Carole Fawcett
Morning Star columnist
I have a kitchen because it came with the house reads the sign on my fridge. So you can only imagine my unabashed glee when a beautiful Christmas Cake arrives on my doorstep pretty much every December. It is the highlight of my Christmas.
It is full of lovely fruit and is topped with marzipan icing. It’s my favourite — I could eat it for breakfast, lunch and supper. Sometimes I add a piece of cheese when I have a slice, then I can call it lunch and after supper I can have it as desert and if I push it, well, at breakfast I can call it breakfast fruit cake.
My mouth is watering as I write this, and there is some in the fridge almost calling me – but I shall use my willpower – I’ve had two pieces – well, maybe three since it arrived this very day! Yum.
I am a lover of Christmas fruit cake. Can you tell? It seems to be an either/or type of holiday fare. You either love Christmas fruit cakes or you don’t. For me, it must have marzipan (and it does) and that is the piece de resistance. The fruit and the marzipan just blend together so beautifully.
I was three when my family emigrated from the United Kingdom and we brought with us traditions of both England and Ireland.
My first birthday party in Canada, where other children were invited, included a fruit cake as the birthday cake (with icing). My Mom went to the trouble of making a fruit cake and then wrapped dimes up in wax paper and put them in the cake. Yes, I know, the overly-cautious litigiously aware parents of today’s world would be having near panic attacks, as a tooth could be chipped by inadvertently biting down on the dime, or horrors — the child might swallow it.
Actually it never came close to happening, it was thinly sliced and we could see the dime prior to actually putting the cake into our mouth. Everyone wanted a piece of cake with a dime! It made it exciting.
But the Christmas cake represents so much. First of all, it is the love put into the cake by the cake maker. It is the thoughtfulness and generosity of spirit to include me in her list of people to receive the cakes as well. It is over the top appreciated. Thank you Joan! At this writing I’ve managed to gobble down half the cake! Perhaps by the end of the column it will be all gone. Oink – oink!
We all get to an age where buying or giving gifts to those of our own age becomes gift giving for the sake of it. Of course, there is always something we would love to have. I would love a drone. But really, what on earth would I do with a drone – other than attach a camera and take photographs that I could not normally take. Hmmmmm……. Perhaps not. Or there’s the tablet that takes memory cards (for my writing)………….hmmmm.
My point being that we always want something and it isn’t difficult to turn that into a ‘must have’ or into something we think we ‘need’.
My Christmas gift this year will be a donation to a non-profit. After sharing a lovely meal, my mom and I will spend the day watching a movie and relaxing. We will move forward into the year 2018 with gratitude, finding the joy in our daily living.
Oh – wait! It’s lunchtime. I need to go and slice some cheese so I can have it with my Christmas Cake! It has fruit, eggs, and I’ll add cheese. It screams healthy don’t you think? Oh yum!
I would like to wish all the readers of this column, my clients and friends all the very best of the season. Happy Hanukah! Merry Christmas!
Carole Fawcett is a counsellor, clinical hypnotherapist, writer and editor. www.amindfulconnection.com.