Loose Ends: No More Pies
By Carol Livingstone
The days between Christmas and New Years are still considered part of the holidays. The decorations are still up and there are enough leftovers in the fridge to make us sick of turkey sandwiches. Once we’ve rung in the New Year and the tree is down, it’s almost like none of that festive stuff even happened. Well, except that my former muffin top resembles a triple layer chocolate devil’s food cake with mocha icing and sprinkles, and I’m singing, “I am a hippopotamus for Christmas.” And then there are the pies.
There are always too many pies. Hubby makes lemon, pumpkin and apple, enough for Christmas dessert and New Years dessert, plus care package pies for our sons to eat at home between festive feasts. We swear that he made only five pies but somehow we’re always left with one of each kind. And they are always good pies, even when the white stuff on top of the lemon pies tastes more like burnt marshmallows than meringue. You can just scrape it off, but anyone who has ever sat around a campfire knows that there’s nothing wrong with burnt marshmallows.
Obviously these pies can regenerate and multiply in the dark of night. Or Santa Claus and Father Time are playing jokes on us, bringing pies when they come to visit. “Let’s be naughty and leave these nice people more pie!” Or maybe its gremlins or a Kitchen Witch. My vote goes to the nasty little gremlins. They wait until we’re snoring, then creep out of their hidey-hole beneath the stairs, and bake up a storm. It can’t be a Kitchen Witch – they burn everything so the screaming smoke alarm would wake us up.
I always sigh mightily when we’re at the end of the pies, partly because I’m so full I can’t manage anything more than a sigh or a squeak, but mostly because I’m glad that it’s over with. Until Easter. When he’ll make more holiday pies and the Easter bunny or gremlins or whatever will work their evil juju and leave us once more with too darned many pies. Maybe by then my triple-layer devil’s food cake will have shrunk back to muffin sized. I’ll be happy if I can finally do up the button on my jeans and know that it won’t pop open. But I won’t hold my breath.
More highlights of 2011 in the Jan. 3/12 issue of the Tofield Mercury
