Family Holiday Stories

A College Christmas Story

Years ago-way back when I was a first-year college student in the early '90s, I lived in a rather run-down dorm in beautiful Gunnison, Colorado. It was my first time away from home and I was extremely homesick as December came around. I had a very touchy roommate who would occasionally lock me out of the room if she had a big assignment or test coming up. So one night, the door was locked and I had nowhere to go so I sat out on the floor of the hallway, right outside of the room. Pretty soon, a few friends had joined me in my lonely hallway vigil and for whatever reason, we began to sing Christmas carols. The singing brought out more kids from down the hall and before long, we had quite a musical group going. We had just started "Silent Night" when a young man down the hall stopped as he was going up the stairs and stared at us. Suddenly he began to sing along with us in the most beautiful voice I had ever heard. It was so pure and angelic that it brought tears to my eyes as the beautiful melody came to a close. When the song was finished, he disappeared just like that as we all sat there in stunned silence. I never saw him again but his voice and that shared moment with my fellow homesick classmates will always stay with me. And it just goes to show that caroling is the proven cure for any case of holiday blues, even for college students.

“Are These Mommy Dogs?”

Growing up as an only child, Christmas was always such an exciting time for me. My mother was an admitted Christmas freak while my dad's reaction to the holiday was usually a more colorful version of "Bah Humbug!" Mom would pull out all our well loved decorations (including the embarrassing "Santa must have hit a wall doing 100 mph" ornament I gleefully decorated back in preschool) and prominently display them for all to see. The wonderful sounds of Bing Crosby, Sinatra, Perry Como and Mario Lanza started filling the house right before Thanksgiving all the way through to Christmas Day. Something about those classic songs made me feel connected to the great “Christmas collective”-generations of holiday traditions, warm memories and the yuletide spirit all wrapped up in their beautiful melodies. Of course when I grew up, I married a man from my father's tribe of Scrooge worship so that when our kids came along, I was determined to raise them with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads and a Christmas carol in their hearts.

I couldn't wait to have new family traditions-Santa anticipation, Christmas movies, the big tree filled with mismatched, tacky handmade ornaments-the whole experience topped off with those beloved holiday songs as our seasonal soundtrack. By our third child, I believed I had finally filled my Christmas carol crew-although even I go a little red in the Rudolph after we've gone through the entire Chipmunks Christmas album for the 4th time in a row. We've had some great Christmases through the years but one of the most memorable holiday experiences happened when our firstborn daughter Joan Claire was 3 years old. She was for that brief, special time the only child (so familiar to me!) and she absolutely loved Christmas music. We set up a radio in her room to play a non stop holiday music station that she would listen to quietly every night. She would wake up with a new song every day and was becoming quite the carol aficionado. One morning it would be “Jingle Bells”, the next “White Christmas”. “Happy Holidays” made way for “Silver Bells”, “Frosty the Snowman” and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” (although that last one confused her a bit). Just when I thought she might have known every existing Christmas song, she came out of her room one morning singing “are these mommy dogs?” Intrigued, I asked her what that song was and she kept saying “are these mommy dogs?” It took me awhile but I finally figured out that she was trying to sing “Feliz Navidad” and those were what the Spanish lyrics sounded like to her. She would sing the “Are These Mommy Dogs” song again and again that year-it became sort of a charming holiday anthem. To this day I can never listen to “Feliz Navidad” without thinking about those wonderful mommy dogs as sung by my precious little Christmas angel.

Joan is 15  now,  taller than me and absolutely cringes at any mention of the “Mommy Dogs” song. She is turning a bit to her dad's Ebenezer point of view of all things Christmas but I'm not worried. Someday she'll be back and eventually, she'll put up that big tacky tree and sing those old songs to her own children. Yes, maybe she'll even tell the “Are These Mommy Dogs” story but if not, I'll be sure to do it. After all, what are parents and grandparents for if not to pass along the family traditions, stories, music and to completely embarrass their children? Even with that handmade ornament of Santa hitting a wall at 100 mph. Feliz Navidad!

