Christmas traditions.
It’s something that means a whole lot to Angela Miles in Maybe This Christmas. She spends a considerable amount of the story determined to make sure that her and her son David don’t lose their traditions and is devastated at the possibility that things may be changing.
While writing this book, it got me to thinking about my own family traditions around Christmas, and what were staples in my home growing up.
I kept coming back to the smell of home every December 23rd courtesy of my mother and her amazing baking skills.
No matter if she was off from work or coming home from working a twelve-hour shift as a NICU nurse, she took the time to make sure our Christmas cookies were ready by Christmas Eve morning.
Chocolate Chip Cookies, Peanut butter cookies with Hershey kisses in the middle, almond cookies, and my father’s favorite Apple Crisp. Every now and then she would even toss in a pie or two.
Christmas just wasn’t Christmas without these tasty sweets, and we looked forward to them every single year.
Now that I have my own family, those traditions have endured.
Those smells now warm my home every Christmas Eve, while I call my mom occasionally for advice on a recipe.
Below, you can find my late father’s favorite holiday treat, that he ate with French vanilla ice cream. I hope that you can add it to your own family Christmas traditions:
Apple Crisp
Use a Casserole dish /11 ½ x 8 ½ deep dish pan
2 cans of Apple pie filling or fresh apples, any kind you like
¾ cups of granulated sugar
1/3 cup of oatmeal (my mom used quaker oatmeal)
1/3 cup of bisquik or jiffy mix
½ cup of brown sugar
1 tsp of nutmeg
1 tsp of cinnamon
½ stick of butter
Pre-heat the oven to 375
Place the apples in the dish and spread evenly
Put the bisquik, oatmeal, nutmeg, and cinnamon in one bowl, mix
Put butter, and sugars in a separate bowl and mix
Combine the mixtures together in the one bowl with your hands. It should become a crumbly mix.
Take the crumbly mix and spread over the apples by hand.
Bake in the oven for 35-45 minutes or until a golden brown
Feel free to add ¼ of chopped walnuts if you’d like
Ice Breaker: What are some of your family Christmas traditions?
About the Author
Ieshia Wiedlin grew up in Detroit, Michigan, and currently resides in Brookfield, IL, which is a suburb of Chicago. She is married and has two great kids, Lucas and Zoey. She has always loved writing and telling stories, mostly sci-fi and fantasy, and is a huge junkie for all things Marvel and Star Wars. But somehow in the midst of loving all things sci-fi, she was a sucker for all things Molly Ringwald. Ieshia became a huge fan of rom-coms and loves stories with strong women characters. Growing up the youngest, and the only girl on her block, she craved strong women who fell in love. She loves romances with strong women leads who have conviction, but are also filled with humor. It’s important to her that women in her stories are smart, strong, loving, and funny, and also represent for sci-fi geeks and music lovers everywhere.
Not as many traditions now as when I was kid. I used to make sugar cookies and decorate the tree with plenty of tinsel the week before Christmas.
We really don’t have traditions here.
One of my favorite traditions when I was a kid- that I’ve carried over with my kids and grandkids- is what gets put into the Christmas stockings. Everyone gets a new toothbrush, tube of toothpaste, an orange, tube of chapstick, a bag of some variety of nuts, some chocolates, a silly toy or two, and hubby has added a bag of venison jerky to the mix. The kids love their stockings and it’s always their favorite part of the day.