As little kids grammy and grandpe always had these little tins around the house at the holidays.With the little butter cookies that had the sugar sprinkles on top. They sure aren't anything that you would find in the Willams-Sonoma catalog..and I guess therein lies the charm.I got this yesterday at the grocery store in the holiday section. Having this tiny tin sitting on my drainboard during the holidays always reminds me of those happy childhood days of waiting for Santa. The house all decorated for Christmas. Grandpe always had a fire in the fireplace. Fruitcakes from the neighbors sat in tins on the counter. Grandpe eating a slice every morning with his coffee exclaiming it to be the "best fruitcake Mary Alice had ever made." My grandparents have been gone for many years now, and when grammy died my brother Mark and I went out to the store room and found all of the boxes that held the Christmas decorations at the house in Los Gatos. And as I was going throught it, I thought to myself, why this is a box of just some old dime store ornaments and tinsel. Nothing special...alot of it plastic..you know, reindeers with glitter, snowmen with the carrot nose broken off, socks with stains and holes,the tinsel thin and smashed to one side.Construction paper chains Mark and I had made. A piece of brown paper in the shape of your hand and drawn with crayons to look like a turkey. A bouquet of plastic poinsettias with gold sparkle,candles that had a fake flame on the tip..all melted from spending the summer in the store room .Everthing in those boxes was tattered and old. But as kids..we thought it was MAGIC.Our eyes glowed with wonder and amazement at the tree and decorations every year.And I thought, as kids you don't know or care about what store the decorations came from, how much they cost and were they fancy..... or not. Did they come from places like Gumps in San Francisco or those charming Christmas shops in Carmel? No, none of that mattered. It doesn't matter to kids. It's just the feeling of home and family that really matters. Still does.
As little kids grammy and grandpe always had these little tins around the house at the holidays.With the little butter cookies that had the sugar sprinkles on top. They sure aren't anything that you would find in the Willams-Sonoma catalog..and I guess therein lies the charm.I got this yesterday at the grocery store in the holiday section. Having this tiny tin sitting on my drainboard during the holidays always reminds me of those happy childhood days of waiting for Santa. The house all decorated for Christmas. Grandpe always had a fire in the fireplace. Fruitcakes from the neighbors sat in tins on the counter. Grandpe eating a slice every morning with his coffee exclaiming it to be the "best fruitcake Mary Alice had ever made." My grandparents have been gone for many years now, and when grammy died my brother Mark and I went out to the store room and found all of the boxes that held the Christmas decorations at the house in Los Gatos. And as I was going throught it, I thought to myself, why this is a box of just some old dime store ornaments and tinsel. Nothing special...alot of it plastic..you know, reindeers with glitter, snowmen with the carrot nose broken off, socks with stains and holes,the tinsel thin and smashed to one side.Construction paper chains Mark and I had made. A piece of brown paper in the shape of your hand and drawn with crayons to look like a turkey. A bouquet of plastic poinsettias with gold sparkle,candles that had a fake flame on the tip..all melted from spending the summer in the store room .Everthing in those boxes was tattered and old. But as kids..we thought it was MAGIC.Our eyes glowed with wonder and amazement at the tree and decorations every year.And I thought, as kids you don't know or care about what store the decorations came from, how much they cost and were they fancy..... or not. Did they come from places like Gumps in San Francisco or those charming Christmas shops in Carmel? No, none of that mattered. It doesn't matter to kids. It's just the feeling of home and family that really matters. Still does.
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What a touching post - it sums up family and love. It's those memories that our inner child keeps forever!
ReplyDeleteAs my mother reached her seventies she stopped baking cookies and started buying those cookies in the tins! I still pick the pretzel-shaped ones first! :)
I can hear the paper crinkle as one of those cookies is lifted from its nest. The sugar that tumbles off and drifts all over your lap so that you have to brush it off. The taste of butter. The cup of coffee or tea close by.
ReplyDeleteI can smell the woodfire, and feel the warmth from it, and from this post
xx
donkey at grandmas
My grandparents loved those butter cookies in a tin too!
ReplyDeleteCheers to your grandparents!
i remeber this sweet tins full of amazing butter cookies! i still have some of them and they are my real vintage treasures! what a beautiful memories!
ReplyDeletehave a sweet weekend!
justyna
My family loved those cookies when I was little, and my mother always used the tins for fruitcakes. Thanks for reminding me.
ReplyDeleteI just bid on a cheesy old gold colored hanging bell with a red tassel pull on eBay. My mother would hang a similar one in our kitchen every Christmas. You pulled the red tassel and it played Silent Night. Was it corny? Yes. Was it a seasonal $2 special at Woolworth's? Certainly. Will I cherish this eBay memory replacement more than my gold Rolex. You know it.
ReplyDeleteWith each passing year I get more and more sentimental. I miss my parents. I really wish I had know my grandparents, their photo is about all I have of them. I want to crawl back in time and hang out with them, you and your grandparents, around a big red cooler in the back of a Falcon stationwagon. With a red plaid blanket....and have a picnic.