then the carving knife makes the first slice, and yes, the turkey is exactly done, tender, moist, rich. And pass the giblet gravy at once.
…
Later on, the table cleared and the dishwasher blessedly running, we can add an apple log to the fire and sit toasting our toes against the November chill, while the bowl of apples and nuts goes around and one of the family brings out the old corn popper. And I am always amazed at the fact that no matter how big the dinner is, around dark the younger members of the family get that hungry look again.
…
When the house quiets down, I have a glass of hot milk. Then I say my prayers and give my thanks to God who still makes Thanksgiving possible. On Thanksgiving night, I pray a long while for everyone all over the world who may not have a Thanksgiving.
***
These are words written on Taber’s farm in Connecticut 7 decades ago. I think of my own days of growing up, when grandparents came to our house and we ate at high noon, making memories with cousins and other family all afternoon. Board games, movies, desserts, and making Christmas wish lists (we did not wish for oranges).
Today, we are in a state park in Georgia and will later be joined by a few family members. We’ll eat our Thanksgiving feast in the early afternoon, hike a bit, and sit around the campfire sharing stories and sipping coffee and hot chocolate. And absolutely – we will roast marshmallows.
Be sure to check in tomorrow when I’ll share how to cook a Thanskgiving feast while camping, right down to a perfectly browned turkey. (And I don’t have an oven here).
Common Threads 