Category: Christmas

Merry Christmas without the Green Bean Casserole

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Christmas, writing

It is a popular side dish for Thanksgiving dinners in the United States and has been described as iconic. The recipe was created in 1955 by Dorcas Reilly at the Campbell Soup Company. As of 2020 Campbell’s estimated it was served in 20 million Thanksgiving dinners in the US each year and that 40% of the company’s cream of mushroom soup sales go into a version of the dish. -Wikipedia

I remember when this casserole first showed up. It was a big hit. Then it was a fad. Then, it became a joke. So I was surprised to see Campbell’s TV commercials advertising mushroom soup this fall that showed people serving the casserole and then to see in the Wikipedia quote that 40% of the company’s mushroom soup goes into this dish.

We used to use mushroom soup in stews and pot roasts but switched over to golden mushroom soup because we had this casserole so often, we couldn’t face mushroom soup anymore. We still like fried onions, but never saw as many of them in this casserole as shown in the picture from Wikipedia.

You won’t find green bean casserole at our house. Ever.

Whether you love the casserole or not, best wishes for a Merry Christmas.

–Malcolm

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Rumours About Christmas

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Christmas, writing2 Comments

Got a tip from a reasonably informed source: “The Christmas people are at it again.”

Even though it was March, I drove downtown in my 1950 A4 Checker (for you young people, that’s a car, not an Internet fact checker) in a cold wind that raged drunkenly beneath black clouds that looked like they’d been painted onto a frightening sky by Salvador Dalí during one of his less-lucid moments.

Arrived at the Max Value Department Store at high noon, heard a clock ticking, saw a used-up department store Santa singing “Do not forsake me oh my darling.” He waived as though we were the same kind of people even though we aren’t.

There was a line of Christman trees with bright burning candles in the store window (actually behind the window) hovering over a pile of brown pine needles, crumpled tinsel, last year’s gifts, and last year’s dreams.

I waited until September and drove downtown again, saw that Max Value had burnt to the ground, demonstrating the danger of placing candles on Christmas trees. Nearby stores that hadn’t burnt down yet due to the vicissitudes of mob looting that is no longer a crime in most cities, already had factory-fresh trees and garlands, ribbons and bows, stacks of toys I’d never heard of, and signs that proclaimed, “To Hell With Hallowe’en and Thanksgiving, we’re merrily geared up for Christmas.”

I felt lower than Jimmy Hoffa at the bottom of the river with concrete shoes.

Skipping Hallowe’en was fine with me because I think the holiday is meant for dead people. But Thanksgiving. Ignoring that day is a crime in enlighted cities that feature skies painted by Thomas Kinkade. My town was still stuck with Dalí skies, Piccasso streets, and Picasso people that had eyes in all the wrong places. It was obvious to me why nobody cared about Hallowe’en or Thanksgiving: the world was filled with people who can’t see straight or who are blind or who escaped from an asylum.

I walked up to a store manager and said, “It’s not even Black Friday yet.” He laughed like that evil doll in a movie I wish I’d never seen and said “Corporate Calls the shots. Next year, we’re putting up our Christmas displays during the dog days of August.” “I assume there’s a discount for the fleas,” I said. “Hardly. Folks give them to their cat-loving friends as gag gifts.”

I left before I got angry enough to kill him.

The clean-cut Santa standing outside the main door was so fat, I decided he was already eating turkey. When I got home, I heated up a roast turkey TV dinner, thankful that everyone who knows me won’t accept any cards or gifts from me because “I’m out of touch” and proud of it.

