When I was young, Christmas was largely a homemade event. At home, we strung popcorn and cranberries for tree garlands. At school we took strips of colored paper, pasting the ends together and interlinking the circles for the school s Christmas tree. Part of the fun was the paste. It had a very pleasant smell and the smell invited you to taste it. Of course, you did that very surreptitiously so that the teacher didn t feel it necessary to limit your access to the paste.
I must confess, however, that the part of Christmas I really liked was the rare, store-bought goodies. Besides my taste for paste, I also got excited about ribbon candy, peanut clusters, and haystacks. I am not sure that haystacks were the actual label for these candies. They had nougat filling and were covered with chocolate. Their shapes were little mounds which to me resembled a haystack. However, the piece de resistance was a chocolate covered maraschino cherry.
When I bit into one, a flood of sweet gooey liquid filled my mouth. Then I would suck out the cherry and finally consume the chocolate. What could be better than that? Judy s family had the tradition of sharing cookies. What really happened was a cookie exchange. Each of her mother s friends was quite willing to share cookies because Katherine Hildenbrand s cookies were really prized. I am not sure it was competitive, but each cookie maker made a great bunch of cookies.
Many of their recipes are still part of our Christmas tradition, and we remember them by the original maker s name, such as Annie Shidler s chocolate drop cookies or Rose Bataglia s Italian Christmas cookies. Judy and I continue to make an effort to have some of our Christmas giving come from our kitchen. A lot of our summer jam production is shared with friends at the holiday. And I frequently make garlic-flavored olive oil to give at Christmas time.