Originally written Dec 7, 2002
"Christmas is coming. The goose is getting fat", and the fruitcakes are soaking in the brandy somewhere, I guess, since so many people wax poetic about that proverbial Christmas treat. Personally I've never bitten into a slice of fruitcake I liked.
Once in high school Jazz Choir during my sophomore year, we sang a carol that made the holiday bread sound delicious, but that's the closest I've come to enjoying the fruited cake of lore. Which makes it extra wonderful that my family never passed around a platter of fruit studded yuckiness. We passed something better - a box of chocolates.
I think the tradition started in the Bowns family. In one of my early childhood memories, I recall sitting with the visiting adults in Great Grandma Helen Bowns' living room. Grandma Helen brought out an enormous box of chocolates. I was only about two and everything seemed big then, but it was still a huge box. At least two, maybe three pounds of candy all on one level. The grownups passed the box around the circle. Everyone took a piece or two of luscious chocolate covered caramel, nougat, or cream filling.
My paternal grandmother carried on the tradition in her own way. I believe that due to the distance that separated Grandma Marguerite
Bowns Kennedy and her three beautiful grandchildren, this
tradition evolved into boxes of delicious chocolates arriving from Bismarck, North Dakota to our front door in Rock Springs, Wyoming each Christmas season. Along with the boxes of assorted chocolates, which were sent mostly for the adults of the family, came three boxes of about 20 - two inch, solid chocolate
Santas, one each for my sisters and ME.
I anticipated that box of my own chocolates from the moment the UPS man rang our doorbell and left the large, sticker decorated box of Christmas presents on the porch, until I took the first taste. The little Santas each lay in a separate compartment in the white, plastic tray inside the Russell Stover box.
Once I had my own box, I carefully slide the tray out of the package, just enough to take out one Santa. Next gently shutting the box, I slowly unwrapped the colorful foil picture of Santa covering the chocolate goodness. Then I took a bite; usually his head, and let the smooth, Hershey-like chocolate slowly dissolve on my tongue. When the first bite was gone, I'd take another bite and repeat the process until the tiny boots were just a sweet memory. I often ate three or four Santas that first night. They tasted like the most expensive European chocolate to my young tongue.
As the years passed and we grew, the Santas stopped coming, but the boxes of chocolate didn't.
My husband, much to his dismay, discovered our first Christmas of married life, that the box of chocolates, sent by my grandma, was a tradition steeped in as much sacred ritual, as the making of some people's fruitcake.
Each year, I reverently opened the box, inhaling the rich scent of chocolate that wafted upward. Then I looked for a map to help decipher the riddle of the
chocolates. Some boxes rewarded me with a decoder map, and I sat intently considering my first taste. My hope was to find the penuche, a mind numbing rush of brown sugar covered in milk chocolate, or the chocolate covered maple cream. I had always loved the toffee and the caramels, but the maple cream and penuche, especially the penuche, were my all time
favorites.
In the first years of marriage, I didn't much want him to take any of the chocolates until I'd decided that they weren't my very favorites, but I have mellowed over the years, and we have come to agreement on which of the chocolates are always his. He gets the chocolate covered nuts without argument, and he can have some of the caramels and toffees, if he eats them quickly enough.
As we have added children, they have stolen, I mean, eaten their share of chocolates. This Christmas in 2002,
M gets everything with fruit in it. No one else will eat them!
D prefers caramels. E gets M&M's, and so will C in his first year of being old enough to expect a piece. I realize that some day I will have to give in and let th
em each choose anything they want, but they aren't getting my penuche!Yes, I admit I'm a little crazy about this. I find boxes without any maps extremely frustrating. I need to know what each chocolate-coated nugget hides. I'm even considering buying a chocolate tester. It is a tool that allows you to take a core sample from each mysterious piece. With that I could divide the box into sections for each family member and never miss any of my dear favorites. Ah the
possibilities...
My in laws often gives us a box of chocolates at Christmas, yet somehow it is not a meaningful tradition for Tad. He thinks my obsession is silly, For him this is just a box of calorie filled candy that should be enjoyed, not enshrined. But for me it's a family tradition harking back years and years, bringing sweet chocolate fragranced memories of dear relatives long since gone from earth, memories of joyful childhood moments, and hopes for love filled memories in Christmas's yet to come.
When I originally wrote this B was not yet born. I can tell you now that if he was left alone with the box for more than 20 minutes, everything including the penuche would be gone.
