Bena Mae’s Kitchen: Christmas Gifts

 Every year it’s the same. What to give the person who has everything. Flat screen TV’s are still good and the prices seem to have gone down a bit. Electronic gadgets and games are popular but that’s not an option for me since I don’t even know what to ask for. They make them so fast that they become obsolete within a week. Plus, they take me out of my comfort zone when a young “with it” clerk asks me what I want. I don’t know what to say.   

In the fun gift category I saw an ad for a Mona Lisa pillow that laughs when you squeeze it. This would end the eternal question people have been asking the mysterious looking lady these many years: Are you really smiling?

Seriously, most of us have everything we need. It goes without saying that many of us can’t even remember what we got last Christmas. And re-gifting could be downright embarrassing. Imagine the giftee opening a present he or she gave you last year. Thinking about it, I can’t imagine a present that would excite me as much as the box of chocolate covered cherries from Newberry’s Five and Ten Cent Store given to me over a half a century ago. Or of anything else bought from that hallowed place that sticks in my memory. A box of dainty ladies handkerchiefs? A set of Evening in Paris perfume? I’d love it.

Now that I’ve gotten myself in a nostalgic mood, thoughts of Christmas’s past begin to crowd my mind. And I can’t help thinking about the little things that were once so important but are taken so much for granted in these modern times. Like, for example, oranges and apples and nuts and grocery-mixed candy in the bottom of our Christmas stockings. They were not an everyday thing in our lives back then.   But oh, so delicious when we delved into the bottom of that stocking and savored them for days. If only we could recapture the simple pleasures we enjoyed back then.

The economic situation is curtailing much of our spending, making it necessary to buy less and concentrate on practical gifts. And this in itself is how it should be (not the economic thing). And maybe it’s a good thing. In years past, Christmas buying became so lavish that it spun out of control, took on a carnival-like atmosphere of glitter and spending.   Yet, we were still left with the feeling of an old Peggy Lee song, “Is That All There Is?”

This year we can make it different. This year we can concentrate on what Christmas is really all about. Home and hearth and good will toward men. This is real fulfillment.

Happy shopping. 

Praline Pound Cake

Courtesy White Lily Flour

Crisco® Flour No-Stick Spray

1 1/2 cups chopped pecans

1 1/2 cups butter

1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese

3 cups firmly packed brown sugar

6 large eggs

3 1/4 cups White Lily® All Purpose Flour

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

HEAT oven to 325°F. Coat a 10-inch tube pan with flour no-stick cooking spray. Sprinkle 1/2 cup chopped pecans in pan.

BEAT butter and cream cheese in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed. Beat in brown sugar about 5 minutes or until very light. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Fold in flour, just until combined. Do not overmix. Stir in vanilla and remaining 1 cup chopped pecans. Spoon batter into prepared pan. Place tube pan on baking sheet.

BAKE 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes or until wooden toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes. Remove to cooling rack to cool completely.