The Reindeer Keeper

Most of us will go through life having more than a few places we'll call home. Different stages in our lives-different circumstances warrant changes in our address. Some of those changes go unnoticed. A very few remain with us no matter where we go. It's not because of brand name counter tops or built-in fireplaces or in-ground pools with surrounding paper brick. While that stuff might make us comfortable, none of it matters for the simple reason home is not defined by a price tag or a brand or color or design. Rather, home is defined in our hearts. Home tugs at us. Like a bird in its nest, we know when we're there. Home wraps us up in comfort like an old, tattered quilt. Home keeps the world away. Home allows us to be still. I have a few places I call home. The one that comes to mind more often than not was my first home. The home where I grew up before we moved to the country when I was in the third grade. I remember every nook and cranny of...

Besides the pine desk my grandfather made me one year for Christmas being one of my most favorite Christmas presents ever, my white figure skates are on that list as well. Little did I know that particular Christmas morning, as I sat on my knees in the living room of a house situated alongside a lane, with my grandmother watching me open a box and finding the skates underneath sheets of tissue paper, that many years later I'd remember that moment when opening the box as if it was yesterday. I'd asked for the skates. I'd seen them sitting on a sled in a window of a hardware store in our downtown when out Christmas shopping with my mother. The skates were just as I imagined. I knew they were for me. Shortly after that Christmas we moved out to the country. Lucky for me and my skates there was a creek that flowed through the field behind our house and cousins next door who loved to skate. In the winter once the creek froze over, we were down there w...

Back in 1975 the oldest of my grandmother's six daughters undertook a project that still brings smiles to those of us who have followed. This aunt was quite creative. I remember her making Christmas candles using discarded milk cartons and serving the best sloppy joes ever. But it was that project years ago of sitting down with my grandmother and collecting her most treasured recipes and then putting them in order in a handwritten cookbook that takes the cak e-pardon the pun. You have to understand. Many of my grandmother's recipes weren't written down or found in another cookbook. They certainly weren't on line. The only on line back then was a clothesline.Her recipes were in her heart-her mind. Many didn't have exact measurements. A pinch of this-a thing or two of that were used to define teaspoons and tablespoons. How long to bake something was often not told in time but how something looked or smelled in the oven. "Until it looks cooked" was a favort...

  It’s fitting that January follows the hustle and stress of Christmas. Call me odd but January’s my favorite month of the year. It’s always been my favorite. When I was little, it was the mounds of snow that intrigued me. It didn’t matter how cold it was, my cousins and I would stay outside making snow houses and castles and forts. Now when January rolls around, the art of soup-making intrigues me. Drawing me to the kitchen which is not where I normally prefer to create. I didn’t come by this soup thing on my own. It’s in the genes. And it is an art. Add a loaf of bread and a salad and January gets even better. Along with donuts and breads, French goulash and everything else in between, my grandmother was the original soup guru. Anything leftover became soup for the next day. When you farm the land and you’re raising six daughters, there’s nothing called waste. Instead of following recipes, my grandmother followed her intuition with the season of the year determini...

Early in the morning of the day before Christmas I was in the grocery store. I was in a hurry as it was the last place I wanted to be. Standing by the meat counter I happened to look up. Coming towards me was a man I'd see now and then in various places-in stores or walking down a street. Whenever our paths crossed I'd always say hello but never received a response. Never saw a smile. Never made eye contact. In my mind I'd written him off as ornery. So whe n I saw him coming down the aisle I turned back around and continued my shopping. I forgot about him until I heard someone say, "You can always count on needing a few more things before Christmas. You're smart being here early." It was the ornery man talking to me. It had to be me I thought. I was the only one in sight. I was so shocked I didn't reply. I didn't have to. He kept talking. "You might think I'm out early getting ready for Christmas dinner. Well I'm not. No Christ...

When I graduated from high school I was clueless as to what I wanted to do. My mother insisted I enroll in a local college for girls run by nuns. It was small. I could live at home while I figured it out. I didn't want to go there but I finally took the step. I was tired of my mother asking, "What are you going to do?" Turned out it wasn't so bad. There were lots of interesting girls there from all over the place. I never liked high school but soon discovered this was different. Since I lived at home and since I had an older brother who drove a little TR3 and often came and picked me up, I was quite popular. Many of my new found friends took turns staying at my house when weekends rolled around. And some of those weekends included 'Mixers' with fraternities in colleges nearby. This was really lots of fun-especially one Mixer. That's when I met a guy from Niagara Falls. He was quite possibly the cutest guy in the place. He asked me to dance. Not once. No...

For whatever reason, certain Christmas gifts stand out from others received over the years. Sometimes those remembered the most aren’t necessarily the most expensive. Cars, jewelry, trips. They all cost a pretty penny. But the one gift I remember in particular cost less than a quarter. That’s because it didn’t matter what was wrapped inside. What mattered was it came from my older brother. We grew up in a house sitting alongside a lane surrounded by other houses mostly occupied by young families like ours. Because the street was on a bit of a hill, whenever a blizzard closed the schools, we’d all be sliding down the street on toboggans and sleds. Even though there was no fireplace, our home was the perfect location for Santa to visit once our father went to the attic and carried down a cardboard imitation. We’d get so excited as pretend flames started back up again when batteries were in place. On Christmas Eve we’d tape our stockings to the cardboard mantle after leaving...