Thanksgiving and Popcorn

my sweet granddaughter

THANKSGIVING AND POPCORN

Thanksgiving is this week and I am so excited!!! I love this time of the year with all its get-togethers, food-eating, and food-preparing. It’s not just excitement about all the “busy things,” no, it’s just that each of those things makes me remember what I’m truly thankful for.

The get-together means that I have family to love and who love me, especially my sweet granddaughter. Last year, she was still getting used to being her with her new family. But this year, she “knows” us—she grins and runs to me when she sees me, she has started bringing books for me to read to her in my office/library, and she even had her pre-school teacher write my name (chest puffing out in pride) on a strip on her “Thankful pumpkin”—in all reality, I probably got a whole strip to myself because nothing else would fit after the teacher printed “Grandmommy.” The pumpkin wasn’t huge, after all. Also, this is the fifth anniversary of my husband’s liver transplant. He’s strong and hearty—well, he’s strong and hearty enough to keep house and do the laundry (seriously, a writer’s got to have time to write, and I am a writer).

The food-eating makes me thankful that God has generously poured out His blessings on us all year long—not only our food, but our home, our marriage, our family, our friends, and so many more blessings. And most especially Jesus and His sacrifice.

The food-preparing means that I’m healthy enough to do the things I love to do. Even though I have RA, diabetes, and a few other thing going on in my body, I can cook (which I love to do), I can write, and I can play with my granddaughter. Being able to do all of those things is due in large part because of the blessing of having wonderful doctors who take care of me.

One thing I’m going to TRY and do again this year is something we had done years ago when my children were younger—tell the story of the three grains of corn. I had read that the Pilgrims had a very hard time in the New World. At one point, their daily ration of food was three grains of corn (now, I don’t know if this is really true, but it led to a way of showing what we are thankful for today). I would put three grains of unpopped popcorn on everyone’s plate and before we ate, I would pass a small dish around and everyone would put their popcorn in, telling three things they were thankful for. I love hearing the things. The kids hated doing it. We finally stopped doing it when the kids BEGGED me to stop making them it. But we have added a new generation to our family, SO-O-O-O, I think it’s time to try it again. After all, our granddaughter needs to be reminded to be thankful and needs to hear what others are thankful for. Do you think it will go over any better this time than last? Who knows, but a mother/grandmommy has to try.

Memory Monday: Halloween Through the Years in Our Family

my son as a gorilla

HALLOWEEN THROUGH THE YEARS IN OUR FAMILY

Growing up, I don’t remember doing a lot for Halloween, but then we lived in the country for a lot of those years. I know that when we did live in town, there was a lot of Trick-or-Treating going. During the early years of our marriage and children, we had lots of kids coming to our door for their treats. But that has changed now. No one comes door-to-door anymore, at least not in our neighborhood. They all go to community activities or church Trunk or Treats. If you aren’t familiar with Trunk or Treat, it’s when the adults gather in the parking lot, decorate the open trunks of their cars, and wait for the little ones—all dressed up, of course—to come by so they can get their treats.

Costumes have changed, too. I have an old black and white picture of my older sister and brother with me. They were wearing scary masks and I was crying (I was only 2 or 3 at the time). Those masks were the thin plastic kind, with a rubber band stapled on each side to hold it on. When the rubber band broke or slipped out from the staples, well, the mask was useless—unless you wanted to hold it up to your face all the time, and who wants to do that. My children dressed up when they were little—usually in “creative” costumes. We never went out and bought full outfits for them. These days, my son buys his own costume. The first one he bought was a gorilla. That’s him pictured above. This year, he got a T-rex inflatable costume which is almost 7-feet tall. He wore that to the church Trunk or Treat and let the little ones hunt for mini-dinosaurs in a portable sandbox (our granddaughter doesn’t know that her sandbox isn’t in our backyard right now).

my son's costume

Speaking of my granddaughter, she went to school as Anna from Frozen. Of course, she was adorable—See how adorable below (naturally, all grandmas think their granddaughters are adorable, no matter what the situation):

she'd rather be playing with cars

What are your memories of Halloween? What was your favorite candy to get? Do little ones still come to your house Trick or Treating?

Memory Monday: Popcorn Balls

my great-great aunt

POPCORN BALLS

Fall is here!!! (Well almost.) That means pumpkin spiced muffins, pumpkins spiced lattes, pumpkin spiced everything. And popcorn balls!!! Yeah!!! Don’t you just love those sticky balls of caramel and popcorn goodness, especially if peanuts have been added?

I found a recipe in a cookbook dated 1913, titled Things Mother Used to Make. Here is the recipe:

Pop Corn Balls (very old recipe)

1 Cupful of Molasses

Piece of Butter, half the size of an Egg

Boil together until it strings and then stir in a pinch of soda. Put this over a quart dish full of popped corn. When cool enough to handle squeeze into balls the size of an orange.

I wonder if my great-aunt (pictured above) ever made popcorn balls for her children and my father (He spent a year with them when he was in high school after his father married for the second time—my grandmother passed away when my father was nine years old.) If she did make them, I wonder if her recipe was anything like the one above or if she used a different kind of sugar/sweetener.

Do you like/love popcorn balls? Have you ever made them?