Between the first and second Sundays in Advent, I send Advent calendars to our grandchildren, hewing to a tradition begun back around 1969. The kids get to open six or eight little picture portals all in one day; my tardiness, forgiven.

The same week, I begin baking Christmas cookies, dozens and dozens, all the same nut balls from a recipe in my vintage Fanny Farmer (essentially shortcake with ground nuts added).

Last week, as I began the tedious but comforting task of making marble-sized balls and rolling them gently in confectioners’ sugar, I got misty-eyed remembering all the years our kids took beribboned bags of nut balls to school for their favorite teachers. And the earlier years of cookie cutting and decorating – counter space rigidly demarcated for separate age groups.

Then would come the Christmas pageant and Christmas Eve. Christmas truly came to me in the darkened sanctuary as hundreds of candles were lighted in silence, and “Silent Night” sounded in their glow. Long time ago.

Here in northern Oxford County the rituals abide. The cookies. The pageant. The tree, of course. Christmas Eve services and, family time.

Duplicate dining

On Christmas, John and Claire Patrick will have two of their three grown children with them and John’s mom, Emma Patrick. “What I like best is being with my family, going to church and eating a great home-cooked meal,” he said.

John listed the menu items – turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, squash, turnips, boiled onions, string beans, cranberry sauce. I said that sounds like Thanksgiving dinner all over again. “Identical,” he agreed. “I love it.”

Chester and Mariette Perry Dolloff, wed in 1937, early in their life together began a Christmas tradition. It continues: a big family Christmas gathering of immediate family only, which numbers as many as 80 people. That’s wonderful, but so is church. Mariette began attending the Rumford Center Church in 1923 when she was 5 years old. Everard Bartlett rowed her across the river to get there.

Green Church Rev. Ginger Snapp-Cunningham will officiate at two Christmas Eve services and another on Christmas morning. “It’s lots of work,” and this year it’s “bittersweet because we just lost one of our cancer patients,” she said.

But Christmas this year will also be special for Ginger and John because they have a teen-ager from the Ukraine living with them till February. She is Alina Bezkovozayna. Her story in the new year!

Like Mom’s kitchen

Last week’s cookie production kept taking me back in time. When I’d begun rolling the cooling cookies in confectioners’ sugar, I was at baby’s first Christmas. Time for a break and back to the present. I called Abbey Rice to find out what’s going on for Kathryn (6 months old any minute) for the season: She’s traveling. The Rices are off to Curtis’ native Utah for a big family gathering. Back East, they’ll head for Abbey’s family in Washington, Maine.

Big family!

There are more babies and toddlers in our River Valley than you might suppose, and their mothers find one another and connect. Peter and Amanda Buotte are back home in Rumford. Their daughter, Brook, will be 1 year old on Christmas Day. Jean and Boris Popovich are back in Strathglass Park awaiting the birth of their first child, due on Jan. 4, in good time for Twelfth Night.

As Abbey and I closed down our conversation, I asked, “Are there special foods you make at Christmastime?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I’ve been making Russian tea cakes – some people call them Mexican wedding cakes – because my mother always makes them. They’re like shortbread, but with nuts in them and you roll them in confectioners’ sugar …”

Sounds like nut balls to me. Merry Christmas!

Linda Farr Macgregor and her husband, Jim, live in Rumford. She is a free-lance writer and author of “Rumford Stories.” Contact her at [email protected]