Unusual Holidays

Virginia then invited us to join them for Thanksgiving. 

My husband and I accepted their gracious invitation, and Virginia warned us, saying, “Now, we never have a turkey dinner when Mary Lou comes home for Thanksgiving. We usually have ham-and-beans and cornbread because Mary Lou doesn’t care for turkey.” 

I told her that was fine with us. Both my husband and I love ham-and-beans and cornbread. 

We shared a delicious, though different, Thanksgiving meal with wonderful friends, and a good time was had by us all. Oh, and none of us missed the traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings.  

Frankie - Coffeyville, Kansas 

Fried Chicken: It’s What’s for Christmas Dinner 

My grandmother, Druzy Blankenship Lowe, wasn’t the soft, cuddly, huggy sort. Instead, she showed her love in other ways – through her cooking, for instance. 

Grandmother was of puritan stock, and she didn’t believe Christmas should be celebrated with tinsel, lights and gifts bought on credit at the dry-goods store. So, her gift to her family was a Christmas table spread with her labors of the year before. 

Summer peaches had been peeled, boiled with whole cloves and cinnamon sticks, then pressure cooked. Canning jars containing the bright gold halves lined a shelf in Grandmother’s earthen cellar, just waiting for the big day when our family celebrated the birth of Christ. 

Persimmons, pulled after a November’s hard freeze, were pressed through a colander. Thick cream, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, eggs, flour and sugar were added, and the pudding was baked in the old wood stove. At the table, whipped cream topped its dark brown goodness. 

Pecans had been poled from the trees on the Oklahoma farm, cracked and picked so some could be chopped to coat Grandmother’s roll of date candy. 

Bright and early Christmas morning, Grandmother prepared the chickens, placing the pieces in cool well water until closer to dinner time, when she would dip them in egg, dust them with flour, salt and pepper, and fry them in sizzling lard until they were tender and golden brown.