(Broken) Home for the Holidays
Growing up, I learned that although holidays were the best thing ever, there was also a very real chance that something would go wrong anytime we gathered for a family meal or opened presents. We went to Grandma Wright’s on Christmas Eve, but we went to Granny Conn’s house for most other holidays. Granny cooked all the food you could ever want in eastern Kentucky: turkey, ham, chicken and dumplings, mashed potatoes, corn bread, Stove Top stuffing, green beans from her garden, corn that she grew, and macaroni and tomatoes (made with her own canned tomatoes).
She insisted on giving me her canned vegetables long after I stopped appreciating them, and then after I started again. I remember the day I opened the last Mason jar of tomatoes she ever canned and gave to me. I held on to it like the treasure it was and still thank whoever is listening that I had sense enough to know its value.
On Christmas Eve, Grandma Wright usually baked a ham with pineapple rings — we didn’t have pineapple anywhere else — but there was pizza, too. Nobody would deliver up in our holler, so we usually had pizza only at Grandma’s. They got normal television, so Papaw Wright would be watching racing, wrestling, or The Andy Griffith Show. I always gave Grandma chocolate-covered cherries and gave Papaw a tin of cashews or…
