Holidays and Seasonal Pies

I hear friends, co-workers, and other contacts tell me about the hell involved in their holiday celebrations. Examples range from, "Grandma showed up and forgot to put on her pants," to, "we drove a total of 40 hours to make it to all four households." While my family has the genetic muster to challenge all but the most psychologically challenged, I simply cannot one-up the logistical nightmare presented by split household families. One of my cousins needs to visit four households across three states to make his holiday trips. It makes the two hour drive out the family farm seem like a scant car trip.

Despite the logistics being reasonable, it still required a solid month before I was capable of writing about them. Anja received a treasure trove of gifts including a new doll house and a very nice table and chairs set from Nana and Boppa. Grandma and Grandpa gave her (and us) a year-long membership to the Zoo. For everyone else Grandma made calendars. Grandma's calendars features various pictures from family trips and of the family animals. Annotated in each month was which pies were in season. On the outside, looking in, this may seem a little silly. To be honest, on the inside looking in, it is a little silly. But really, it's only silly because of veracity upon which my family will attack the task of making, baking, and eating pie.

Both Thanksgiving and Christmas feature three different kinds of pie. Including, my Grandma making a key-lime pie to go with the fruit pies because, "I didn't know which was better for Susi's gestational diabetes."

After giant meals, with their associated piece(s) of pie, most everyone in the house is either dressing to do chores outside (not me), or trying to become one with any number of recliners in the house (me). Anja has discovered a viable third option:



I don't think you will find Daddy doing this type of thing any time soon. Swapping the positions of the food entrance and food exist after eating one of Grandma's holiday meals would be infinitely unwise.

It should also be said that a normal Sunday meal on the farm is not too far from what we see on the holidays. Sometimes it features one less pie, or no pies but a cake, it has even been known to have only cookies as a dessert option. I really do not know my Grandmother's age. I know she has been cooking like this for at least 50 years because my Mom has just tipped that age herself. Given at least 50 years of eating in this style it's easy to assume my family is full of overweight corn-fed midwesterners with diabetes and cholesterol problems. With the exception of my 75-plus year old Grandfather's heart attack and subsequent stroke, from which he recovered quickly and was out milking cows less than six months afterwards, there have been no major medical problems with our family. My Great-Grandfather died only a few years ago and he did so at the age of 99. Over this last holiday venture I went to see my Aunt Ora. She was the sister to my Great-Grandmother. A week later she passed away. She was 103 years old. In my younger years, I remember vividly needing to stand on pieces of notebook paper so that she could measure our feet. This happened every Thanksgiving and every Christmas we'd receive a pair of hand-knit slippers. The activity of choice with these slippers was to slide around on my Grandma's vinyl floors. This did typically decrease the typical lifespan of the slippers but also ensured that Aunt Ora would have something to put under the tree for the next year. In the last two years, she had really taken to Anja, at least pictures of her. She once told me, "I don't have much time left to remember things; you need to send me some pictures of that girl." So I did. My last memory of my Aunt was visiting her in her room at the hospice and seeing pictures of Anja all over the room. She had one by her bed that my Grandma told me was one of her favorites. When nurses would come check on her she would proudly show off these pictures to them.

This was one of those pictures:


It was one taken the last time I saw my Great-Grandmother, Anja's Great-Great Grandmother Grace Dilley. Anja's newest cousin takes her middle name from her: Alexa Grace Little. Maybe naming people in memorial is a little silly from time-to-time but right now I feel comforted by it.