Jock Stewart

Special Investigative Reporter

Scattered Wednesday Nonsense

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Christmas, writing2 Comments
  • Cassidy in 1988If my hearing weren’t shot, I’d be listening to Eva Cassidy’s music today. It’s been a week where jazz and blues from the best singer the world didn’t know about would have helped ease one’s cares away.
  • Our ancient Buick has been acting more and more like an ancient Buick. This time is was a glove box latch that suddenly broke. That tiny light inside is impossible to get out but powerful enough to drain the battery. My wife finally found some tough-enough wire to hold to the door shut.
  • We think of getting a new car, but are rather perplexed by the fact nobody’s making sedans any more. We were under the impresssion several years ago that people who don’t really need SUVs were going to stop buying them and change over to gas-efficient cars. Now America is SUV crazy. What the hell?
  • I think I got tangled up in some bad karma last week when somebody stole my wallet. I left it on the store’s counter as juggling packages distracted me; a few minutes later, I want back for it and it was gone and nobody knew nothin’ about nothin’. Got all the credit cards stopped before anyone tried to charge an SUV. Got a new drivers license already. The photo is just as bad as the photo on the old license. I’m rather embarrassed to mention that my old wallet was stolen in a liquor store.
  • Finished wrapping my wife’s Christmas presents today. Wow, that was close: almost didn’t get it done. They look like they were wrapped by somebody in an asylum during a session where folks work on fine motor skills.
  • The poster features Woody anxiously holding onto Buzz Lightyear as he flies into Andy's room. Below them sitting on the bed are Bo Peep, Mr. Potato Head, Troll, Hamm, Slinky, Sergeant, and Rex. In the lower right center of the image is the film's title. The background shows the cloud wallpaper featured in the bedroom.We’ve been watching a History Channel series called “The Toys that Built America.” I keep taking that literally and when I do, I can find parts of America that probably were actually built by toys. We follow that up by watching one of several engineering catastrophes series. The fact that so many things have fallen down can be accounted for by the fact Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and Mr. Potato Head did all the design work. So far, the producers of these shows haven’t noticed the connection.
  • This year’s solstice was such a short day, I missed the whole thing. But that’s okay: Winter is my favorite season.
  • I hope your cars are starting, your wallets are safe, your outgoing gifts are perfectly wrapped, and that you have a wonderful holiday season.

—Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of a bunch of novels which you can find by clicking on the name “Malcolm.”

Stopped by the seed and feed today. . .

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Christmas

To pick up gift wrapping materials in hopes I can wrap my wife’s presents before December 25th.  The hard-to-wraps gifts–like beef jerky and live bait—become stocking stuffers. Let me know if I missed any necessary gift-wrapping supplies:

  1. Burlap
  2. Duct Tape
  3. Bailing Wire
  4. Gorilla Glue
  5. Vice Grips
  6. Unbleached Muslin
  7. Box with holes in it for surprise hamster gift (This year’s “big” present).
  8. Seed and Feed promo sweatshirt for Race Ready horse feed. I might wrap the hamster in it.
  9. A box of Mason jars. (They camouflage the diamonds, rubies, and gold jewelry.)
  10. Fire ants (for the gag gift).
  11. Palmetto bugs (for the other gag gift).
  12. Binder’s Twine
  13. Pop rivets
  14. Kraft paper
  15. Rope (right-handed laid three-strand).

The love with which we give our spouses’ Christmas gifts is often shown by the care taken to wrap everything. So I travel to the ends of the earth buying $10000000 worth of gift-wrapping materials for $38.30 worth of presents. Everyone does this, don’t you think?

I haven’t yet figured out how my wife can come into the living room, look at the presents beneath the tree, and instantly know which ones I wrapped. It’s a mystery to me.

—Malcolm

Those old maligned Christmas letters

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Christmas, writing6 Comments

The families who didn’t send Christmas letters poked fun at the people who did send Christmas letters.

One joke was that the Christmas letters never told the straight skinny–as we called the real truth in the navy–but presented a fantasy version of the family’s activities. Jail time, divorces, bad grades on report cards, and acne never made it into th Christmas letter. It was all good news, creating world peace, saving people from poverty, and receiving various honors and awards.

My parents added new people to their Christmas letter list at every stop in the road of my father’s advancement up through the faculty ranks. Every new college added people we would know the rest of our lives through cards and letters even though we knew them on a day-to-day basis for a few months or a year.

When my parents passed away, I sent their last letter letting everyone know they were gone and thereafter received cards and letters every year from people I hadn’t seen for half a lifetime.

In later years, the family Christmas leters–collected in a three-ring binder–became my memory. If I couldn’t remember what year we visted Niagara Falls or Fort Ticonderoga or Mammoth Cave, I’d pull out the Christma letter diary and look it up. It’s been a handy resource. On the curiosity side, since my folks put their current address in the letters, I’ve been able to use Google Maps and look up all the houses where we lived back into the 1940s. They’re still there. There have been a few times, though, when I wanted to write the current owners and say, “You really screwed up the front yard.”

I don’t send out Christmas letters. But I do send snail mail cards. It’s a way of staying in touch, old fashioned as it may be. A few friends still send us Christmas letters, some interesting, some tedious. As people get older, they often spend a lot of time traveling: so what we get really isn’t a letter, but an intinerary. We skim those because we really don’t need to know the details of every roadtrip.

Frankly, it would ramp up our interest if letters said stuff like, “Laura spent more time this year in county for turning tricks on Tenderloin Street” and “Bob got caught with his hand in the till at work and had to move to a new church” and “Sam’s had syphilis most of the year again while Megan is hanging out with a bad crowd.”

