Christmas Crackers

When I was a very little girl, about 5 years old, my family lived in a town called Morton-in-Marsh in England. My dad was stationed at the Air Force base nearby. I don't remember much about England, but I do remember making brass rubbings at Westminster Abbey and I remember our next door neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis.

Mr. Lewis was an elderly gentleman who was (as I remember) soft-spoken. He wore cardigan sweaters and had a book about birds and their eggs that he used to let me look at when we would visit. We would sit together and look at the bird egg book and talk.

Anyway, one year Mr. and Mrs. Lewis invited us to Christmas. On the table were these Christmas crackers, which I had not seen before. Traditionally, two people each grasp one end and pull the cracker apart. With a POP, it cracks open and little trinkets and a paper hat are revealed. The person who ends up with the larger portion of the cracker will have good luck.

This year, I'm thinking of ordering some of these Christmas Crackers from Amazon. I think it would be a fun way of introducing my own kids to this fun English tradition.



I really think they would get a kick out of them!

Pomegranate

When I was a kid, somewhere around 8 or 9 years old, we lived in North Carolina in a small house in an elderly neighborhood. We kept ourselves busy, played outside almost all day, and roamed the neighborhood freely. Those were the days; I wish my own kids had the same freedoms. Times have changed or something and it just doesn't feel safe to let them roam as much as we did. Don't get me wrong - they do their share of outside playing! But they stay pretty close to home.

Anyway, when I was a kid in N.C., the old gentleman who lived across the street had a pomegranate tree. I don't remember how we came across the first one, whether he gave it to us to try, or if we had one from the grocery store, or what. But somehow I was introduced to the pomegranate around that same time.

Now, we were strongly discouraged from bothering him and asking for a pomegranate from his tree. Probably because we knocked every week asking if they were ripe yet. As a kid, I doubt that I had any idea that pomegranates ripen in the fall, so we probably did pester him all summer long.

I do have memories of climbing his fence and picking his pomegranates, though. I guess when you're a kid and you're not allowed to knock in his door, the next logical way of getting one is to pick it yourself. Funny how that doesn't seem as appealing of an option now that I have kids of my own. ;)

At least once or twice I must have managed to get one that was ripe, because I can remember managing to hack into it somehow and pluck out the seeds one by one and savoring them. I've always been a sour candy kind of person, preferring Now and Laters over chocolate bars, so the tartness of a pomegranate seed is right up my alley. That one pomegranate would last the whole day, it seemed, and I can only imagine the mess my hands, face, and clothes were when I came in at the end of the day!

So, now that I am grown and have children about the same age that I was when I first discovered this delectable fruit, I thought I'd introduce it to them as well. Can I just say that there is something way different about buying a pomegranate from the store, keeping it in the fridge, and then cutting it open with a knife?! It just isn't the same as tearing into one that you just plucked off of a tree, warmed by the sun and eaten with dirty fingers as you wander the neighborhood looking for a playmate.

Nevertheless, two kids love the seeds and two hate them. No grey area when it comes to pomegranate seeds, I guess.



I feel like I should go rub my hands in the dirt before I eat them!