White Christmas

Snowy Christmases, past and present

We had a white Christmas in Christian County this year. The snow started about 6:00 pm on Christmas Eve and continued intermittently throughout Christmas Day. This photo was taken in late afternoon on the day after Christmas.

Keely, Taurus, and their friend Adam spent Christmas Day with us. After they left that evening, I swept several inches of snow off my car so it would be ready to drive in the morning. A couple more inches of snow fell during the night, and when I went out to start my car the next morning, I had to sweep it off again.

My kids have a favorite family story about one of the few Christmas snows in their childhood. We went to church on Christmas morning that year. By the time church was over, several inches of snow covered the ground. We were surprised! We didn't know that snow was in the forecast!

I was driving, and I had no problems until I turned off the highway to the little gravel lane that leads uphill to our house.  I made it about halfway up the long,  hill before the car started to slide. When I let up on the gas, I lost momentum and came to a stop.

Dennis got out and pushed the car. That wasn't successful, so he decided to drive while I pushed. I got behind the car and gave it all my muscle while Dennis stepped on the gas aggressively. When he got the car moving, he roared up the hill, leaving me to walk home. The kids didn't know whether to laugh or cry about leaving Mom behind, but I understood. If he had stopped, we'd have gained nothing.

Several days before Christmas in 2004, we had the closest thing to a blizzard that I've seen in Kentucky --  seven or eight inches of snow with strong wind and very cold temperatures. Dennis was in Kuwait that Christmas with AAFES (the PX system, from which he has now retired), so he missed out on that storm.

We always heat with wood, but normally, we have a thermostat-controlled propane heater that turns on when needed. During that storm, we had only wood heat. We had bought a new propane heater a few days earlier. After the installer disconnected the old heater, he realized that he didn't have everything he needed to connect the new heater.

That night, while I was shoving firewood into the stove and listening to the wind howl, I thought about Laura Ingalls Wilder's blizzard story in On the Banks of Plum Creek. Pa and Ma had gone to town, leaving Laura and Mary at home with little Carrie. When the blizzard hit, Laura knew that it was important to have lots of firewood inside. Otherwise, people had to burn their furniture to keep from freezing. With fear-driven energy, Laura and Mary hauled the entire woodpile inside their little cabin, finishing just as their parents arrived home.

Isaac's longtime friend DJ was home from Oregon that Christmas, and he was visiting us on the night of the snowstorm. The next morning, the storm had ended, and it was clear, cold, and still. Isaac and DJ bundled up and went out with the sleds.

I didn't know that they were sledding down the hills on the highway until they got back home! "We'd have heard any cars coming!" they assured me with the wisdom of 15-year-olds. I felt a little better when they told me that there were only two sets of tire tracks on the highway.

A day or two later, the snow was still on the ground and the roads were still bad. Keely got a ride home from Murray on Christmas Eve with her friend Kyla who had a Jeep.  A tall fellow named Taurus crawled out of the Jeep with Keely and spent that Christmas with us. He's been here for every Christmas since then, and in October of 2010, he became our son-in-law.

I hope you've enjoyed your Christmas, white or otherwise. And if it's snowy where you are, stay warm and be careful!

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

A windy Christmas Eve

The wind is ripping around the corners of our house and roaring through the trees tonight. We have a wind advisory, but our precipitation is going to be liquid, not frozen. We are outside the path of the big winter storm that is moving across the central United States.

My co-worker is on my mind tonight. She and her family are headed home for Christmas. They're in a car, somewhere between here and Texas. Their route included a stop in western Oklahoma to pick up her son who lives with his dad. The weather forecast out there includes a blizzard warning. When the roads are normal, their drive home takes 15 hours. I hope they are able to make the trip safely tonight.

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It's been a joy this Christmas to have a young friend back in Christian County for a visit. D. J. and our son Isaac went through elementary school and middle school, side by side. In fact, Keely refers to D.J. as her "other little brother."  D.J. now lives on the West Coast with his dad, but his mom still lives here.

We've been worried about D.J. because he learned about a year ago that he has leukemia. He has been taking chemotherapy, and he's doing very well. Please pray for him.

Update, December 5, 2012: 
I am so happy to add this note. In September of this year, D.J. was declared 100% cancer free!  This brings tears of joy to my eyes. 

