December Gifts

“The stillness of winter. Snow on a twig. A berry imprisoned in ice. The quietness of a frozen lake. The bareness of a winter’s landscape allows us to get a better view of the world we inhabit.”
-The Christmas Chronicles
by Nigel Slater

Last December, I went holly tracking through the winding country roads of Derrylaughan with Uncle Paddy. His son, and namesake, was to be married in mid-December, when the Irish days are at their darkest, and morning rainbows give way to pine-uprooting windstorms.

Paddy thought the church would be lovely with clusters of fresh holly cut from his family’s fields, a perfect tribute to his son and the bride. My heart ached to think of this simple expression of love and family, land and tradition.

How beautiful that in our world of artifice and division, there is still that remnant of peace. Truth may manifest in a field, wet with rain and resonant with the bleating of sheep. A field blessedly untouched by progress.

As the bounty of autumn bows to the darkness of winter, I find such beauty in the juxtaposition of seasons. Even now, burgundy leaves cling to my oak leaf hydrangea, gently framing the verdant green of holly leaves and the red blaze of their berries in my front garden. A squirrel has discovered a forgotten pumpkin resting beneath the detritus of maple leaves.

Amid this palette of green and red, brown and burgundy, gentle flakes of white snow fall from the sky. A rainbow of quiet.

For me, winter has always been a time of reflection, a time of wistful longing, and the bittersweet pang of nostalgia. Holly trees and woodsmoke, nutmeg and clove, the sharp scent of oranges and pine

Whether seeking holly in the west of Ireland or breathing in the damp scent of a lakeside campfire, there is something primal about our need for warmth and tradition during the short days of December. The colors of winter dictate our longings and our cravings for comfort.

My parents would light a pale green bayberry candle during long winter nights. The juniper scent of the wax mingled with the ashen smell of our wood burning fireplace.

Christmas Cookies

After long workdays as a nurse, my mother still found the time to bake Christmas cookies in our small Chicago kitchen. She would call me in to sprinkle cinnamon candy hearts on flaky butter cookies.

Mom would gently scold my father as he gobbled up the buttery confections still hot from the oven. With a wink, he always said he liked the burnt ones the best.

My mother would roll fragrant rum balls in cocoa and crushed pecans. She would bake orange cookies with clove and black walnuts. Much like Paddy’s holly trees, the orange cookies whisper tales of my mother’s past.

Black walnut trees lined the path through the fields to the farmhouse where my mother grew up. My grandmother Mim would pick the nuts and cure them, adding the nutmeat to her orange cookies. Mim would always have an old coffee can filled with the cookies ready and waiting for her visitors.

Curiously, the owners of Dalrymple Farms, beekeepers near our home in Crooked Lake, not only procure small batches of the finest honey that I have ever tasted, but they also forage black walnuts from the trees growing on their property. Each fall, I look forward to the last Saturday of the farmer’s market in town.

I purchase the final batch of Dalrymple’s thick autumn honey and old Mason jars filled with fresh black walnuts. For me, the smell and texture of the nuts remind me of my roots and the simple gifts that grew from the soil of my mother’s childhood farm.

The older I become, the more I realize that the places that have always felt most like home for me are colored by trees and water, leaves and brown earth. The farm in Missouri, the fields and strands of Ireland, the woods that surround Crooked Lake, all mirror one another in their primitive beauty.

Warmth and tradition tumble in damp leaves and frosty winds. In my Decembers, there will always be a pot of soup on the stove, fragrant with garden-fresh parsnips and rich broth the color of saffron and meadow honey.

In my Decembers, there will always be flaky pastries dusted with cinnamon, filled with the earthy sweetness of apples and nutmeg, resting alongside bowls of oranges and thick-shelled brown nuts. In my Decembers, there will always be candlelight, wood-burning fires, boughs of holly, and the phantom breath of my loved ones reminding me that the best gifts of winter are always the simplest.