INA'S CHRISTMAS MEMORIES, DAY 10

“I wish you’d come home for Christmas. Couldn’t you have arranged it?” – Ina, 1934

Let’s face it, Ina. Vance just doesn’t want to come home for Christmas, and I can tell you that he’s NOT going to do it.

Vance at the piano at his home in Raymond, WA, 1937

Vance cared very much about his mother, but I think that Christmas on the farm wasn’t his idea of a good time. He preferred to celebrate with friends, and they loved having him. For one thing, he provided a strong piano accompaniment for their carol singing. Let’s not be down on him, though. Many people prefer not to go home for Christmas, for whatever reason.

Some people bake traditional cookies for Christmas, but for Ina and Jack, the central goodie is popcorn. Ina says, “That evening [of the 23^rd], after all was cleared away, Dad popped two kettlefuls of lovely corn and we sugared one and put toffy [it’s toffee, not taffy] over the other. We heaped a large platter with balls till Dad said, ‘Oh, that’s enough,’ for he wanted some left to eat. Well, I sent him off to the living room to eat and read. Then I prepared my dressing and sweet potatoes for the morrow and put my buns to rise, for I’d baked lite bread and roasted beef too. At last, I repaired to my seat before the fire with a pan of sugared corn, nuts and candy and filled eleven little Christmas boxes for the tree.”

Through comments on other posts, I was led to discover that the word I had read as “taffy” was probably “toffee,” and I suspect Ina used some variation of the standard corn syrup coating. For that recipe, I turned to the Karo website (here).

As for the sugared popcorn, Emeril Lagasse provides a recipe (here), basically just sugar and water with a bit of butter, cooked until thickened. These days, we’d probably just buy a package of “sweet and salty” microwave popcorn and call it good.

Naturally, recipes abound for popcorn coatings today, but I feel certain Ina kept it simple. KW