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In 2006, I wrote about some Christmas memories in a series I titled, "Ghosts of Christmas Past." I hope you'll enjoy reading (or re-reading) these articles.

1. Arriving in Germany at Christmas

2. A Christmas angel my daughter made years ago

3. Grandma Netz's recipe for Cherry Bonbons

4. Our Christmas wedding

5. Christmas at Grandma Barb's house in the 1950s

6. Christmas in Berlin, Germany, remembered

7. Childhood memories of Christmas lights

8. The Christmas we got our new ice skates

9. A Christmas wreath that kids can make

10. Christmas programs in rural schools

11. The school Christmas program from a teacher's viewpoint

12. Visitors on Three Kings Day in Germany

Ghosts of Christmas Past

Happy Christmas memories

In 2006 I wrote about some Christmas memories in a series I titled, "Ghosts of Christmas Past." I hope you'll enjoy reading (or re-reading) these articles.

1. Arriving in Germany at Christmas

2. A Christmas angel my daughter made years ago

3. Grandma Netz's recipe for Cherry Bonbons

4. Our Christmas wedding

5. Christmas at Grandma Barb's house in the 1950s

6. Christmas in Berlin, Germany, remembered

7. Childhood memories of Christmas lights

8. The Christmas we got our new ice skates

9. A Christmas wreath that kids can make

10. Christmas programs in rural schools

11. The school Christmas program from a teacher's viewpoint

12. Visitors on Three Kings Day in Germany

Ghosts of Christmas Past (12)

Three Kings Day -- Heilege Drei Könige

Today was the 12th day of Christmas, tonight is "Twelfth Night" and this is my 12th and final "Christmas Ghosts" post. Tomorrow, the celebration of Christmas ends, and the celebration of Epiphany begins in many Christian churches of the West.

Epiphany commemorates (among other things) the Magi's visit to the young child, Jesus, and in Germany, the first Sunday in Epiphany is even called "Three Kings" -- Heilige Drei Könige.

There is an old German custom that costumed boys go from house to house on the eve of Epiphany, carrying water and incense blessed by the priest. They sing carols and solicit treats for themselves and donations for charities. They are the Star Singers -- Sternsänger.

Someone from the group may walk through the house with incense to rid it of evil, write the initials "CMB" (for the traditional names of the Wise Men: Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar) and the number for the new year over the front door ("20 CMB 07"), sprinkle some water, and say a little prayer asking for protection for the house.

I didn't know anything about this custom when the costumed children in the photo at right knocked on my door. It was January 5, 1988, and we were living in the little Bavarian village of Kleinwallstadt (literally translated "Small Barrier City") on the Main River near Frankfort, Germany.

It was easy to see that these boys were dressed as the Wise Men, and it seemed that I should offer them some cookies and leftover candy canes in exchange for the little song they sang to me. I did so, and they accepted. If they were collecting coins, I didn't realize that. They were pleased to pose for the snapshot. We exchanged a few sentences of German and English and then they went on their way, on down the street.

Curious about whether I had responded correctly by feeding my visitors, I later questioned my German neighbors and read more about the custom in my trusty guidebooks to Germany. I guess I may have missed my chance to have our house cleansed, marked, and blessed. I really don't know if they had incense and water with them or not.

These boys in their kingly costumes are probably in their early thirties now, but they're forever young in my memory and in my photo of them -- young and enjoying their costumed caroling adventure!

Merry Christmas!

Ghosts of Christmas Past (11)

All In The Family... Another Trip Down Memory Lane... Life in The Nebraska Sandhills...

In the early 1970's, I taught three years in a two-room school out in the Sandhills south of Newport, Nebraska -- Pony Lake District 30. I had taken the required 60 hours of college credit for teacher certification for rural schools (in those days) and returned to Rock County as a teacher. I learned then that the school Christmas program was an exciting, but exhausting and nerve-wracking event from the teacher's point of view.

The photo at right was taken at the Christmas program of my first year there. I'm pulling the curtain, and I have the script in my hand. (I still have that little notebook into which I hand-copied everything in the program that my students and I were responsible for.) Behind me, one of the shepherds is exiting the stage. (Of course he's a shepherd: he's wearing a bathrobe.)