I’ve been tempted to say such things, but my wife thought it was a bad idea. Probably so.

I often wonder if people under 30 these days care about family continuity whether it’s coming from Ancestry.com or saving old letters. It bothers me to think more and more people don’t care who their grandparents were/are or where they lived. All of that past family history seems to play a role in creating the people we’ve become–even if we joke about it by saying, “Acccording to the Christmas letter of 1983. . .”

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell

Publisher: Thomas-Jacob Publishing

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Every year we go through this: Christmas Day is the First Day of Christmas

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Christmas

Retailers love countdowns, one of them being their fake 12 days of Christmas that ends on December 25th. This helps sales, no doubt. But I cringe when I see it because it’s a marketing strategy that pre-empts the reality of the holiday.

Dear retailers: If you need to usurp a holy countdown, use Advent (November 29 – December 24.)

This brings us to December 25th, the first day of Christmas in most traditions, the days that old song refers to.

You probably sing the song at one party or another during “Twelvetide,” and perhaps you know the meaning of the verses:

The Twelve Days, of course, lead up to Twelfth night, the day when in most traditions, the greenery comes out of the house. My neighbors are used to our Christmas lights staying on through the 5th of January. The following day is Epiphany, the day the wise men visited the Christ Child.

I suppose many people sleep through Epiphany if they continue the tradition of the Twelfth Night party where everyone gets drunk:

This looks kind of expensive, so we don’t throw a party. However, if you’re throwing a party, please let us know. The first thing, though, is knowing when the Twelve Days of Christmas begin and end.

Malcolm

Were you awake at 5:02 a.m. today?”

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Christmas2 Comments

 Winter Solstice 2020

If so, you watched the winter solstice roar into the eastern time zone. Personally, I slept through it. No worries. It’s not like there was anything to see, actually. I’m just happy that tonight is as much darkness as we’re going to see and more and more light will be arriving. And we can use that, especially this year.

Growing up, my Christmas had a lot of the old Yule in it. Yule traditionally begins today and runs through January 1. The twelve days of Christmas traditionally begin December 25 and run through Twelfth Night (Epiphany). Suffice it to say, we had a Yule log, holly, plenty of greenery, and mistletoe (which I avoided). I hope some people are still carrying on these traditions.

However you celebrate the season and decorate your house, I hope you find hope and happiness in spite of the 2020 headlines. I like the older traditions, so if you were to drive by my house, you’ll find my outside decorations up until the night of January 5th. The neighborhood doesn’t mind: they just think I’m lazy.

When my wife and I lived in a townhome in a close-in Atlanta suburb, we bought a live Christmas Tree (spruce, of course). At the end of the season, we planted it in a shady spot and were surprised that the tree liked the place and was taller than the house when we moved ten years later. I hope it’s still there.

It’s nice to think that in spite of the on-going commercialization of the season that some traditions endure.

—Malcolm

Christmas is for restocking books

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books, Christmas

Adults are hard to buy for unless they all live in the same house like the Waltons. When we’re living far flung around the country, we seldom know what people might want, and should we guess wrong and send something without checking, they’ll probably already have it or they won’t like it.

I know better than to put F-Type Jaguar on my list or even a new Jeep, so I try to be reasonable when I compile my wish list. If anyone wants to send me an F-Type Jag, they’ll have to pay the insurance costs. Allstate is fine, by the way

The grandchildren are easy to buy for because their mother knows what they like/want/need, creates a big list, and shares it. We split the list up with others in the family so there are no duplicates. Occasionally, we’ve teamed up to give gifts that are too expensive for one of us. This only happens when “the big present” costs $10000000 and none of us wants to mortgage our house to buy it.

But, the adults can do nothing for each other without a list. For better or worse, the older I get, the less “stuff” I want. If I need it, I’ve already bought it. So, that leaves books. I give the list to my wife, she picks something and gives the rest of the list to my brother and his wife. 

I try to avoid placing books on the list before they come out in paperback except for those times when the hardcover is cheaper than the paperback (presumably when the publisher had too many hardcover copies printed and needs to get rid of them.) You’ll notice that there are no Kindle books on the list. As I tell Kindle lovers, I read off the screen all day and don’t want to read off the screen when I’m propped up in bed enjoying a novel. I maintain that Kindle books are (a) not real books, and (b) don’t counteract the eyestrain of the day.

