BY MICHELE MILLER
What’s What New Port Richey
All our bags are packed and we’re ready to go in a way that’s akin to those over-prepared boomer parents you’re advised not to be like in Progressive Insurance commercials. True to form, we’ve been tuning in to the Weather Channel and so we’ve decided to hit the road a day early to beat what looks to be a brutal winter storm that is barreling across the nation.
Word to the wise – in this case, you might want to be like your parents.
As traditions go, traveling over the Christmas holiday is a newer one that signals the change of time and a passing of the torch. Our offspring are grown. They are melding new traditions with ones they’ve married into and others they have inherited and might eventually pass on. They have their own families and busy work schedules to contend with and sometimes can’t be home for Christmas. We’re retirees – save for this blog – and so now comes the time for us to go to them.
That’s the way it’s supposed to be, I’m reminded while making a batch of my grandmother’s Christmas fudge in a kitchen where my late mother’s hand-me-down plaque hangs on the wall bearing words of parental wisdom I try to defer to when it comes to the conflicted business of letting go.
There are only two lasting bequests we can give our children. One is roots. The other wings.
I made my own flight from family to Florida a few decades ago where I eventually adapted to the tradition of picking out a “freshly cut” Christmas tree while donning summer garb – a tree that would always be strung with soft white lights after I claimed victory during the “Great Christmas Light Stand-off” of 1980 with my husband, who’s family was of the colored light variety.
Over the years we’ve learned to bend and even cast off some of those traditions. It’s a matter of course, hastened in some ways by the pandemic that distanced loved ones and the flight of two of our adult children to other states.
It’s hard to gather altogether anymore so we learn to celebrate where we are – where they are. This year we’ll be bringing along the Christmas confectionary staple that years ago came wrapped in foil and packed in recycled note card boxes, labeled with a recycled Christmas card gift tag, and typically accompanied by a crocheted winter scarf and a pair of Irish Knit mittens.
My grandmother was happy to teach us how to knit or crochet, but she was a stickler for holding that treasured fudge recipe close to the vest. After many years and much pestering, she finally relinquished it to a few of us who had moved out of state with the addendum “not to share” with ANYONE.
She is long gone and so went the addendum. Now her tradition is carried out in the kitchens of many and the annals of social media pages where descendants share photos and reels of the stages of making “Grammy’s Fudge.”
It can be a tricky business, to be sure, and there are various ways to fail – especially if you are impatient with the cooking or stirring process.
When you’re thinking you’re ready to pour that hot bubbly pot of sugar and evaporated milk over a mixing bowl filled with a concoction of chocolate chips, Marshmallow Fluff and butter is when it’s time I’ve discovered, to listen carefully for an inner voice that might guide you in a grandmotherly way.
“Not yet. A little longer,” she tells me as I resume the painstaking chore of stirring until it reaches just the right temperature and sticks to the side of the pot in the way she knew how to eyeball.
This one might just be the best batch yet, I think later on as I cut the fudge into healthy chunks and layer it in foil-lined recycled holiday tins labeled with last year’s Christmas cards that I’ve fashioned into tags that tell a story of this long-held family tradition.
“One of my fondest childhood memories……….is how it starts.
Go ahead – pass it on 🙂
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How about sharing Grammy’s Fudge recipe?
Send me an email at mmiller@whatswhatnewportrichey.com