My parents, my sister, and my brother and his wife-to-be were all in the audience that night to give me moral support. I think my sister probably took this photo.

A few days after the Christmas program, I received a Christmas card from one of the school board members and his wife. She wrote in the card that they had enjoyed the program so much. I really felt like I had passed a test. The importance of that compliment to me is indicated by the fact that I still remember it today! In those days, the quality of the Christmas program influenced the community's opinion of the teacher -- and it was a fair assessment because the Christmas program reflected her ability to teach as well as the student's natural talents.



Related post:
Ghosts of Christmas Past (10) in which I write about some of my childhood memories of Christmas programs at Duff Valley School in Rock County, Nebraska.

Remembering Pony Lake School in which I write a bit about the current status of Pony Lake School and about the experience of teaching there in the early 1970's.


Why am I still writing about Christmas on January 2? I am a Lutheran and to Lutherans, Christmas is a season not just a day. It begins on December 25 and continues through January 5, the day before Epiphany. These are the twelve days of Christmas, referred to in the familiar Christmas song ("a partridge in a pear tree," etc.)


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Ghosts of Christmas Past (10)

All In The Family... Another Trip Down Memory Lane... Life in the Nebraska Sandhills...

I can't write a series about Christmas memories without mentioning country school Christmas programs. The following paragraphs are quoted from an article I wrote about six years ago. I was writing about the late 1950's through the mid-1960's when I attended that little one-room school (Duff Valley District 4 in Rock County, Nebraska), but country school Christmas programs were much the same when my parents were children.

Every year, our school had a program--usually a Christmas program--that we put on for our parents and everyone in the neighborhood who wanted to come. We practiced for weeks in advance, starting with just a short time each day and finally spending all day at it when it was almost "showtime". We decorated the schoolhouse with twisted red and green crepe paper streamers and special artwork on the bulletin boards, and we made invitations for all the people in our district and delivered them to their mailboxes.

Each of us had a "piece" in the program that we had to memorize and recite as a solo act. We also had several plays that we performed in costume and half a dozen or more songs that we learned. We hung curtains at one end of the schoolhouse to make a "stage" and we pushed the desks to the sides of the room to make room for benches and chairs to be brought in. People enjoyed the rural school programs and some even went to other country schools for their programs. A good Christmas program could help establish the reputation of a teacher, and a poorly managed and performed program could damage her reputation.

Some years, several country schools in the general area of Rose put on a Christmas program together in the Rose Community Hall. Schools that I remember taking part in this were our school (Duff Valley District 4), the Ewing School (District 72), the Meyer School, and the Buell School. This community Christmas program was in addition to the Christmas program that we had already done in our own school.

When I wrote the paragraphs above, I was trying to be mostly factual and I didn't try to describe how much fun it was to practice the program instead of doing regular schoolwork and how excited and nervous we were when the night of the program finally arrived.

I remember arriving at school the night of the program, and it was so strange to be there after dark and to see so many cars parked along the road.

My mother, God bless her, always sewed a new dress for me to wear to the Christmas program. The other kids were dressed up and slicked down too, and so was our teacher. The parents and neighbors in the audience were in their good clothes, too. It was an occasion.

When the curtains opened and the show began, we were supposed to be quietly seated on the benches behind the side curtains if we weren't performing. Since our teacher couldn't be on both sides of the stage at once, she had a teacher from some other school backstage on the other side and this added another layer of strangness to the event.

Stage fright was one of the perils of the event. Our teacher had the script in hand ready to prompt anyone who needed it. The worst moment for most students was when he or she stood alone to recite the poem he or she had memorized. The youngest students were sometimes reduced to repeating their "pieces" line by line after the teacher and sometimes their misery prevented them from saying a single word despite the teacher's coaxing.

After the performance ended, Santa Claus might arrive just in time to pass out the gifts under the Christmas tree. We each had a gift from our teacher and a gift from the student who had drawn our name. Our parents each had a little handmade gift that we had made for them at school. Every child present received a little paper bag of Christmas goodies -- a popcorn ball, a Red Delicious apple, and some hard Christmas candy. I think these were provided by the school board (our parents.)

My dad often gave me a dollar bill after the Christmas program because I had done such a good job.

