Home for Christmas

When my brother John and I were in college in Nebraska, we shared a dilapidated two-bedroom cottage within walking distance of campus. Yes, the kitchen floor sloped, and we had to kick doors to get them to open and close, but the place was a mere 120 dollars a month, and it was home to us.

We lived with two dogs, a spirited Brittany spaniel and a mellow half-pint Aussie. My brother took them mushroom hunting with him. You might think stalking toadstools was a recipe for agonizing death, but John possessed a library full of esoteric information on fungi. No mushroom was consumed until it had been positively identified with spore print and all.

The tastiest and most plentiful of the wild mushrooms were morels. Our kitchen was strung with lines of them drying. Fresh or dried, these mushrooms turned ordinary fare into gourmet feasts.

Since we were students, we lived on a microscopic budget. What we ate had to be cheap. We shopped sparingly, and by the end of any month, what was left in the larder was slim.

So as Christmas neared that year, we had little food left in the house, not only because it was late in the month, but because we’d planned a 400-mile trip to the other end of the state to visit family. We both intended to load up on our mother’s excellent cooking during the semester break.

For weeks I’d been singing, “I’ll be home for Christmas…” driving John as crazy as any in-store holiday music ever could. Still we were in good spirits and ready for a cozy week with our mom and dad.

Then the storm came. It began with freezing rain. Ice pulled down electric lines and killed power for the area. Our furnace didn’t work without it. Then the blizzard arrived and blanketed the ice.

Our only hope of getting home was to have Santa pick us up in his sleigh, and we all know Mr. Claus has much more important duties in December.

Luckily, we had a gas stove and water heater, so we ran the oven and burners and continually refilled sinks and the bathtub with hot water.

We wore layers of warm clothes topped with parkas and really appreciated having two thick-furred dogs to cuddle with.

The snow got so deep the pooches didn’t want to go outside. We shoveled a clear space for them near the door, but we had to physically carry them out to get them to do their necessaries.

Our food supplies dwindled. Even though there was a great market a block away, it was closed due to the blizzard and for lack of electricity.

I took inventory of what we still had. Flour, potatoes, a few cans of soup and vegetables, powdered milk, cooking oil, and a well-stocked spice cabinet. And, of course, we had those wrinkly morels.

We put together a pot of soup and made bread and managed for the first couple of days. We weren’t about to starve, but it appeared Christmas dinner might be a little bleak.

The morning of Christmas day it was below zero. The power was still out and the roads were not yet cleared of snow. John appeared from his bedroom holding a can of tomato sauce, a package of spaghetti, and an onion. He’d been hoarding!

Add some morels to the above, and we had the makings of a most excellent meal. The aroma of onions sautéing was like heaven. The sauce simmered. The pasta boiled.

John dished up the feast and handed me my plate. I was ready to dive in, and that’s exactly what I did. Our Brittany spaniel took that moment to jump on me, and the uneven kitchen floor didn’t help matters. Whoops! My spaghetti slid off my plate and went flying. The dogs went to work cleaning it up.

My brother stared at my empty plate and then at the dogs lapping rich sauce from the floor.

“Don’t think for a second I’ll share my food with you.” He grumbled, grabbed my plate and filled it with half of his meal. He carefully carried both plates to the table himself. “Sit,” he said gruffly to me.

I did, and the dogs sat, too.

We ate, savoring every bite. All these years later I still remember the taste of that incredible sauce.

The meaning of this season is blessed with the good memories we keep. And we can be home for Christmas, if only in our dreams.