A favorite part of holiday decorating is setting up my Snow Village houses. I received my first house the Christmas of 1986. That year, we purchased both a house, and I also received a tree. Over the years, we added another house, a church, and a ski lodge (plus a park gazebo that I broke, purchased a second, and, while it was years later, broke again). The collection has spent Christmas on top of a TV cabinet, below a window in our basement, over 20 years on a fireplace mantel, and now here in its third house in my Lincoln Cupboard.
Christmas of 1986 was also the year that my mother-in-law started her own village. She was ready to make a change in how she decorated her mantel, and these wonderful light-up houses were just what she was looking for. That first year, she purchased a sweet little white house. Her collection began to grow, and in 1992, she purchased “Grandma’s Cottage.”
Sometime later, I am guessing about 1996, I was in Hollandtown to help decorate for Christmas; I was down in the basement setting up the, well, basement tree. I remember her coming to the top of the stairs and calling me to come up, “he was going to break it!” I headed up the stairs, where she met me in the kitchen, telling me that the lightbulb end of the plug for one of the houses had pushed into the house, a not uncommon occurrence if you do not put them in just so, and Butch was attempting to get it back out with a letter opener.
Entering the living room, I found my father-in-law standing at the mantel, “Grandma’s Cottage” in one hand and his letter opener in the other. Now this was just not any letter opener; it was a letter opener improved by Butch. He liked his letter openers sharp! A tool that would easily and cleanly slip open an envelope. So, he sharpened them on the lathe to a knife edge point. And it was with this that he was digging around in the small opening on the back of the house, trying to get the clamps caught so he could pull out the bulb.
Not THE letter opener, but the exact same style.
As Marie peeked fearfully around the corner at us, I asked Butch if I could try, as I had smaller fingers than he did. He reluctantly let me have the house, and I was able to stick my fingers in, press the clamp enough to pull the bulb out, and properly insert it into the opening. The crisis was diverted, but not without some lasting minor damage. Damage that makes me smile each year as I get “Grandma’s Cottage” out of its box and settled into place next to what we affectionately call “The Rectory.”
This is an archived post from “The Aroma of Bread,” and was first published 20 Dec 2015.
It was a Saturday before Christmas, maybe in 1988 or 89, and Gary and I had headed out to Hollandtown to get some work done for Holland Veal. Walking into the house we were greeted by the wonderful smell of cookies baking. The smell of Christmas at Butch and Marie’s.
Entering the warm and wonderful smelling kitchen, we found Butch sitting at the kitchen table preparing the cookie tins for filling while Marie was working at the counter. They were relaxed, content in their companionship and conversation.
What makes this memory stick is not the relationship of my in-laws (that was constant) but how Butch was prepping the cookie tins. While I would just rip off a piece of waxed paper and stuff it in between layers, he was sitting at the table with pencil and scissors at hand, tracing and cutting each waxed paper round to fit perfectly inside the tin. He did this every year for Marie, and each year each tin was a perfect presentation of cookies.
The recipe that I am sharing today is a family favorite – for both my family and the Fassbenders. Marie and I made them for our families each year, but with one difference, the chocolate. Toffee Squares are a wonderful crunch of toffee flavored cookie topped by chocolate.
My recipe from an old Betty Crocker Cooky Book uses the heat of the “just out of the oven” cookie to melt the squares of Hershey bar that you quickly place on the cookie, then spread out. I shared this quick and easy way of adding the chocolate with Marie one year, but she “stubbornly” continued to melt chocolate in a bowl over boiling water. Either way, the cookies didn’t last long in either home.
Updated Addition: In November 2021 I unpacked a box of Marie’s old cookbooks and sat down with all of the loose pages to determine in which book they belonged. In the pile was a tattered book that Marie had stapled back together, and in this book dated November 1953, I found her Toffee Square recipe. It is pictured below with a transcription of her much smudged notes.
Wisconsin Michigan Power Co. Christmas Cookies, November 1953, p. 23
This is an archived post from “The Aroma of Bread,” and was first published 22 Jan 2013.
Christmas 1951
As we mark the year anniversary of my mother-in-law’s death on the 15th, and as we pack the rest of the Christmas decorations away for another year, our thoughts turn to ham.
That’s right, ham. Ham that was put in the oven to slow roast around 4:00 p.m. Christmas Eve, and to be eaten on Marie’s freshly made buns following Midnight Mass. Midnight Mass that really was held at midnight. The aroma of the ham filled the air, and created such a sense of anticipation for ten year old Gary, that he was as excited about eating the ham sandwiches as he was about attending his first Midnight Mass.
The year that Gary was in 5th grade he announced that he intended to go to Midnight Mass with his dad and his brother’s Dick and Dennis. He remembers his mother’s disappointment that he would not be attending morning Mass with her and five year old Dan, but he was determined to go. His big brother Dennis had been going for years, as he was only in first grade the first time that he attended Midnight Mass as the carrier of the baby Jesus.
Christmas 1956
Christmas Eve in the Fassbender household was not the big event in those days as it was in later years. There was just too much to do. The tree was up and decorated, but there was still last minute cleaning and preparation that needed to be taken care of as Butch and Marie planned for all the guests (sometimes as many as 100), that would stop by on Christmas day. Presents also needed to be retrieved from their hiding places and placed around the tree. Midnight Mass and those much anticipated sandwiches were still hours in the future.
So shortly before midnight, the Fassbender men headed to Mass where the St. Francis Men’s Choir made the evening magical. Nothing said Christmas more than waiting in anticipation, a little chilly in the darkened church, for those first notes to come floating out of the choir loft. Arriving home around 1:00 a.m., Marie was waiting for them with the kitchen table set for the much anticipated snack. The family sat down to their ham sandwiches, a few pieces of homemade candy, and then it was off to bed.
Christmas morning started early, as people would begin arriving as early as 10:00 a.m. The neighborhood kids and their dads, most likely booted out of the house so the women could prepare dinner, would start floating in to see what the family had received for Christmas. Marie would be busy getting Christmas dinner ready, which in those days was turkey, dressing, and all the rest of the side dishes, but Butch would be ready to greet their friends and neighbors and share a little cheer. As people floated in and out of the house, Marie with the help of her parents, Walter and Belle Campbell, would work to hold the dinner until there was a break in the ringing doorbell. It was not uncommon for dinner, once planned on being eaten at 12:30, to not be eaten until 3:00 p.m. or later.
Christmas more than any other time of the year exemplified Marie’s desire to welcome, serve, and enjoy the company of her family and friends. Ham sandwich anyone?
Marie with her boys, Mother’s Day, 1963
St. Francis Catholic Church Our Favorite Recipes, 1988, p. 71 (very good)
