NEW ADVENT SERIES: NOSTALIGIC CHRISTMAS CARDS & RECIPES

"Well, 'they say' you don't have to answer a Christmas card -- see – till next Christmas. It is more in the nature of a gift, so to speak, tho I've always hated not to do so. My way is to get a supply of New Year cards; then if I'm caught a few lines on the card fixes it or the card alone, see!" Ina Dobson, January 1935


When I was growing up, my mother always provided some sort of advent program for me – counting the 24 days to Christmas from December 1. Usually it was a purchased advent calendar, and our favorites told a little Christmas story. When Christmas was over, Mother would carefully close the little paper "doors" and put the calendar away in a box. I have quite a collection of old advent calendars.

These days I build my own advent projects. This year my focus is old Christmas cards and family recipes – a (mostly) daily blog entry until Christmas. Most of the cards I'll post are those received by my dad in 1946. He evidently read them, slipped them back into their envelopes, and when the holiday was over, put the box away where I eventually found it. I don't know if there was a reason he saved the cards or if it just happened. For years, I toyed with the idea of tossing them, but an antique dealer suggested they had been kept this long, why not continue to keep them? And that's the way we collect useless things. Anyway, that's the history of most of the cards I'll show here, but I also have a few others – Grandma Ina's keepsakes or in some cases, my own. Every year I save a few cards.

And so, today's entries are two postcards, both sent to Grandma Ina from her mother, Lucy Dickson. The first card is undated, the second from 1915. I suspect these lovely sentiments were Ina's only gifts from her mother on the occasions in question.

And the first recipe, entitled "My Favorite Fruitcake," I found in my mother's oldest recipe file. My mother was one who truly loved fruitcake, and her favorite was a cake of mostly candied fruit with just enough batter to hold the fruit together. I can assure you that well before Thanksgiving the fruitcake had been made and stashed somewhere to age. I remember one year when Mother let Daddy poured brandy over the fruitcake, but that didn't happen in later years.

MY FAVORITE CANDIED FRUITCAKE [written by my mother, Dorothy Dobson]

Sift 2 cups sifted flour, 2 tsp baking powder and ½ tsp salt into a large bowl. Add one pound candied cherries, one pound candied pineapple coarsely cut, 1 ¼ pound pitted dates coarsely cut, ½ pound citron. Mix well with hands to coat each piece of fruit with flour.

Beat 4 eggs until frothy. Gradually beat in 1 cup sugar. Add to fruit and mix well. With hands mix 2 cups pecans into half of the fruit mixture. Bake one cake with nuts, one without.

Grease and line two loaf pans with brown paper. Grease paper. Divide batter into two pans and press down firmly with fingers. Re-arrange fruit if necessary to fill corners.

Bake in slow oven (275) about 1 ¼ hours. Let cake stand in pans about 5 minutes. Turn out on rack, pull off brown paper. Cool.

A dear friend at church reminisced once that as a child in the '30s he had been assigned to carry a Christmas gift of his mother's fruitcake to various neighbors. He finished by saying he thought it was a gift of dubious value because he didn't think it tasted very good.

Do you like fruitcake? Is it part of your holiday tradition? KW