“You have to start with a Hallmark Christmas movie,” Leigh Collier says without a trace of irony in her voice.
She laughs as I audibly groan, a moment that describes our friendship perfectly.
On this particular Monday at the end of October, Marry Me at Christmas kicks it all off. It’s a new release, fresh for 2017’s countdown to Christmas, starring Rachel Skarsten as a bridal boutique owner planning a Christmas wedding and Trever Donovan as the bride’s brother. I’ll give you one guess to figure out what happens.
We’re about to replicate some of that scene-stealing Christmas movie magic right here in Leigh’s living room by squeezing a little more holiday cheer into the space.
We shove the light blue leather armchairs toward the middle of her family room, and she gently maneuvers a fake tree out of the corner. She already has three trees finished: The red and green tree, under which the family’s presents will eventually pile up and on top of which a mossy colored, light-filled, felt top hat is perched where a star would normally be. In the upside-down tree hanging above the dining room table, her grandmother’s 44 silver goblets (originally meant to serve water, wine, cordials, and champagne for 12) take the place of ornaments. A white and silver one has a village of glittering houses tucked between the branches; it was added to the Collier Christmas tree show last year.
She’s about to start my favorite tree (and it’s hard to choose), a gold and blue number with 12 ceramic plates surrounded by plastic pine needles, ribbons, tulle, and ornaments. The pale-hued “12 Days of Christmas” collection from Haviland Limoges is also a family heirloom, slowly purchased at one per year throughout the 1970s.
Even more trees will get put up before Thanksgiving. It’s a tradition at the Collier household. Leigh starts lugging boxes of ornaments and garbage bags of ribbon and tulle out the attic in the garage around the end of October. She progresses through the house methodically, one tree at a time, then circles into the front and back yards to hang gigantic plastic ornaments from trees and ensconce all available trim with lights and garland. The house transforms into what can only be described as a Christmas wonderland.
When everything is finished, it’s like stepping into a childhood Christmas fantasy—a Hallmark experience, if you will. And she loves every minute of it.
“It’s too much work to not love to do it,” she says.
It takes about two Hallmark movies (four to five hours) to finish decorating each tree. She has two more big trees and one in both of the boys’ rooms left to do before she sets her sights outside of the house.
It sounds excessive, but that’s kind of the point.
“Christmas is about excess,” she says.
Like an arts and craft project gone rogue, snowflakes dangle in front of the back window, ribbon- and ornament-covered garlands grace archways, lights dance off glossy surfaces, and the smell of cinnamon and juniper wafts through the house. It’s hard not to be in awe—and the sounds their annual Christmas party guests make as they flow through the house tell you all you need to know about how it feels to be surrounded by it. All that glittering, twinkle-light filled magic that comes with the holiday season is why she does it.
The labor of love has steadily grown since the birth of her first son, 12 years ago. When she was pregnant with her second, she took the year off.
“It was physically hard not to do it,” she says.
Every few years, she adds another tree to the house or gives one a new theme. They are designed from items passed on by family and friends, after Christmas sales, and garage sale or thrift store finds. This blue/gold medley came about when her father’s best friend passed the Haviland Limoges plates on to her a couple of years ago.
Leigh pulls the plates out of their gray boxes, stacking them on a heavy white blanket. Each has a blue ribbon glue-gunned to the backside as “extra support.” She puts the First Day of Christmas at the very top, settling the partridge-and-pear-tree-painted platter between wiry branches and bending them around it to hold it in place.
We are on to the second Hallmark movie of the day, Christmas Under Wraps, about a doctor who moves to a town in Alaska after she doesn’t get the opportunity she wanted. I stare at the screen and Leigh laughs.
“See!” she says. “It’s mesmerizing.”
Tree-Trimming Tips
A handy list of holiday tree decorating dos.
1. Take out that string of lights and get cracking.
2. Tulle of your choice. If your tulle is crumpled from last year, just throw it in the dryer for a little bit (but not too long, as it will melt).
3. Mesh. Yes, I didn't know this was a thing either. But don't wrap any of this stuff around the tree too tightly, you want to keep things a little loose.
4. Ribbon, preferably of more than one design or color. And you don't want to wrap the tree in it. Cut it into long strips and sort of tuck it in lengthwise. "You don't want to see where it begins and ends," Leigh says. Plus, she adds: "It's just easier."
5.For the ornaments: You've got to start with the big ones. Work your way from the top of the tree to the bottom.
6. Tuck some of the smaller ornaments toward the back of the tree to give things some depth.
7.Fluff, tuck, and resettle ornaments to your desire.
8. Don't forget the tree skirt!
Executive Editor Camillia Lanham admits that Hallmark movies can be mesmerizing. Contact her at [email protected].
