It’s that time of the year again, when most of us rush
around to finish this and that, complete our shopping, wrap up projects, and ensure everything is in place for the Holiday Season. If you are anything like me, you procrastinate
a little and end up finishing things in the last minute. When will I learn?
I remember, as a child, my father would take my siblings and me, in the early hours of a November morning, down to the fish
docks. We’d wait in long line ups, with
other families, to fill our buckets with freshly caught herring. I can see some of your noses crinkling, but
until you have tried this delicacy the way our family serves it, you truly
don’t know what you’re missing. We’d
fill at least 5 big buckets (I would say
a good 100 of the tiny fish) and enjoy the smell of the sea filling the
car on our trip home. I would then
assist my mother in the washing and cleaning of the fish; removing the innards
and filleting them.
They would then get layered with coarse salt in big ceramic pots and sit
in the dark of our basement cellar for weeks.
The salt would cook the fish, so the end result would be to wash them
off, and cut them up to ready them for salads.
My mother always made a most delicious Herring Salat (German). It was mixed with cooked potatoes, pickles,
hard boiled eggs, sliced apples and cooked red beets, and seasoned with vinegar, salt & pepper, and dill weed. I would always try to steal a few mouthfuls
before it was served to the family on Christmas Eve.
Christmas Eve was the special evening of celebration with a family gathering and a pot luck meal. Mom would always invite friends who found themselves alone at this time of the year. After a short retirement to our bedrooms, we’d hear a bell ringing, calling
to us to come to the living room to see the wonderment of a Christmas Tree and
all the lovely presents underneath. Now
mind you, we had to work for those presents.
My siblings and I would have to prepare a poem, act out a skit, perform with
instruments, or tell a story before any of us would be able to partake in the
merriment of gift opening. Then we sang a number of holiday songs while some of us played recorder or the
piano. The wait for that moment was
always so long and arduous. I would often shake in fear that I would say
something wrong, or play my recorder with mistakes, or would simply forget
my presentation all together. However, I
always succeeded.
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