The DU Lounge

This was in 1960, my mom was pregnant with my youngest sister and we had spent the past 2 days baking cakes: German's Chocolate, Jam Cake and Coconut cake. Finally it's Christmas Eve and we were getting all the stuff together for my middle sister's "Santa" gifts.

Well we had to build the Barbie Dream House., and we couldn't start until she was asleep. This was the first year for the Dream House and it was made of cardboard, with tabs and slots for everything. We messed with that thing for two hours and nearly killed ourselves laughing at the strange looking pieces which we had put together wrong. It was a bonding experience for my Mom and me. I do not remember when the Dream House died but being cardboard it probably was not very long.

Christmas morning we always had new pajamas and a robe to wear, which my mom made for us; I always had books, my sister had toys. We always had homemade cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning.

Otherwise, we did lots of cooking for our family dinners. Fortunately we did not have to get to both sides of the family on Christmas Day!! My mom's family usually did something Christmas afternoon or evening (depending on who was there from out of town) My grandmother was Norwegian and made all those wonderful pressed butter cookies and marzipan which we loved. After dinner we would go out and drive around town and look at Christmas lights. There was a decorating competition in that town and some of those folks did a pretty big display.

My dad's family had their celebration usually the Sunday after Christmas. Sometimes it was at my Grandparents' and sometimes at my aunt and uncle's farm. We always had country ham from the farm, a turkey, the usual sides, frozen fruit salad, scalloped oysters, mac and cheese, peas and pearl onions, asparagus casserole, homemade rolls and lots of cake.
Granny made a brazil nut devil's food cake with ground brazil nuts in the cake; my mom and I made the three cakes mentioned above and frest fruit ambrosia, with all the good citrus: oranges, pineapple, tangerines, grapefruit, bananas, and coconut. We also had boiled custard with our cake instead of egg nog. Eggnog is made with whiskey or rum but boiled custard is not; the teetotalers weren't having that liquor so custard is preferred. It is not too common except in KY, TN and MS. We still put a teaspoon of bourbon or rum in it. Irony!! You could walk into anyone's house around the holidays and if you looked in the refrigerator there would be at least one mason jar of boiled custard in there. I still love it with coconut cake.

One of my aunts loved to make Christmas goodies, especially fudge and divinity. She also whipped up hot rolls and brought over pans ready to go in the oven.