Oh my, it’s fruitcake weather

With her Texas twang, my aunt does a perfect rendition of that line from Truman Capote's “A Christmas Memory”. After first watching the movie version at her house, several years later I encountered the audio version on a long car ride to Arkansas. It wasn’t until I bought a copy of Breakfast at Tiffany’s at a church book sale that I read the print version. It’s always with a sense of delight tempered with melancholy that I turn to the story, sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, to follow Buddy and his friend as they buy whiskey from Mr. Ha Ha Jones, send fruitcakes to the White House, and craft homemade kites for Christmas morning.

Every year different details in the story stand out. The year my mom made homemade fruitcake, I could taste the citron as I read their recipe. Last year, when my daughter was infatuated with dolls, I could picture exactly the wicker buggy with wobbly wheels they use to haul pecans. This year, I noticed the prices of things in the Depression era story – two dollars for a quart of whiskey, fifty cents for a Christmas tree, a dime for a picture show.

This story sates that yen you had for something rich and sweet and Christmasy, and like fruitcake, endures December after December. So after you've set up the Advent wreath, made the gingerbread cookies, and assembled some 15-odd nativity sets, it’s time to curl up with a hot mug of cider and “A Christmas Memory”.