But, I digress. (At my age, I’m allowed to digress. In fact, most people expect it of me because they don’t think “old people” can remember what they’re talking about.)

I’ve read most of Shaara’s books and like them a lot. When this book about Pearl Harbor first came out, an early reviewer on Amazon said Shaara’s research on To Wake a Giant was sloppy. Fortunately, another reader reviewer proved that the first reviewer was incorrect. Thank goodness! Shaara tells readers in most of his books that he’s a novelist rather than a historian. Yet, he takes special care to be accurate. Authors are not supposed to take on reviewers, but I hoped he would correct the Amazon reviewers who offered up fake history to prove he didn’t know what he was talking about.

Without a doubt, I’ve read most of Allende’s novels that were published in English. A Long Petal of the Sea looks good, so it’s number two on my Christmas list. I hesitate to say this, but I think she’ll have a hard time duplicating the magic, wonder, and power of her earlier novels, mainly The House of the Spirits (1982), Of Love and Shadows (1985), and Eva Luna (1987). I certainly don’t want to discount what she’s written since the 1980s even if I keep getting stuck on liking those novels the best.

John Hart writes tough, detailed novels such as The Hush. While I’m looking forward to The Unwilling, a book Hart held back a year due to the pandemic, it’s still in pre-order status. So, I opted for Down River for my list. You’ll notice I only have books from major publishers here.

There’s a reason for that. Small press authors such as myself have no way of getting noticed except by people who follow them on sites like Facebook. It goes without saying, I suppose that I can’t read books I’ve never heard of. 

There are a lot of Alice Hoffman books on my shelves, including The Dove Keepers and the practical magic series. So, why not add another? The World That We Knew takes us back to World War II and the atrocities of the Nazi regime.

If all of these books show up beneath the tree, I’ll be all set until the new John Hart book comes out. Sure, I’ll probably add a few grocery store books by James Patterson and “Tom Clancy,” but I don’t want the family to know I read that stuff.

—Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of “Fate’s Arrows,” a novel set in 1954 when the KKK was in power and the protagonist, Pollyanna (who is more dangerous than her name suggests), decides it’s time for the Klan to go.

We yearn for old times that really weren’t that good

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Christmas

We often say we wish we could go back to the old days when the times and the people were more innocent and everyone lived off the grid of strife and disease and daily hardships. That nostalgic myth is difficult to resist even though anyone reading a good history book will be hard-pressed to find a long-lost utopian era when everything was wonderful.

My weakness is the Victorian Christmas card because it portrays kids and adults as though they lived in a halcyon era when Heaven existed on earth.

Surely joy and love and innocence existed in those days. It’s tempting to say that was the norm and dream of going back to such a wondrous time. We’re in love with the myth and the artwork, though, rather than the reality of days named after Queen Victoria (1837 – 1901). My parents tried very hard to re-create this myth during the Christmas holidays. They did achieve magic for my brothers and me, something I think parents can still do in spite of darker issues of the day.

Today’s young may not believe in that magic for as many years as we believed in it. Too bad: they lose their innocence so young. But those who are open to magic, family gatherings, songs, spiritual themes, and the beauty of decorated homes: whatever magic we can create for them nourishes them forever and is worth the effort.

There’s still time within the lives of our children to show them the beauty of giving rather than receiving. There’s still time to show them that special days are important for family and friends. And that even if we all know more about the evils of the world than we did at their age a century ago, we can put all that on hold for a day or a week or a month and focus on the better times within the scope of the holidays we celebrate.

In other words, we need to give our kids the gift of childhood. Yes, the time will be all-too-brief. Yet no matter how brief it is, it will be carried within their thoughts for a lifetime, not so much as a reality but as a possibility, one that they can convey to their own children years from now. I’ve always had an appreciation for families that manage to pass down the good things of their lives generation after generation in spite of hard times. They don’t have to allow hatred to win, much less prosper. 

That’s what we attempt to teach our kids via the magic of the holidays. It’s not a goody-two-shoes view of the world, but a wonderment we can find if we look hard enough. Our kids must be streetwise, but with wisdom that transcends the streets.

That’s a gift we strive to give our children.

Perhaps the greatest gift we can give our children, in addition to unconditional love and acceptance of their life’s choices is an optimistic outlook that no matter how much bad stuff they know, the spirit of the world is pure. Then, perhaps, they will live off the grid of the cynicisms of our era and see that re-creating the innocence of old holiday cards is a goal worthy of their hopes and dreams.

—Malcolm 

 

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of paranormal, magical realism, and contemporary fantasy novels and short stories. Click on his name to see more.