Our teachers had small libraries of Christmas plays, monologues, poems and music that they had accumulated through their years of teaching, and these provided fresh material each year. They purchased these books from school supply catalogs. Some of the material was humorous, some of it had a little lesson to teach about the proper Christmas spirit or the meaning of some Christmas tradition, and some of it was forthrightly Christian. I remember being in several manger scenes.

When we had a Christmas program at the Rose Community Hall with the other country schools of southern Rock County, we usually repeated some of the plays and pieces we had learned for our own Christmas program. In addition, we had a Sunday School Christmas program, so the new dress my mother had sewed for me served for several events.

We didn't always have a school Christmas program, but we usually did. I remember having a Halloween program and a pie social one year and a Thanksgiving program another year, but Christmas programs were traditional and, I believe, preferred by both the students and the community.

From the Dennison's Accessories 1955 Catalog

Why am I still writing about Christmas on January 2? I am a Lutheran and to Lutherans, Christmas is a season not just a day. It begins on December 25 and continues through January 5, the day before Epiphany. These are the twelve days of Christmas, referred to in the familiar Christmas song ("a partridge in a pear tree," etc.)

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Ghosts of Christmas Past (9)

Elf pattern (place on fold)

I keep an envelope marked "Christmas Elf" in one of our boxes of Christmas decorations. It holds a half-elf, cut from an old Christmas card. I'm saving him because he stirs good memories of a Christmas in the past.

Here's his little story. One year, the kids were out of school for Christmas but still had a few more days to wait before The Day. They were bored stiff and terribly nervous, shall we say?! "There's nothing to do!" they whined.

After Christmas at our house, we were going to drive out to Kansas for Christmas with my parents, and I was busy trying to get ready for all of that. I certainly didn't feel that I had "nothing to do," but it was clear that the kids were suffering.

I had seen an elf "wreath" in a magazine article about Christmas crafts. I think it was supposed to be made from felt, but I decided we could make one from paper. I sketched out the half-elf (above) on the back of an old Christmas card (stiff paper), cut it out, and set the kids down at the kitchen table.

Keely was old enough to use scissors well, so she traced the outline on folded sheets of paper and made about 20 of the little fellows. Isaac helped color them, and they drew their faces and other details with markers.

Then we cut a big ring of poster board, and the kids glued their elves shoulder to shoulder, with their heads to the center and feet to the outside, all around the outside edge of the ring. I don't think they bothered interlocking their arms, but perhaps it could be done. We attached a ribbon to hang it up.

It made a cute bit of kid art that they were proud of. We took the elf wreath to Kansas and gave it to Grandma and Grandpa Hill, and they hung it up until it finally got too bedraggled to preserve any longer.

Every time I see this little elf pattern, I meditate again on the eager anticipation of Christmas by children and the joy of spending time over the holidays with loved ones.

Ghosts of Christmas Past (8)

All In The Family... Another Trip Down Memory Lane...

The following story of a snowy Christmas eve is a Christmas memory in two ways. It recalls a Christmas of my childhood, and it also brings to mind the Christmas of 2000 when I wrote this for a little keepsake book and special website that members of my church made.

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I HAVE A BEAUTIFUL MEMORY of a Christmas Eve when I was about eight years old. A dry snow was falling that night and several inches of white powder lay on the ground by the time we read the Bible story of Jesus's birth and opened our gifts.

Our Christmas packages held new ice skates and mine were white. We were so anxious to try them that we couldn't wait until morning light! We laced on our skates while my father got a shovel and pushed back the snow on the little pond in the milkcow pasture. Then, with a million tiny snowflakes sparkling in the yardlight and dancing away into the long quiet shadows, we skated.

I outgrew those skates in a year or two, but the best gift my parents gave me that Christmas is still with me -- the happy memory of the utter joy and beauty of that night. God's great love for us shines through happy memories like this, lifting our spirits and warming our hearts each time He brings them to mind.

This is my 49th Christmas. [That was in 2000. In 2006, it's now my 55th Christmas!] Through the years, I have had times of walking "through the valley of the shadow of death" as well as times of walking "beside the still waters". Sometimes, I could only pray, "O Lord, you know!" and hand my heartaches and fears over to God.

