I have to bring in two dozen cookies for Leadership on Wednesday. My brother needs to bring in two dozen cookies for Tuesday, and my sister needs some for Wednesday as well. This afternoon, my mother went all out, and tried to bake about a thousand of them. She faced a few setbacks.
My mother doesn't like it when we bother her when she's trying to create. She's a chemist and an artist at heart, despite her profession, and cooking becomes an act of deep concentration. Only after my brother and sister had been banished (she was somewhat less successful with myself, and was forced to listen to various tirades as she beat eggs and whipped butter with an almost feverish enthusiasm) did she begin to bake. Out came the recipes, the ingredients, the wooden spoons. Out came the flour and the baking soda.
Crash. Half an hour later, down came the Christmas tree.
My father and I spent an hour taking turns holding on to the trunk of the massive vegetable and stripping it of its numerous entangled garlands, while my mother ran around the kitchen and my sister, who was probably a large factor in the disaster of chipped ornaments, slunk into a corner. Fortunately, none of our favourite decorations suffered more than a crack here and there.
As I stood in the living room, fighting to keep the large conifer standing, I thought about other Christmas trees I had known.
I wish I had known my grandfather better. He became sick when I was young, and most of my memories of him after the age of four revolve around a succession of nursing homes and hospitals. One of my best and only Christmas with Grandpa memories is the silver tree. It was my favourite job, and while other people would go around the house hanging little springs of false misteltoe and of holly cut from Aunt Margie's backyard, my grandfather and I would retire to the den to assemble it.
The silver tree was very old, one of those artificial trees where each branch comes out of a tube made of brown paper. Each year at Christmas we would carefully pull each branch out of its tube, relishing the swish as each branch unfolded in the light, like a sword being drawn from its sheath. After Christmas had gone by, we would take the branches out of the holes down the side and gently replace them in the ancient box that we kept in the garage with that of the full-size tree.
My grandfather and I would work in an easy silence. He was patient, but he never condescended to my level; he expected a job well done, and I would try my hardest to please him. When the tree had finally taken form and he had place the final branch on top, we would bring out the boxes of decorations. The silver tree had its own ornaments, mostly smaller versions of the ancient ones that went on the large tree year after year. Some of them were faded with age, and most of them were very fragile, shattering at a touch.
The silver tree was very old, and every year just as beautiful. When I go to my grandmother's condo in White Rock this year, when I walk through the wide door into the white-carpeted, modern, and wheelchair-accessible apartment, I know the silver tree will be there on the coffee table from the old house, resplendent in a glory that can only be augmented by age.
Having somewhat righted the tree (and sawed a foot off the bottom), my father and I headed into the kitchen to hassle my mother. I tasted one of her concoctions, a chocolate-chip variety.
"Are you sure you put sugar in these, Mom?"
"Yes, I'm sure. I put everything the recipe called for! I just don't know why they're so crumbly and hard."
"Are you sure you put sugar in these, Mom?"
"Yes, I put sugar in them. I put everything the...uh, wait a minute."
They aren't bad, but I don't think I'll be bringing those in on Wednesday. Maybe I should make something with coconut.
My mother doesn't like it when we bother her when she's trying to create. She's a chemist and an artist at heart, despite her profession, and cooking becomes an act of deep concentration. Only after my brother and sister had been banished (she was somewhat less successful with myself, and was forced to listen to various tirades as she beat eggs and whipped butter with an almost feverish enthusiasm) did she begin to bake. Out came the recipes, the ingredients, the wooden spoons. Out came the flour and the baking soda.
Crash. Half an hour later, down came the Christmas tree.
My father and I spent an hour taking turns holding on to the trunk of the massive vegetable and stripping it of its numerous entangled garlands, while my mother ran around the kitchen and my sister, who was probably a large factor in the disaster of chipped ornaments, slunk into a corner. Fortunately, none of our favourite decorations suffered more than a crack here and there.
As I stood in the living room, fighting to keep the large conifer standing, I thought about other Christmas trees I had known.
I wish I had known my grandfather better. He became sick when I was young, and most of my memories of him after the age of four revolve around a succession of nursing homes and hospitals. One of my best and only Christmas with Grandpa memories is the silver tree. It was my favourite job, and while other people would go around the house hanging little springs of false misteltoe and of holly cut from Aunt Margie's backyard, my grandfather and I would retire to the den to assemble it.
The silver tree was very old, one of those artificial trees where each branch comes out of a tube made of brown paper. Each year at Christmas we would carefully pull each branch out of its tube, relishing the swish as each branch unfolded in the light, like a sword being drawn from its sheath. After Christmas had gone by, we would take the branches out of the holes down the side and gently replace them in the ancient box that we kept in the garage with that of the full-size tree.
My grandfather and I would work in an easy silence. He was patient, but he never condescended to my level; he expected a job well done, and I would try my hardest to please him. When the tree had finally taken form and he had place the final branch on top, we would bring out the boxes of decorations. The silver tree had its own ornaments, mostly smaller versions of the ancient ones that went on the large tree year after year. Some of them were faded with age, and most of them were very fragile, shattering at a touch.
The silver tree was very old, and every year just as beautiful. When I go to my grandmother's condo in White Rock this year, when I walk through the wide door into the white-carpeted, modern, and wheelchair-accessible apartment, I know the silver tree will be there on the coffee table from the old house, resplendent in a glory that can only be augmented by age.
Having somewhat righted the tree (and sawed a foot off the bottom), my father and I headed into the kitchen to hassle my mother. I tasted one of her concoctions, a chocolate-chip variety.
"Are you sure you put sugar in these, Mom?"
"Yes, I'm sure. I put everything the recipe called for! I just don't know why they're so crumbly and hard."
"Are you sure you put sugar in these, Mom?"
"Yes, I put sugar in them. I put everything the...uh, wait a minute."
They aren't bad, but I don't think I'll be bringing those in on Wednesday. Maybe I should make something with coconut.
Daze.
