MY MOTHER, who died in October, was to Christmas festivities what Alexander was to Persia and Julius Caesar was to Gaul. She could justly say, “Veni, vidi, vici.” She came, she saw, she conquered.

She was a remarkable housewife in an age when domesticity was still a full-time vocation, not just a beautiful hobby.

By this time in the season, she would have decorated the house with fresh greens, artificial fruit and ribbons. The manger scene would be set up, and she would have done most of Santa’s work for seven children, with the help of my father, whose accomplishments included a homemade doll house and a model train set. She would be sending out Christmas cards and take us on a commuter train to see the lights and decorations in the city. On St. Nicholas Day, she made dozens of cut-out cookies and we invited friends to the house to decorate the cookies with paint brushes. Everyone took a coffee can filled with the gaudy (and sometimes downright hideous) snowmen, stars and reindeer home with them.

On the Sunday before Christmas my parents would have a party for friends and neighbors. For this event, my mother made a huge buffet of savories and sweets, all of it ready before the guests arrived. There was sesame chicken in a chafing dish with orange marmalade sauce, delicate mushroom turnovers, spiced lamb pastries, dips, nuts and cheese balls spiked with brandy and rolled in walnuts. Hundreds of cookies were lined up for battle. They included little dark chocolate tarts with currant jelly, named for some unknown reason after Tadeusz Kościuszko, the Polish military engineer who fought in the American Revolution. There were also pecan nut tassies, scotch oat cookies, spiced almond stars, thumbprints, chocolate ribbons, florentines with candied orange peel, date bars, snowdrops and the decorated cut-out cookies. [My mother did all this without servants, but she was not a domestic slave, as feminists would have it. She made sure her children did the dishes, performed kitchen prep work, vacuumed, put away the laundry, etc. We were her slaves — and we should have been!  What else are children for? We usually shelled the nuts for the cookies by hand, a miserable task similar to picking cotton or working in a coal mine.]

One year, after everyone was grown and my mother continued her baking, a large can of nut tassies disappeared. We expected to find the petrified tarts for years. They had to be somewhere, but they never appeared. I still say we should have called the police.

For the party, my mother made fizzy red punch, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic versions, and dyed little cubes of pineapple red and green to put in the punch glasses. She made song sheets with carols and “jingle mitts,” little terry cloth mittens with bells on the end of the fingers. The mitts would make everyone laugh. We gathered in the living room to sing. My mother was a terrible singer and so were most of us but that was okay. Mr. Littlepage, who was aptly named (he was a printer), was the night’s only soloist. He sang “O Holy Night” with his deep baritone voice. But that was the grand finale. First my sister Clare and I sang Maurice Chevalier’s version of “Jolly Old St. Nicholas,” complete with the French accent that disguised our bad voices. And we sang all the other standards.

We then headed back to the buffet table and ate more cookies. When there are seven “growing children,” there is never enough food. But that night there was enough and there was no restriction on how many cookies we could eat. And so we ate and ate and ate. If cookies could make you drunk, we would have been unconscious. There could never be too many nut tassies or snowdrops, in my opinion. The latter are one of the easiest cookies to make. They are a traditional standard of Christmas tables. They are rich, crumbly and delicious. Confectioner’s sugar, nuts, butter — what’s not to like?

With that background to snowdrops, here is the simple recipe, courtesy of my energetic mother who gave much joy to others at Christmastime:

Snowdrops

7/8 cup (14 Tbs.) unsalted butter, softened
4 Tbs. confectioners sugar
2 cups cake flour
1 cup chopped nuts (I prefer walnuts, ground until they are fine)
2 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. water

Cream butter and sugar together until light. Add vanilla, water, then flour and nuts, mixing slowly. Shape into small, thick crescents and bake in a 300 degree oven for 30-35 minutes, until bottoms are lightly brown. Let cool a bit and then roll in confectioners sugar. Makes about two dozen cookies.

— Comments —

Johanna writes:

Your mother did so much work on her family’s behalf! My mother did the best that she
could in her situation. She was a single, working woman and was not able to have me at home for the most part. AlthoughI know we always went to Midnight Mass, I have only two Christmas memories. One was in Switzerland (I am a Swiss/Polish, naturalized American) when I must have been 3 or 4 and was living with another care-giving family which I thought was my own. The Christmas tree was decorated and kept in a “secret” room that we were not allowed into until Christmas Eve. I guess it’s the anticipation I remember because I do not remember its fulfillment.

The second is Christmas Eve with my mother in Milwaukee. I had been hoping for a “Tiny Tears” doll for a long time and must have been its recipient. There was also a simulated “book” full of Life Savers in all different flavors! Before Mass (I guess) and after we had opened our presents, we did a tour of the city by bus, to see the Christmas lights. Though it may not sound it, it’s a happy memory as is yours. God bless Mothers!

It will be a hard Christmas for you without your mother’s presence but think how happy she must be either in bliss or in its anticipation. I often thank God that my mother is out of what this world has become. I recently wrote to compliment the author of a Christmas book titled, The Last Straw, and told her her book was a pearl in this swiney world. She loved that word.

May God bless you and yours.

Laura writes:

Thank you.

Merry Christmas to you.

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