Still, as I look back over the years, I see God's great love for me shining brightly through each of them. I thank Him for my savior, Jesus, and for the joy of celebrating Christmas! I thank Him for each day of my life and for all He has provided for me. He has brought me this far and He will lead me on.

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Ghosts of Christmas Past (7)

Another Trip Down Memory Lane... Life in The Nebraska Sandhills...

Founders Square, Hopkinsville, KY, December 2006

The city Christmas tree on Hopkinsville's Founders Square appears to be lighted with a net that encloses the entire tree. I first began seeing these a few years ago.

Decorations weren't so fancy when I was a child, but it was still exciting to see them. Most of the little towns in the Nebraska Sandhills hung a string of colored lights across the town's main intersection and some decorations (candy canes, stars, angels, etc.) -- on the electric poles on Main Street.

On the long drive home from Christmas with my mother's family at Gordon, NE, one of the things that helped break the monotony was the Christmas lights in the little towns along Highway 20. Some of the few ranch homes along the highway had Christmas lights in their windows too.

My father loved to see an outdoor evergreen tree with colored lights and one Christmas he bought a string of colored lights for a tree in our yard. Back then, each bulb in the string was nearly full-sized -- mini-lights hadn't been invented yet -- and there were about a dozen colored lights on the string. He put them on the young blue spruce on the south side of our house, and they did look pretty, shining in the dark cold winter nights.

To enjoy our lighted outdoor tree, we had to go outside or stand at one of our south windows. I don't suppose many people outside our family saw the lights as the nearest neighbor lived about two miles away and there was absolutely no passing traffic at night. (After our house, the small, sandy, two-track road got even smaller and sandier as it branched off into the pastures of our ranch.)

I think the lights were on the outside tree only one Christmas before my dad decided he didn't get to see enough of them out there, so they became part of our indoor decorations. They were made with a good sturdy cord and incredibly long-lasting bulbs, and my mom and dad were still using them several decades later.

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Ghosts of Christmas Past (6)

Another Trip Down Memory Lane... Life In Germany...

Downtown Berlin at Christmas, about 1988

The largest city that I've ever lived in is Berlin, Germany. We went to West Berlin in 1988 with my husband's job in the Army-Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES), and by the time we left in 1991, Germany and the city of Berlin had been reunified and most of the infamous Berlin wall had been torn down.

It's interesting to me that in 1990, just a year before we moved to Kentucky, Berlin's population was 3,433,695 (East and West Berlin combined) and the entire state of Kentucky's population was 3,685,296.

A band at the Zehlendorf Christmas market in Berlin

We lived in a part of Berlin called Zehlendorf. I'm sure it was once a little town that was gradually swallowed up by the metropolis. Zehlendorf had its own business district and they had a Christmas market (Weihnachtsmärkt) in December, much like those we had seen in the little villages of Bavaria.

For the Christmas market, streets were closed to traffic. Merchants set up tents and booths and sold all sorts of Christmas crafts, gifts, baking ingredients, and holiday decorations. Sausages and bratwursts, gingerbreads, and other holiday goodies were sold by vendors, most notably the spicy gluhwein (glowing wine,) served hot to warm cold fingers and toes. Children could ride a carousel or even a little pony.

Shepherd at the Christmas market animal exhibit

The Christmas market photos at left were taken near the Paulus Gemeindehaus, a community center owned by the Zehlendorf Lutheran church. We felt very much at home at the Gemeindehaus because our church, the American Church in Berlin, used the building on Sundays for Sunday School classes.

The shepherd was watching over a little pen of sheep. Keely was a preschooler, just the right size to be fascinated by the sight of real sheep. I remember we stood by the sheep pen for a very long time before she finally had seen enough of them. Before we went home, I bought a carved rolling pin for making springerle, a souvenir of the Zehlendorf Weihnachtsmärkt which I have to this day.

While I was writing this post, I looked for the website of the American Church in Berlin (ACB) and learned that it no longer meets at the historic Alte Dorfkirche, just down the street from the Paulus Gemeindehaus. They've moved to a much larger church that's closer to the center of Berlin, near the area where the church was located before World War II.

