Grandmas Goulash

Their intentions were good, but their off-pitch warbling made the whole town grumpy. Even the heavens pelted them with snowballs.  Frozen nose. Frozen toes. Let’s go home, Dad. I suppose. Just one more house. Won’t that be nice? ‘Twas one too many. Now they’re ice.  

So the Christmas season is here again. In years that have long gone by, it was a far more complicated time. Black Friday was just a grand finale to shopping that had commenced a couple of months before. I had purchased Christmas cards in October and already had a couple of stacks ready to be mailed out in December. Before I took dozens of boxes of decorations out of storage, I began holiday cleaning that went far  beyond just house cleaning  basics. I saddled myself with washing walls, cleaning draperies and polishing floors. The tree was at least a three day production with close to three hundred carefully placed ornaments. After that, I decorated every room in the house. In a fourteen room house, that’s a lot of decorating. And when it was completed, the outside got decorated as well. What was next? Christmas baking, of course. Much of it was used as small gifts for neighbors and acquaintances, so the process also included finding or making seasonal ...

Frugal bakers, Todd & Love, didn’t hesitate to substitute ground twigs for flour. ”Try our healthy bread with the satisfying crunch!”  When money got tight, they borrowed some cash to keep the business afloat. Alas, the dough had strings attached.