Never miss a Christmas: Nourishing traditions keep the holidays warm
BY KAREN GARCIA
I’ve always spent the holidays with my small family. We would visit other relatives before or after Christmas to exchange gifts and goodies, but actual Christmas was always for my siblings, parents, and grandparents. And every year I look forward to helping make the main holiday course, pozole.
Pozole translates to hominy—dried corn kernels—and it’s a traditional stew from Mexico. No two pozole recipes are alike; every family has a slightly different version of the stew. I have to admit my mother’s recipe is my absolute favorite, although I agree that’s a biased statement.
I look forward to the smell of chilies and pork that fills the house; I could definitely compare it to the smell of a Christmas tree, as both remind me of the holidays.
The stew hasn’t been in our family for generations just yet; so far it was a recipe my grandmother learned and has passed down to my mom. Between my siblings and me, I am next in line to continue on the tradition.
When I was a child, my biggest job for the Christmas meal was helping set the table. But in middle school, I moved up the chain and started helping my mom make the pozole. That prep work starts the day before Christmas Eve.
INGREDIENTS
• 1 whole white onion
• 3 garlic cloves
• 4 packages of pork, about 3 to 4 lbs each
• 2 to 3 packages of dried California chilies
• 2 cans of 29-ounce Jaunita's Foods Mexican Style Hominy
• water
• salt (to taste)
For garnish:
• Half a head of lettuce (shredded)
• 1 whole white onion
• 3 lemons
Total cooking time: about 4 hours
This recipe doesn’t call for too many ingredients, but it does take some time to make. It starts with two to three bags of California dried chili pods. I take the time to carefully cut the chilies open and take out all the seeds. While I’m deseeding the chilies, my mom fills (about halfway) a large pot with water. Once I’ve finished deseeding the chilies, I’ll put them in the pot and let them cook for about an hour and half—until the pods have softened.
Once the pods have finished cooking and have cooled, I’ll put them in a blender and add half a cup of the water from the pot, mixing until it liquefies. Once liquefied, put a strainer over a deep bowl and pour the liquid into the bowl, this prevents excess pulp from building up in your sauce. Then I set this aside.
Next is the pork.
Like I said earlier, every family has a different twist on the pozole but it’s commonly made with pork. You can use chicken or beef. Cut the meat into small chunks and put in a large pot, filled more than halfway with water. Cut an entire white onion into thin slices and put into the pot. Dice three garlic cloves and add them to the pot as well. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat to medium/low. During this process, grease and foam will formulate at the top of the pot; carefully skim it with a spoon. Let the ingredients simmer for about two hours, until the pork is tender.
Next, open two 29-ounce cans of Juanita’s Foods Mexican Style Hominy (any brand of hominy will do). Drain the liquid from the cans and use a spoon to add the hominy to the pot of ingredients. Now it’s finally time to add in the chili sauce that we started with. Add salt to taste. Let the stew simmer for about 45 minutes to an hour.
As a kid, when it was time to serve I glowed with pride as my mom would tell everyone at the table how I much I had helped make their dinner.
Now I don’t just help, I’m my mom’s copilot—but I still glow with pride when my mom relays my efforts.
Once it’s finished cooking, serve the pozole in a bowl with a side of corn tortilla chips. The stew can be garnished with shredded lettuce, diced onions, and a wedge of lemon. We usually have a plate of the garnishes so each person can add as much as they’d like to their bowl.
We enjoy our pozole Christmas Eve for dinner, feeding six people, and we serve it for breakfast on Christmas Day.
Not only do I enjoy making pozole and later devouring it, I love the time I spend with my mom making it. My family lives in Southern California, a good four-hour drive from San Luis Obispo. Sure, we talk on the phone all the time, but making our holiday stew together is a time to really catch up. I’ve never missed a Christmas in the kitchen with my mom.
Karen Garcia’s stomach is rumbling. She’s a staff writer at the Sun’s sister paper to the north, New Times. Reach her at [email protected].
Christmas past on display: These ornaments are way more than ornamental
BY HAYLEY THOMAS CAIN
It was the weirdest most wondrous Christmas ever.
My dad and I were walking along the water in Hermosa Beach, then a sleepy coastal town. Well, we did see Bay Watch being filmed on the sand occasionally, but—being 7 years old—that all seemed pretty normal to me.
It was the early ’90s, before my family’s big move to Atascadero, which happened a year later. This was the December that, as if by some magic Poseidon command, thousands of starfish began washing onto the shore.
It was an incredible sight.
The sea stars we found on our stroll that day were already long dead, turning this sunny California picture into a surreal landscape. I was reminded of the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck onto the ceiling of my room. How had they fallen to earth so suddenly?
Although this could have been sort of a bleak “death comes for us all” moment, we decided no, we would celebrate instead. I’m not sure whose bright idea it was, but we began collecting as many of the starfish as we could.
