Heads and tales: The Santa cause
By Wade Kwon
And jolly all over: The good folks at Black and White are feeling nostalgic as they share their childhood Christmas memories. Our fave? David Pelfrey writes about meeting the Santa stationed at Pizitz downtown: “This crook-nosed ‘Santa’ was a bit more swarthy than the rosy-cheeked fellow in the Coke ads. He reeked of pastrami-on-rye and bad cologne, and he had a strange accent. Plus he didn’t like me.”
Share your fave memories in the comments section — I’ll get us started.
• A ‘Black & White’ Christmas [Black and White]
Rich arts groups get richer: It’ll be a good Christmas for many arts groups. The Jefferson County Commission is giving close to $4 million through its Cultural Alliance of Greater Birmingham, though 87 percent is going to established organizations The Alabama Symphony Orchestra, Alabama Ballet, Birmingham Zoo and Birmingham Museum of Art will split close to $2 million in 2006. Other groups are receiving four- and five-figure grants. One group, the Birmingham International Festival, will receive $40,000. A Post-Herald investigation showed that the festival has an unusually high percentage of its budget set aside for executive salaries, while the program has withered into a school-based educational program and conferences of little public interest.
• Arts alliance pumps about $4 million into metro area economy [Birmingham Business Journal]
Way to go: The United Way of Central Alabama beat its goal again, raising more than $34 million during its annual fund-raising campaign — despite citizens’ earlier generosity during the Katrina crisis. Chances are, some group you know or work with is among the more than 70 area United Way agencies that will benefit.
• Even in year of the storms, area United Way exceeds goal [Birmingham Business Journal]
Also:
- Former Birmingham Fire linebacker tosses football with nephews
- Weekend forecast calls for rain, freezing temps, as Nostradamus predicted
- Galleria holiday temp: ‘You don’t really have to be this tall to ride carousel’
• • •
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Friday, December 16, 2005, 9:35 pm
SUGAR BABIES
The copper shapes clattered across the kitchen table, stars and balls and trees and bears and gingerbread men. Only once a year did the cookie cutters come out, and that meant one thing: sugar cookies.
Growing up, those Christmas treats were the reason we celebrated the holiday, the reason why Santa came back again and again, the reason for the season. It sounds less than holy, but in our Hoover home, they were a warm batch of heavenly goodness that somehow kept me on the “Nice” list.
The recipe came from a cookbook hiding inside the tall cabinet just inside the sliding door to the kitchen. I’m fairly sure that we never used any other recipe out of that cookbook.
Mom would heat up the oven, mix the batter and roll it flat, but I easily had the most important job of all: arranging the cutters to create the array of familiar silhouettes in dough. Not a shred of dough was to be wasted.
And unlike the more common chocolate chip cookie dough, this sugar cookie dough was not for eating raw. It was too valuable. Like a fine Kool-Aid, it needed tempering in the oven to reach its perfect potential. No, the thought of eating the dough never entered my mind.
My task required patience and a steady hand. The copper pieces varied in thickness, causing some cookies to pop out cleanly, while others insisted on wedging themselves stubbornly into the cutters. If even a single paw on the dog-like animal shape was missing, the reject cookie was sent back to the dough ball for another chance. This recipe deserved nothing less than distinct non-amputated shapes.
The result was mouth-watering happiness. Pale yellow on top, crisp rich brown on bottom, these sugar cookies tempted with their simplicity. They needed no icing, no decorations, no nothing other than a tall glass of whole milk, not drunk straight from the fridge but sitting out for a few minutes.
Those sugar cookies were addictive. We baked dozens, if only because the notion of having one cookie always became a feeding frenzy of five or 10. Christmas came but once a year, but that unfairness was softened by the baking (and eating) ritual.
So back into the drawer went the parade of copper cookie cutters, having stamped out glad tidings on the kitchen table once again.
Friday, December 16, 2005, 11:36 pm
My Christmas memory is one of loss.
I’ve never sat on Santa’s lap. Not as a baby, (before I knew what was going on), not as a child, not as an adult, (even as a goof).
It’s not that I didn’t want anything from Santa. I faithfully left him cookies and milk. And it’s not that I didn’t know where to find him, (at the mall). He always found my house, and I typically got what I asked for on my list.
But the lap thing just never happened.
Merry Christmas!