Since getting married, it has been a struggle to balance the holidays with my new family. Three years ago we went to upstate New York, and it was my first holiday away from home. Usually I’m a robot when it comes to sentimental emotions, but that time it really got to me.
That first time, my family was able to get together before we left, and have our usual ritual of baking, a meal, presents, watching the dog play, and even included watching the Cornhusker volleyball team fight for the national championship.
The next year, we were able to spend half of the holiday with my family before leaving for a conference in Chicago. This has put me out of touch with the uber-germanic side of the family and their leisurely day of soups, appetizers, oysters, herring, pickles, traditional cookies, and whatever Aunt Jean has discovered she can make that year with pop-in-fresh dough and a can of Mountain Dew (surprisingly good)! The day is topped off with gifts, usually to include handy gadgets, home made crafts, and some of the funniest gag gifts I have ever seen.
One year my Uncle Dave made everyone a battery powered paper weight. The weight was a nicely lacquered block of wood with a space just big enough to fit a D sized battery. When I was really young, my Uncle Paul received a small copper horn that was supposed to call some sort of make-believe animal. He blew the horn and it blew baking soda in his face! I got in on the action one year, and by using baby food jars, used nylons, and fiberfill, I made tiny rear ends. After the jars were stuffed I placed a “Pickled Pork Butts” label on them. The one I made for my godmother had “Pickled People” with googly eyes and noses on them.
The funniest gift I can remember, my mother and father worked hard on together. It consisted of a Y-shaped pole, about the height of a man’s waist. The two prongs of the Y met about six inches from the top, where a triangular dish with scalloped sides hung on a hinge. The device was labeled “shoe saver”, and was given to all the men in our family. Use your imagination!
This year, we spent the holidays in the Catskills again. Holidays with this new family have really helped satisfy some of my uber-germanic holiday deficiencies. I made some cookies with dried and candied fruit, and make Christmas ornaments every year like my Aunt Jean. We’ll see how soon before I get a Mountain Dew recipe!
My winters in the Catskills have also included going out to the Hideway Hotel for my mother-in-law Diana’s birthday. I love walking/driving by the hotel, the gardens, the cottages, the shuffleboard court and sand volleyball court in the summer. It is like a quaint little version of the hotels from Dirty Dancing. A creek runs along side it, allowing you to practice your Dirty Dancing jumps and lifts if you really wanted to.
We went there for dinner last time. Everything about it is very quaint and managed, from the art deco nudes above the bar, the three-tiered perfume rack of 70s Avon classics in the ladies’ restroom, to the “salad bar” that includes almost every type of pickled vegetable one can think of. The menu is amazing. I could subsist on their smoked trout, rollmops (pickled herring rolls), schnitzel and dessert forever. Specials when we have been there included veal rouladen and a gigantic pig’s knuckle over a pile of sauerkraut. I’ve never had rice pudding, but I have an idea that the rice pudding they serve there may take my father back to his childhood.
If you are ever in the Catskills, or even nearby (NYC is 140 miles away), I encourage you to go, but don’t forget to make reservations! They run a very tight ship there, and if you just show up, you’ll have to go back down the mountain to where your cell phone works and call in for a reservation and wait an hour at the Prattsville Tavern.