Arms full, we brought our bounty back to our nearby condo, which instantly smelled of salty, tangy fish.
Dad dried out the sea stars on the patio over the next few days (where he and my mom kept two pottery wheels), then he sprayed them a metallic gold color.
We hung these precious oceanic corpses on our Christmas tree, which probably made mom happy because Dad was never too excited about holiday decorations or any holiday, for that matter.
When the Christmas lights flashed on, the stars magically transformed back to life—an electric mermaid’s dream. The single sea star I’ve kept for decades has always smelled faintly of the sea. Like a conch shell, it brings back a roaring ocean of memories.
Baubles, trinkets, and family heirlooms dangle from so many of our trees this holiday season. But what are the stories behind these static materials? More than glass, wood, or dried macaroni, they are portals to another time.
When we unearth that dusty holiday box from the back of the closet, the familiar rush of emotion returns. This is why I decorate my own (pink-flocked) tree, just for my husband and myself. When we hang these objects, we think of mom, dad, grandma, big sister, friend, teacher. We silently celebrate these moments and these people as we stand back and admire the final masterpiece.
Grover Beach writer Sarah Hollister coveted a single slice of thin glass—a bright green bookworm wearing a graduation cap, perched on a short stack of books.
“He was adorable, the ugly/cute type,” Hollister said of the ornament. “My husband and I had recently started college at Cuesta, and it was a gift from my grandma.”
But then, life happened. Hollister’s oldest son, about 6 at the time, accidentally knocked the fragile worm from the tree, sending the glass shattering dramatically across the floor.
Accidents happen, right? Turns out, it was a happy one.
“I liked the ornament before it was broken, but it was only when my husband expressed the same sadness over it that it truly became my favorite. He doesn’t have ‘favorite things’ and rarely expresses sadness over loss of any ‘crap’ we may have,” Hollister said. “I saw his emotion, and it made me love him even more.”
Then there are the stories that make you laugh. Callie Tennock, a SLO radio DJ at ALT 93.7 (who you can hear midday during the week), has a soft spot for a glittery, googley-eyed cat.
“It has a spiraled pipe cleaner for a hook and it kind of looks like a miniature disco ball,” Tennock said. “I bought it from a group of children who were selling homemade ornaments to fund something at their school. I’m a sucker for kids with a cause. I have the empty caramel corn tins in my trunk to prove it.”
Kindhearted Tennock said the holidays were always a big deal at her house growing up, and she’d spend nights hanging out under the tree, watching the lights twinkle behind big fluffy branches.
Sometimes, she wishes she could go back.
“It’s been years since my family has really acknowledged Christmas—we are all pretty busy people—so when I see houses lit up and trees through windows I get pretty nostalgic,” she said. “I hang the ornament on my rearview mirror in my car so I can take Christmas everywhere I go.”
That little ornament has been through a lot—it’s even flown through her car window once, leading Tennock to circle the block looking for the little guy.
Still, she’d never consider removing it from its deserved place in the spotlight. Each December, the weird little DIY bauble is hung with care.
“When the traffic lights hit it at night, it’s like I have my own personal Christmas tree,” Tennock said.
Lastly, there are the tales that real holiday nostalgia are made of, the ones that make you weep tears of bittersweet joy. My dear friend Jenn Hix, owner of The Queens Bees in SLO, has one such memory.
It has been seven years since her mother passed away, but each Christmas, Hix gets to spend a little quality time with her memory thanks to a trove of precious handmade ornaments.
“A few months after her memorial service, we went through her things to find out what to keep and what to get rid of. I had remembered a bunch of items of hers that were in my childhood home and was looking to save them and cherish the memories to pass onto my kids one day,” Hix said.
Sadly, she found that much of her mother’s things had been removed from storage, including many of the ornaments.
“I was devastated,” Hix said. “I thought I’d never see the little hand-embroidered ornaments that she made again.”
But there was some sort of epic holiday magic at work.
“Months passed and I started receiving letters from my family members telling me how sorry they were for my loss, and how they had a few things she had made,” Hix said.
She had no idea what to expect. Maybe a piece of clothing or a photo?
When those first packages arrived in the mail, Hix was floored. It was her mother’s special ornaments. How had they known?
The best part: Throughout the years, Hix has received about 10 of the cherished decorations, all tangible mementos once held in her mother’s hands.
They would arrive unexpectedly in Hix’s world, keeping her mother’s memory fresh and vibrant.
“To this day, every once in a while, I’ll be at a relative’s house and they’ll say they have something of my mother’s to give me,” she said, “only to come back with more of these precious gems.”
Hayley Thomas Cain is hanging ornaments in honor of her friends Sarah, Callie, and Jenn. She can be reached at [email protected].