I'm happy for the American Church, both because it has grown and because it has better facilities, but I enjoy my memories of the old village church in Zehlendorf. Worshiping in that historic Christian meeting house and attending Sunday School in the Paulus Gemeindehaus helped me feel like Zehlendorf was my home too.

The last Christmas we spent in Berlin, I sewed a dozen angel costumes for the ACB Sunday School Christmas program. I tried to make them sturdy so they'd last a long time. I hope they're still in use at the new church this Christmas.

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Ghosts of Christmas Past (5)

All In The Family...

This is my family at Christmas in 1959. I'm the little girl with glasses on the end. My sister Charlotte is sitting on my mom's lap, and my brother Dwight is next to me.

My parents are 36 years old in this photo, my sister is 3, I'm 8, and my brother is 13. (I say this with some confidence because the processing date is stamped on the photo: "February, 1960.")

This photo was taken at the Harry Sees farmhouse at Gordon, NE, the house that my Grandpa Sees built and my mother grew up in. Gramp Sees was not with us the Christmas this photo was made because he passed away not long after my sister was born. He was in his early 50's, and he died from leukemia -- a disease that had few treatments at that time.

It was probably a sad Christmas for my parents, my aunt Becky and Uncle Larry, and Grandma Barb. I realize that as I look back today, but I have happy memories of our Christmas visits to Grandma Barb. I remember a big Christmas tree with tinsel, packages wrapped in sparkly tissue paper and my uncle carving the turkey. The pantry off my Grandma's kitchen always smelled like graham crackers, and she had a dispenser for wooden matches that hung on the wall near the pantry door.

And I remember the television set at Grandma Barb's house. We didn't have a TV, so I was mesmerized whenever I saw one.

At Christmas of 1959, Dwight D. Eisenhower was still the President of the United States. I remember telling my brother once that I wished we had a television just so I could see the President. In my young and innocent mind, the President occupied a place of reverence slightly below God but far above ordinary people.

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Ghosts of Christmas Past (4)

All In The Family... Another Trip Down Memory Lane...

Twenty-eight years ago yesterday, Dennis and I were married in a little church in Missouri. He was a senior in college, and I had just graduated and was teaching 4th grade.

The wedding was on Saturday and I went back to work on Monday and taught school for a few more days before Christmas vacation finally started. My students were excited and giggly about using my new last name.

I felt a little sad tonight as I looked through the wedding photos to find one to post. So many of the dear friends and family members who gathered for our wedding have now passed away. Even the little church is no longer used as a place of Christian worship. Its members joined with another congregation a few miles away.

On a happier note, we still have a few of the decorations from the Christmas tree in the church (at right in the photo), and they've been used on our Christmas tree for 25 out of the 28 years of our marriage. (We didn't have any Christmas decorations with us when we were in Bolivia for 2 years and we didn't have a tree the first Christmas we spent in Germany.)

And of course we still have each other (for better or for worse, etc.!) Hopefully we will have another 28 years together or more...

Ghosts of Christmas Past (3)

All In The Family...

Cherry bonbons, still wet with chocolate

I make the cherry bonbons pictured above and some other homemade candies every Christmas for two main reasons:

• Grandma Netz (my husband's mother) always made a huge quantity of homemade candy at Christmas to give away and share. Every one of her children got a big box of candy from her as part of her Christmas gift. Grandma now lives in an assisted living home. Since she can't make her candy anymore, I make some of her favorite candy recipes and send them to her so she can still share them with her friends, visitors and family there.

• My husband really enjoys having Christmas candy to give and to share like his mother did. He thinks Christmas is truly here when I put on my apron and the smell of chocolate fills the air and these wonderful fattening little goodies appear. This reason is just as important, maybe more so, than the first reason that I make candy at Christmas.

Here's Grandma Netz's recipe for the Cherry Bonbons, just as I copied it from her recipe files when I was a young bride. They are delicious and easier to make than you might think. This makes a huge batch. If you're just making for your own family, you could probably make just half a batch.

