I can't take credit for this one, my older brother, Tate, wrote this earlier in the week and asked me to to post it when I next blogged...
Every year as I was growing up as Christmas neared my parents house was filled with aromas that would make your mouth water. There would be various cakes, pies, brownies, and cookies. There was fudge, both chocolate and peanut butter, and an assorted snack we always called Nuts and Bolts. Most of you have probably had this before but may know it by a different name. It is simply Chex Mix, Cheerios, nuts, and pretzels combined, covered in spices and baked. Even without the benefit of a calendar when you saw the nuts and bolts you knew IT WAS CHRISTMAS!
Where did all of this come from you ask? It came from nan. Nan is my maternal grandmother that has lived with my parents from the time I was in middle school. Why did she do this? That is an easy answer: LOVE. See baking is how nan showed her love, and she was good at it. She loved making baskets or tins for people at Christmas and filling them with the delicious treats she made. She had several cakes that were specialties of hers; Apple stack cake, German Chocolate, Caramel, and Red Velvet. Now don’t get me wrong while she loved the baking it was a labor. Many times I would see her throw out what I thought was a perfectly good layer for a cake because it didn’t meet her expectations. She worked hard in the summer drying her own apples for her stack cake so it would be just right. Anything less just wouldn’t do.
Sadly this Christmas is just not the same. My parents house doesn’t have the same smell. There aren’t cakes piling up for her to keep my hands out of. There is not that big jar of Nuts & Bolts for me to snack on. This Christmas instead of running from store to store for ingredients my mom is running to visit her ailing mother. See nan is laying in a hospice center laying in bed living out her remaining days. A body that has spent an entire life working is reduced to just laying and struggling to speak. And you know what Christmas just won’t be the same.
This is the part about growing up that absolutely sucks because nan is my only remaining grandparent. With the passing of each of my other grandparents there have been changes but they are most noticeable at Christmas. From sitting on my pappaws lap in his chair as a child with him calling me pappaws good boy. Also, watching maymee, my paternal grandmother, host Christmas at her house yearly while enjoying the presence of her entire family. Then, now there is the void of aromas brewing at my parents house this Christmas. Mary Virginia Cameron Wells I will miss you. I will miss your cooking. I will miss the shoulder to lean on when I needed it. I will miss my nanny. Oh and I will miss the Nuts and Bolts.
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