"The Turducken-a Carnivore's Guide to Epicurean Bliss"

Several years ago my brother in law (a rather mischievous sort of fellow) suggested that we should cook a Turducken for our Christmas dinner, that of course, he would be invited to. “A Tur-what-en?” I replied completely ignorant of what was about to become a new lifetime holiday food tradition in our family. You see, he explained, a Turducken is the ultimate meal for every self respecting meat lover on the planet. With it's dark meat tenderness and layer upon layer of tasty goodness, you can indulge your inner caveman and make a true culinary statement. Of course, he also sent me a recipe he found online and the rest as they say, became “the beginning of a beautiful friendship”

What I was soon to discover was that the Turducken is a chicken, wrapped in a duck, wrapped in a turkey trussed up all together with 3 layers of stuffing in between. The recipe he found included a wonderful cornbread sausage stuffing just in case you didn't get enough meat with the birds. A centuries old idea, the Turducken gained fame in the US at a meat shop in Louisiana around 1985 and has become a ragin' Cajun staple each holiday season. How on earth do you get all those birds stuffed into each other you may ask? Why, through deboning them of course! My husband worked as a butcher in his college days so he was not afraid to take on this amazing feat and really enjoys it as part of our Christmas Eve tradition.

In a nutshell, get a super sharp knife and work from the chicken up as practice for the big turkey! Make a cut along the spine then start from the neck end, gently separating the meat from the rib cage on one of the sides. Toward the neck, you will cut through exposing the shoulder blade cutting the meat around and away from the bone. Then you will need to sever the bone at the joint in order to take out the shoulder blade. You can leave the wing attached by disjointing the wing in between the wing joints. Continue separating the meat from the bones heading to the thigh bone/leg and cutting through the ball and socket bone to remove it. Keep the leg meat attached (on the turkey only-no need for the duck and chicken) and also save what is known as the “oyster”-a fabulous pocket of meat located on the back of the bird. You will need to repeat this process for both sides of each bird-we like to save and boil the carcasses for stock because really, there just isn't enough meaty flavor already! The final product should be 3 flattened birds (with the turkey legs/wings still attached) that will be ready for assembly.

Season with your traditional favorite seasonings and make any stuffing you'd like for the layers. We like to do the sausage cornbread stuffing as well as my mother's traditional dressing with sour cream. We start putting our franken-birds together early Christmas morning because it takes a long time to cook this masterpiece! Place the turkey (skin down) and add a layer of stuffing, then put the duck (also skin down) on the turkey and add stuffing to it, finishing with the chicken-stuffed of course. You will need to truss up the birds since they are boneless using cotton string and a heavy duty cooking needle. My husband likes to sew each individual bird up as he goes then he really trusses up the finished product to keep it from falling apart. Place in your super roaster and you are ready to go!

We usually use a 20 lb+ turkey, around an 8 lb duck and 4-5 lb chicken but you can adjust depending on your needs. The original recipe had us cooking the Turducken at 225 for around 9 hours but we have found that we like to cook ours at a slightly higher temp for less time (325 then higher during the last hour or so) and check it with meat thermometers throughout the day. They say a meat thermometer should be placed into the center and read 165 when cooked. Once done, let it rest for about 45 min-1hour and you are ready for a flavor extravaganza! Cut it in half then slice crosswise to show off all 3 delicious layers and stuffings. It makes a beautiful, festive meal that is definitely not for vegetarians, vegans or the feint of heart. Although, adding some vegetables into your dressing might be kind of fun. Now, if only we could find a way to incorporate bacon for the world's truly perfect food. Hmm-maybe I'll have to ask my brother in law? Happy eating fellow carnivores!

The Tree

Have you ever noticed that when it comes to the holidays, there are 2 kinds of people-the Christmas fanatics and the Scrooges? Growing up, my mother was a certified Christmas freak-she loved it all-the music, decorations, tree, lights and we would start everything the day after after Thanksgiving. My dad on the other hand, got the Christmas spirit around midnight on Christmas Eve and his favorite holiday phrase was "Bah Humbug!" Well, this began from their very first Christmas together. They were newlyweds in December of 1966 and lived on the 3rd story of an apartment building in Chicago. My mom was so excited to get their first real tree up and started putting strings and strings of lights on it when the tree fell over. My dad started hacking away at the bottom of the tree with a knife in order to fit it into the tree stand and shoved it back in. My mom continued to decorate when once again, down the tree went. This went on another 3 times with dad chopping and mom fussing until he said "That's it! If it falls over again, it's going out the window!" Except, I can't really say what he said exactly since this IS a family show. Well, sure enough that stubborn tree took it's final dive and my dad picked it up, lights, decorations and all and shoved it out the 3rd story window. Well, as luck (or a Christmas angel would have it) it fell right side up into a snowbank and became the picture perfect holiday tree. Eventually, someone on the first floor got an extension cord and plugged the lights in so that everyone in the apartment complex could enjoy it. They would laugh about that story for years and although he would never admit it, I think my dad really enjoyed watching us get so wrapped up in the joy of the season and my mom, well she made sure we always had an artificial tree in our 1 story ranch house!