Sasee Magazine

This memory for the author is so vivid that years later he is able to evoke every detail that embraced his senses and soul. He takes the reader by the hand into the small and simple kitchen of his eccentric cousin, Sook. Buddy was seven and Sook sixty-something, but their hearts and minds were on equal ground. Capote is Buddy again and recalls the sights and smells of the humble Alabama kitchen.

Each year I reread the story anxiously anticipating a favorite passage and always discover another memory to tuck away. Sook is dressed in her cotton house dress, shelling pecans. Queenie, the homely rat terrier, sits at Sook’s feet. I have been part of this ritual in my grandmother’s kitchen. It is my memory, too. Like Buddy, I could not wait to turn the calendar page and see November.

Capote wrote this childhood memory of fruitcake making in the fifties just as I was beginning to experience mine. Like Sook and Buddy, my mother and grandmother created our Christmas memory in a small Tidewater, Virginia, kitchen. Sook chose the launch of the preparation day by the weather. She awoke one November morning and, based on some unknown feeling in her soul, she announced it was time. She did not have to look at a thermometer to know that the crisp air had reached the perfect number for magical results. For my grandmother it was always the day after Thanksgiving. Those Tidewater fall days could yield Indian summer weather, so more times than not the kitchen door was flung open to the screened porch for air.

It’s always the same: a morning arrives in November, and my friend, as though officially inaugurating the Christmas time of the year that exhilarates her imagination and fuels the blaze of her heart, announces: It’s fruitcake weather! Fetch our buggy. Help me find my hat.

– from “A Christmas Memory” by Truman Capote

Sook and Buddy saved pennies all year long to buy the exotic ingredients for the cakes. Their bank was a tiny beaded purse hidden under the chamber pot. My grandmother made her deposits in the Bank of the A & P coffee can. It is hard for me to imagine in this generation of excess the necessity and discipline required for this yearly event. As this holiday approaches I make a promise to myself to appreciate the meaning and purpose of simple heart gifts.

Buddy and I both loved the colors, smells and tastes of the containers full of dried fruits. He sat with Sook as they grated coconuts, shelled pecans and inspected the ingredients for the cakes. I did the same. My grandmother traded fall garden crops for pecans. Pat, our resident terrier, did not like pecans but was known to snatch a piece of dried fruit when we weren’t looking.

Intrigue was part of the fruitcake making when Sook and Buddy visited Mr. Ha Ha’s “sinful fish-fry and dancing café for whiskey.” The cost was simply a designated cake for Mr. Ha Ha. We didn’t have a character to visit but we did use the brandy that my grandfather kept out in the tool shed. Of course he couldn’t complain since we were not supposed to know it existed. Having a sinful ingredient only added to the magic and taste that the fruitcake had.

Buddy and Sook made thirty small cakes with such love and precision. We made less than ten with the same skills. I am still amazed that Sook knew exactly how much of each ingredient to purchase. No measuring was needed. My grandmother used a big bowl and simple utensils with a pinch of this and a pinch of that. These gifts were from the heart that no measuring cups could create. Sook hummed carols, and we sang “church carols” as the morning drifted into afternoon and the cakes baked and cooled.

To some it may seem silly that a cake was mailed to the President of the United States from that unlikely little team in Alabama. They also sent a cake to a couple that had stopped by one afternoon. Sook’s list included those that had just struck her fancy. The thank-you’s, on White House stationery and penny postcards, connected them to the outside world. Our fruitcakes were for family, the minister and close friends. The payback was the same. Self-satisfaction in knowing that people appreciated and enjoyed the fruits of labor and love. My grandmother did stray from time to time when she was out of sorts with someone. Not getting a fruitcake was all the explanation someone needed to know where they stood with her that particular year.

This year as there is talk of recession and decreasing store sales I have found myself drawn even more to this simple story of love and giving. My daughter, Alice, and I have made the decision to make as many gifts as we can. There is comfort in the ritual of baking and making crafted things. We have gained valuable insights into one another as we meander the aisles of craft and grocery stores. My mother, Mimi, lives near us now so she is included once again. It is our first Christmas living in the same city in many years. This is a priceless gift.

“A Christmas Memory” is not just a childhood account of an event. It is a reminder for all of us that less can be more. Excess can blur our vision of what is important and meaningful. Our souls are fed – not by things – but by intangible moments and gestures that no measuring cup can fill.