Every year of my childhood, Christmas began in November with mom’s fruit cake, made this early so it could age to perfection with multiple lashing of grape juice until ready to give away in December. People truly looked forward to it every year which made it difficult for me to understand the fruitcake jokes. Personally, I wasn’t interested because it was full of candied fruit which I never learned to like.

While the fruit cake stewed within its wrapper and tin, mother made candies and all kinds of cookies. Tin after tin was filled to the brim in readiness for the December gifting of homemade goodies to friends, family, the postman, the milkman, and so forth. Later in December she would bake the more perishable, the pies, coffee cakes (we called them Dutch cakes), and cinnamon rolls.

But November was dedicated to the cookies and for all those cookies, she needed nuts. Lots and lots of nuts of all kinds. I was recruited at a young age to participate in the ritual of shelling nuts. Each evening in the fire-warmed living room, my mom, grandmother and I sat cracking and shelling nuts. My father’s time was also commandeered and my cousin’s while she lived with us and finally my little brother’s when he was old enough. Herewith is my record of efficiency and the reason that Christmas is always a memory of walnuts for me.

Almonds. I was started on almonds, probably because of the soft shell. However, I was not good at handling the nutcracker and too often the shell ended up crushed. Trying to fish out the almond pieces was like sifting through straw and many of the nut bits ended up in my mouth (I had permission to eat the bits, just not whole or half nuts). I was moved on.

Brazil Nuts. I didn’t like these nuts, not to eat or shell. The nuts were so large and the shell so hard, I had to use two hands. Often the cracker slipped off the nut. Sometimes the nut or cracker and went flying across the room or into the bowl of successfully shelled nuts causing them to bounce to the floor. I was moved on.

Hazel nuts or Filberts. What could the problem be with filberts, other than the fact they had two names? They were small. That was to the good. The shell was hard, not soft, also good. Have you guessed? They were too small. They either slipped from my control or were crushed. The bits were safe, though. I didn’t like hazel nuts. Once more, I was moved on.

Pecans. These had a fighting chance. They were of reasonable size and the shell was neither too hard nor too soft. But they just did not want to leave their shells. Invariably I had to use the nut pick to pry them out because they were unwilling to leave their husks. I was not alone in this. It happened to all mom’s workers. The issue arose because the meat of the pecan was so soft. I tended to gouge the poor things into crumbs which I rarely ate as they were only mildly appealing. But my mother needed whole pecans, not crumbs. I was moved on.

Walnuts. Finally. My favorite nut. I could and can eat walnuts until they make my mouth sore. This, of course, was the real source of having walnuts taken from my responsibility. Otherwise, I was good at cracking them. They had a nice seam to line up on and the hardness of the shell was just right. When I did crush the shell, the walnut quite often survived intact. That’s where the nut pick came in. Luckily the walnut wanted to remain solid and usually came out whole. Whole and half nuts and even quarter nuts were out of bounds, no eating. But somehow, I managed to mangle enough nuts that it was noticed. I confess to occasionally punching the meat to create crumbs for me to eat. Add to this the fact that I sometimes ate the three-quarter pieces and perfectly good one-quarter bits. My quota was not being met. I was removed from walnut duty for the duration and assigned to pecans and filberts.

Even afterward, I would sometimes sneak walnuts from my mother’s hoard and crack them on the sly. She began storing walnuts in unusual places, places I wouldn’t find them. I spent weeks starved of walnuts while knowing they were somewhere in the house.

Then wonder of wonders on Christmas day, I would find a pile of walnuts in the toe of my stocking. They were all, every one of them, mine to massacre at my leisure with no requirement to share my treasure. I ate them as soon as I dared sometimes even before checking out the presents Santa had left. It almost made up for my earlier deprivation, except I really wished there were more.

(Want to learn a little more? See Shadows section this week for more detail.)

#ChristmasTreats #ChristmasMemory #WalnutsandPoetry