Thanks for the memories...

My wonderful wife and I went to see "Christmas with the Kranks" this evening. A good time was had by all. I heartily recommend the film. Lots of laughter throughout and applause at the end.

As we were walking out to our car, B said, "If it weren't for women, there wouldn't be any memories." You'll see what prompted her to say this when you watch the movie.

It took a few seconds for that to sink in. You know, I had to agree with her. Most of the things I remember about Christmas are things that directly involved the women in my life. There's the smell of woodsmoke when we got to my Grandparent's home for breakfast Christmas morning. My Grandmother liked to cook on the old woodstove in the room across the dog-run (read "Old Yeller" and think screened windows). The wonderful aromas of food, no, make that Food! So much food you couldn't eat even a little bit of everything if you tried, not that we didn't try. Lots of country ham, sugar-cured and salt-cured, bacon, sausage, fried chicken, fried eggs, scrambled eggs, pickled eggs, fried apples (the real thing, not the sad stuff they to pass off as fried apples at Cracker Barrel and other restaurants), biscuits that my Grandmother squeezed off in her huge flour bowl, toast, fried potatoes, ham gravy, sausage gravy, corn fritters, hashbrown, sweet potato and several other breakfast casseroles, fresh churned butter, homemade applebutter, jellies and preserves, pancakes, and waffles. Coffee, OJ, milk, hot chocolate, and Oh, my Aunt Barbara's spiced apple cider! Can I get a testimony? Amen! The women in our extended family can flat-out cook!

We call it breakfast, but it's really a brunch, and that means there are desserts on the sideboards. Don't even get me started on them. Imagine what they do for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners when it's piled on like that for breakfast! (I think I gained 4 pounds writing this!)

And you know the men had but little hand in the preparation, though through the years we have been getting more involved. The women still call the men and children in to eat first while the womenfolk go in another room (get over it, it's a Southern thing) to rest a while and listen to the flatware clattering on the plates, the pass this and pass that, and the groans as everyone fills up. Make no mistake, we all lavish them with praise for the fine job they've done, and they bask in it.

Decorations for holidays are almost all done by women. Excepting the outdoor variety, under the fairer sex's supervision of course, the men usually aren't very interested in all that stuff. Frankly, if it were left up to the average man, at Christmas there wouldn't be any darling red bows on the lampshades, no candles surrounded by cranberries on a crystal plate, no greenery swags, no holiday centerpieces, no ribbons around the columns like candy canes, no candles in the windows, no wreaths on the doors, nor stockings hung. No snowmen, reindeer, or other Christmas knick-knacks around the house, no cards hanging around the doors, no Dickens villages, no sleigh bells on the door, probably not even a Nativity tableau on the mantle, nor carols playing in the background. The Christmas tree would most likely be a life-sized poster hanging on a wall. Not that we don't enjoy it. We just don't want to do it, just don't feel the need for it, and if we feel that way about Christmas, imagine what we wouldn't do for the other holidays.

Have you thanked the women who have laid the foundations of memory year after year in your life? I know I'll be making some phone calls tomorrow.
GBW