‘Spirit of Christmas Past‘ is a series of holiday memories that are keeping me warm this season.  As if I needed to be any warmer…

Fresh from the oven, it was golden brown with what looked like crunchy, baked Cornflakes on top.  Underneath that layer were perfectly cut small squares of potatoes that I knew would please my palate.

What made this potato casserole even better—my Aunt Cathy was serving it at her house in Oklahoma City.  The precisely awesome smell matched the precise Christmas decorations and Madison Fir tree that was draped in blue lights.

Cathy also has precise food preferences.  She doesn’t like onions.  So, there were no onions in the casserole.  I hated onions too. I relished this onion-free zone, a place that was so exciting because it was the setting for an early Christmas celebration.  My Aunt Sandy would be there for this get-together because, on Christmas Day, she’d be in the air working as a flight attendant for Delta Airlines (in the days when Delta still had a hub at Dallas/Fort Worth).

My taste buds serve as a time machine for so many Christmas moments.  My grandma, Mema, always comes to mind when I think of the green gelatin fruit salad that’s part of nearly every year’s holiday meal.  And, Christmas couldn’t go on unless my mom was up before dawn making small chocolate pies with homemade whipped cream on top.

Still, nothing rouses as much emotion as Holiday Peanut M&Ms.  Those green and red chocolate ovals are the main course in my menu of Christmas taste bud memories.  Somehow, Christmas existed before Peanut M&Ms were born in 1954, but I’m not sure how.  That year the launch slogan for the candy was, “Melts in your mouth, not in your hands.” But, by 1995, they were melting on my grandpa, Papa’s face—not in his mouth.

During the holiday season there were always bowls filled with M&Ms spread throughout his house.  If you were inviting him to your house, you had to place bowls of Peanut M&Ms where you thought he’d be sitting.  This wasn’t a small detail.  Throughout his visit, the candy became part of every conversation.  I got the impression Papa couldn’t go on talking unless he had Peanut M&Ms in his mouth.

In fact, this was such an expectation that a lot of times my mom made a plan about who was going to sit across from Papa in the living room or at the table—that person would get the best view of the colors melting on his tongue, and the bits of peanut that fell from his mouth onto his chin.  Mom usually delegated me to sit in the Peanut M&M position.  She knew I could carry on a conversation with Papa without laughing at a stray piece of peanut, and without telling Papa he had something on his face.

After many Christmases, I began to think something was wrong with the conversation if there weren’t peanuts on Papa’s lips or chin. I never offered a napkin.  I never made a covert gesture with my hand to let him know something was on his face.  I just kept listening, knowing I’d never let these moments melt in my memory.