Elizabeth's Cherry Bonbons

Filling:
1 stick margarine
12 oz. coconut
1-1/2 boxes powdered sugar
3 cups chopped pecans
2 jars maraschino cherries, chopped and well-drained
1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
Vanilla to taste
Instant mashed potatoes to thicken mixture if needed

Chocolate Coating:
10 oz. Hershey Milk Chocolate bars
1 12-oz. pkg. chocolate chips
1/2 stick paraffin


Melt margarine; pour over coconut. Add powdered sugar and mix well. Add condensed milk and vanilla a bit at a time, mixing well. Add pecans and cherries. Mix all together well and roll into balls the size of an egg yolk. (Dip hands in powdered sugar while shaping.) Place balls on cookie sheet and chill.

Melt Hershey bars in top of a double boiler; add chocolate chips and paraffin, stirring until melted. Remove a few balls from refrigerator and dip into chocolate mixture to coat. Place on waxed paper and chill. Store in airtight container in refrigerator or cool room.

Also on the topic of homemade candy:

• I've made peanut butter fudge for several years now using the online recipe for Myrtle's Peanut Butter Fudge. Grandma Netz told me that it was even better than her own recipe but the only difference is that Grandma Netz's peanut butter fudge recipe calls for marshmallow fluff, and Myrtle's recipe calls for mini-marshmallows.

• I tried an online recipe for Chocolate Mints this year. They are really easy to make and really good. If you like Andes mints, you'll love these. I made them with dark chocolate chips and since I didn't have any "candy coating", I used vanilla (white) almond bark and they turned out fine. The recipe makes just an 8x8 pan, but the candies are so rich that they can be cut small.

This year I also made some dipped peanut-butter bonbons that are similar to Reese's Cups in taste (also Grandma Netz's recipe) and another kind of peppermint candy. I've packed up a couple of tins of them to mail to Grandma tomorrow along with her Christmas presents. It is truly a load off my mind to have this accomplished.

I have packed up the rest of the candy. The candy we're giving away is sorted into tins, and the candy that I'm saving for Christmas is packed into a Tupperware container. I'm going to put most of it in the shed until closer to Christmas so it won't tempt us (me) quite as much!

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Ghosts of Christmas Past (2)

All In The Family...

Keely made this little angel in Art class when she was in 2nd or 3rd grade and gave it to me. The design was pressed into a thin sheet of art foam. Then color (crayon) was used to reveal the design. The finished product was framed in a recycled Christmas card. Keely always groans when I display it, but I like it. I imagine that the happy smile of the angel reflects the feelings of little Keely as she anticipated Christmas and prepared this little gift for her mother.

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Life In Germany...

Twenty years ago, Dennis, I, and little Keely (1 year old) had been in West Germany for a few weeks. We had been sent to the army post at Aschaffenburg by my husband's employer, the Army-Air Force Exchange Service, and we were staying in a hotel waiting for our apartment to become available and our shipment of household goods to arrive.

Dennis was working evenings so he got back to the hotel from work about 1 a.m. I tried to keep Keely on a similar schedule so we could all get some sleep. If she woke up before Dennis was awake in the morning, I hustled her out of the room and we went for a walk for a while.

The photo at left shows the view from our hotel window. Though you wouldn't guess from this photo, it was a nice gasthaus at the edge of a little Bavarian village, and there were sheep in a pasture just over the back fence.

Breakfast was provided. The first morning that we ate there, I thought the huge slabs of butter were slices of cheese. Dennis learned to properly crack open the top of an egg and eat it out of its shell as it stood in its little egg cup. I was too revolted by the extremely soft-cooked state of the yolks to eat them. However, I quickly learned to love German coffee laced with cream.

I kept some snacks for Keely in our room, and she and I usually went downstairs to the restaurant in the evening for a hot meal. People stared at the American woman and her toddler because they didn't usually bring their one-year-olds to restaurants. There weren't any high-chairs, but we managed.

One of my main pastimes besides entertaining Keely was learning a few words of German. I had a dictionary, so I made flashcards for myself and filled a notebook with lists of words that I might need. I also tried to translate the newspaper. I had much better luck understanding the advertisements than the news stories.

As soon as our apartment became available, we borrowed a few items from my husband's co-workers and a couple of beds from Military Housing and set up camp. We were very grateful to get out of the hotel room!

I bought some Christmas presents for Keely, but I don't think Dennis and I exchanged any gifts that year. Our Christmas gift was our shipment of household goods that arrived on December 23. Finally, we could make a home again.

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