On the fourth day of Christmas
My true love gave to me
Four calling birds
Three French hens,
Two turtledoves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
Contrary to popular belief, the Twelve Days of Christmas refers not to the days leading up to Christmas Day, but actually begins on Christmas Day and ends on Epiphany, the day celebrated as the arrival of the Wise Men. Therefore, it is currently still Christmas, and I am still fully justified in sharing Aunt Elsie's Christmas stories. Next week's transcription will also arrive during Christmas, and I will endeavor to complete the transcription in that week, and thereby avoid the sin of unseasonality.
Mom always left her shopping until the day before Christmas. Getting her last minute preparations for a large dinner the next day. I don't see how she did it. Christmas dinner was always on time with out fuss. Dad always wanted his meals on time, all the time.
We always had plum pudding and mince pie and fruit cake. A old English tradition. We loved to watch her make her plum puddings and mince meat and her fruit cake. If we were lucky she would give us a taste of the candied fruit, raisins or currants.
A day or so ahead she made her mincemeat tarts. To be heated up the day of the dinner. She would make a sauce for the pudding the last minute, it was served warm. This sauce had brandy and vanilla flavoring. This time of the year was the only time I ever saw brandy in our house. I think they kept it on the top shelf of the pantry. Dad called it "Chinese tea" No one was suppose to touch it, used for medicine only. Dads words no one was to mess with it. To my knowledge no one ever did.
There were no mixes of any kind, Mom made everything from scratch. She had her own measuring devices. Like a measuring cup she had a tea cup, and a ordinary teaspoon, a tablespoon, a dessert spoon (a spoon less than a tablespoon) a pinch of this and a handful of that. I have to have good recipes. Let the other fellow do the guess work.
We had a large round table that sat eleven or twelve, five of us and neighbors family of four and a hired man or two.
I can't remember when we never has a turkey for Christmas. Of course it usually was one we had raised. Whether we bought or raised our own we had to dress it. The legs and the head were removed. Then Mom would pour boiling water over the feathers. We then picked off all the feathers and that left a lot of pin feathers. My job was to pick the pin feathers out. You had to be careful not to break the skin, when cooking the juices would leak out. The pin feathers are feathers not fully grown.
The enterals were removed, saving the liver, heart, gizzard and the neck. Wash the turkey very good inside and out. The liver, heart, gizzard and neck are cooked until tender. Can put in the gravy or in the dressing.
Everyother Christmas we had the neighbors over or they had us over. The Church's that were our neighbors had a girl my age and a boy Bill's age. Margart was the girls name and Charly was the boys name.
This was the Christmas we were going to the neighbors (the Churchs). for dinner. We got up early. It had snowed during the night. It was beautiful everything completely covered. The white glistening snow was just like a winter-wonderland, not a mark any where. A unbeleivabe fairyland.
We were thankful for having all our animals save and warm in their housings. This day they would stay inside and eat and stay out of the cold.
We even hated to disturb the out side walks. We had to tho in order to care for the animals. Our dog seemed to like it, but I don't think he knew what it was. He would get in a drift and had a hard time getting out. Us children had a lot of fun watching him. We were there ready to help him if he needed it, but he seemed to enjoy every minute of it.
My dad and my brothers cleaned off the sleigh and got the horses hitched to the sleigh. We would carry some warm blankets to keep us warm. The boys wore jeans, but not the girls We had to wear dresses all the time. It wasn't lady like to wear any kind of trousers. Thats by we had to wear long black stockings in the winter time to cover up our long jhons. Long jhons had long legs, sometimes you had to fold the legs at the bottom to fit the stockings. At Easter, off came the long johns. Then our legs would be cold, but we never complained for they might put them back on us.
We wore the warmest clothes we had. Mittens and scarves were a must. Our noses were as red as a big red cherry. We would blow out our mouths covered by scarves, to see how much steam we could make. It looked like smoke curling up. This would make our scarves wet, our scarves were wrapped around our neck and over our mouths to keep the cold from our lungs. The scarves would get wet and the dampness would freeze and make frosty ice crystals, it would look funny.
The ride to our friends was fairly short, but very pretty. The snow on the fences and bushes side of the road made us feel we were in a different world. The horses didn't seem to mind the snow, they seemed to pick up their feet a little higher, as tho they were strutting. Ever once in a while we would see small tracks acrossing the road probably some rabbits hunting some thing to eat.
The neighbors welcomed us with open arms, everyone talking at once. Asking how was the roads, did you have any trouble getting here. What did Santa leave?
In side it was real nice and warm. The smells were wonderful. The chattering soon lessened. The fresh air gave us an appetite. We would eat right away as Dad had to have his meal at noon. The dinner was very good, but they never had all the goodies as Mom made.
We played with their toys for a while and then went outside to play in the snow. Mostly snowing snowballs at each other.
It was time to go home, saying our good byes, we felt bad that we had to leave our friends behind. We had had a super day. They lived just a short ways, away from us. Mother would say "just a stones throw away."
We had a very nice dinner but my brothers missed the plum puddings and mince pie. The ride home was great but not as pretty as the ride in the morning, the roads were slushy from the traffic We couldn't see the tracks of the little rabbits.
It is interesting to hear about the English Christmas traditions that traveled to the U.S. with the Underwood family, and ponder how they were lost before my generation. I have never so much as seen a plum pudding in person, let alone tasted one. I did taste mincemeat once, but it was not at a family Christmas celebration. Fruit cake, too, has disappeared from our family table, although I suspect that one was not a great loss.
I also find it interesting to discover that my great-grandmother's style of cooking did not work for Aunt Elsie. All of the Underwood girls were fantastic cooks by the time I knew them, and I had supposed they had learned it from their mother. However, it seems that Elsie, at least, must have learned her skills elsewhere. It makes me wonder where, as well as how her sisters learned to cook.
Citation:
Elsie Crocker, "Christmas on the Farm when I was a Small Child" (typescript, 1990); copy in possession of Amber Brosius, 2020.
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