KEEPING CHRISTMAS

December 11, 2016

A friend recently asked, “What does keeping Christmas mean?”

I learned from internet research that keeping Christmas is an expression in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Though the phrase was certainly used in the Victorian era, the origin goes back at least to medieval times.

Keeping Christmas in the South recognizes the important role food plays in holiday festivities. The boulevards at many old plantations were lined with pecan trees. Each fall the nuts were gathered. When families sat together in rocking chairs or on joggling boards on the front porch, cracking and picking pecans was a pastime. Pecans were considered a delicacy and a staple. They were a favorite snack, roasted and salted, but they also were included in numerous recipes. My mother put them in apple salad, sweet potato soufflé, and banana bread. Pecan pie is the dessert of choice for a Southern Christmas.

Sweet potatoes were also a staple. Baked or candied, in casseroles, pies, or breads, yams were always a part of Christmas dinner. During the Great Depression my grandmother frequently prepared sweet potatoes three different ways for the same meal.

Southerners enjoy adding seafood to holiday fare. Oyster dressing was always a part of Christmas dinner in Clare’s home. We frequently include shrimp or scallops with our Christmas meal. For some families, crab cakes or she-crab soup, is a prelude to the main course.

At the center of the table is a platter with the featured meat. This varies from family to family or from year to year. Favorites are tenderloin, wild goose, or a turkey, baked, smoked, or deep-fried in peanut oil. A Christmas ham is traditional for many Southern families. My grandmother soaked a cured ham in apple juice overnight to remove the salt. She rubbed it with an orange, studded it with cloves, and basted it with apple cider.

Side dishes included peas with pearl onions or green beans with almond slivers. Squash casserole, macaroni and cheese casserole, and pickled okra are often added to the feast.

And then there were the sweets! My mother was the queen of celebration. Her coconut cake, lemon squares, and Kentucky Colonel chocolate bourbon balls were enough to draw a crowd. One brother-in-law said that the Kentucky Colonels were sufficient reason to marry into the family.

Keeping Christmas meant savoring the smells of the season. The aroma of cedar elicits memories from my youth. I recall trudging through fields and woods on our old family farm with my dad, granddad, uncles, brothers, and cousins, searching for the perfect red cedar trees for Christmas. We gathered branches from holly trees, preferably with bright red berries. We shot mistletoe out of the top of oak trees with a 22-rifle.

Mama preferred natural decorations mixing the collected greenery with citrus fruits to accent her garlands. Oranges studded with cloves gave holiday fragrance. Lemons, limes, and pineapples were added to centerpieces. Glossy magnolia leaves gave every decoration a distinctively Southern elegance.

Poinsettias, discovered and named by Greenville native Joel Poinsett, were featured in our home as in many others in Upstate South Carolina. A blaze in the fireplace added the smell of hardwood smoke to the crisp December air.

Our cedar Christmas tree was decorated with ornaments we had made as children as well as others that had survived years of handling and storage. Some were homemade others were gifts from friends. Each one had a special meaning.

Our custom has been to keep some small gifts by our front door. If a visitor comes, we can offer a tasty treat. Gifts for family and friends can include homemade pound cake, cookies, or brownies. Jellies and jams, fruit and nuts are popular Southern gifts. Moravian sugar cake is an all-time favorite. One lady in Winston-Salem made the best pear preserves from the knotty little fruit that grew on a tree in her yard.

All of these traditions are a part of keeping Christmas. But there is more.

Keeping Christmas is about spending time with family and friends. The joy of swapping stories and singing together is a part of a Southern Christmas.

My mother was adopted. In her new family, she had one older sister, whom she called Sister. It was only natural that my seven siblings and I should call this dear woman Aunt Sister. She was a proper Southern lady. Her heritage went back to a plantation in Darlington County. She was the first person I knew who used the expression keeping Christmas.

When my friend raised the question about the phrase, my thoughts went back to Aunt Sister. What did she mean by keeping Christmas?

Keeping Christmas well means to worship, not only in a candlelight service, but also with acts of kindness. Beyond good food, decorations, gift giving, and family time, it is important to keep Christmas in our hearts.

It was something Ebenezer Scrooge had to learn in A Christmas Carol. Scrooge had become so self-centered that his life focused on material wealth. He refused to light a coal fire, preferring instead to curse the cold weather in an attempt to save one more shilling. Like the Grinch who tried to steal Christmas, Ebenezer’s heart was two sizes too small. He saw the world around him as a miserable place. The real problem was within his own soul.

The ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future confronted Scrooge with his own spiritual poverty. Through these revelations he had the opportunity to change. Much to the astonishment of Bob Cratchit, and Tiny Tim, Ebenezer Scrooge became a different man. The streets of London were the same. Tiny Tim still had his affliction. The transformation that occurred was in the heart of Ebenezer Scrooge.

Keeping Christmas requires a change of heart.

One Christmas Aunt Sister sent me a poem by Henry Van Dyke. Here is a portion of “Keeping Christmas.”

There is a better thing than the observance of Christmas day, and that is, keeping Christmas.

Are you willing

to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you;
to ignore what the world owes you, and to think what you owe the world;
to see that men and women are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy;
to close your book of complaints against the management of the universe, and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness?

Are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing

to stoop down and consider the needs and desires of little children;
to remember the weakness and loneliness of people growing old;
to stop asking how much your friends love you, and ask yourself whether you love them enough;
to bear in mind the things that other people have to bear in their hearts;
to try to understand what those who live in the same home with you really want, without waiting for them to tell you;
to trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke,
to make a grave for your ugly thoughts, and a garden for your kindly feelings?

Are you willing to do these things, even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing