Christmas Tradition Expanded





Christmas baking -- almost done!  We've finished baking the final batch of cookies and this week, I'll take on the yeast breads, teaching our daughter to bake loaves of cinnamon swirl bread that taste exactly right sliced, toasted, and spread with warm butter.  I feel both anticipation and a few pangs of nervousness at passing along this tradition. Trial and error makes the best teacher in this, and errors often make for irritation when people work closely together in a small space.  But we will persevere.  Bread will bake.  We will succeed, and our family will have the privilege of enjoying it with us.

Today, though, I will work on cinnamon rolls.  My husband and I have enjoyed this recipe for twenty-one years, after painstakingly working to copy the delectable rolls that go by a famous name ending in "bon" at shopping malls.  For weeks (pre-Internet -- no Google, no Bing -- with actual, print copies of recipes gleaned from collections and books), we tried a number of dough recipes for the roll, moving between taste-testing at the mall to baking new batches to compare flavor and texture. 

The filling came more easily, since we could watch the bakers at the mall bake shop in action while workers mixed and sprinkled a cinnamon-sugar mixture across the thickly buttered surface of the dough.  Brown sugar.  Key ingredient!

We purchased more rolls to verify our icing recipe, knowing that cream cheese played an integral role in the creaminess of the final product.  Sugary icing would never do.  Smooth and silky, owning the properties for melting into the layers of each roll, but not completely.  

Within a few weeks' time, we did it!  I do not recall the amount of cash we invested in our shopping mall roll purchases, or in restocking ingredients as we tried and failed, but divided by the 21 years of tradition that follow, the rolls paid for themselves long ago, in the thanks from family and friends receiving them each Christmas.  I bake them, mainly, for the people living under this roof.  But, first, I bake them for the man who helped me take each step, bit by bit, cup by cup, and taste by taste.  We took a journey together, with a mission in mind, and we found success. 

Each year since then, we look forward to these cinnamon rolls, fondly remembering the pounds we added to our waistlines in effort to compare and make a best match on a product we felt we must have, no question of failure.  The end result varies little, no matter if the kneading went a little short or a little long.   Yeast has occasionally failed and had to be proofed again.  Once in a while, sugar scorches and darkens an edge on a single roll, but nothing that would cause someone to turn down a serving.  One year, an entire pan of rolls met an untimely demise, courtesy of a late-night baking, as I crammed too many Christmas plans into too little time, and flipped a freshly-baked pan of rolls upside-down into the bottom of the oven.  Overall, each year builds on those before it and we learn new tricks to producing a better product and new ways to share what we produce with others.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

Two are better than one, they have a good return for their work:

If one falls down, his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!

Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.  But how can one keep warm alone?

Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

The traditions of marriage -- the love overtures -- remind me a lot of the making of the rolls.  The early stages took trial and error, but we refused to quit.  We figure out how to manage and maneuver around any snags or pitfalls.  We keep comparing and finding new information or guidance, and we want an outstanding final product. 

Sometimes, efforts don't meet our expectations, we fail at getting everything done in an order that allows for agreeable outcomes, we need to go back and start from scratch.  When we feel we can't possibly improve or get around an obstacle, we check again and find new strength to continue.  We persevere, no matter what.

When we follow the recipe, when we pay attention to the details, when we keep our eyes and heart focused on the end result, we find success.  The successful outcomes give light to the times that we fall short -- we have memories of past successes and know we can produce the same thing if only we pay attention and take the right steps to get there.

And, just like a batch of cinnamon rolls, when we have a terrific outcome, everyone -- family and friends included -- shares in the enjoyment.  Each of us must remember that though we meet difficulties and suffer the aftermath of poor decisions, the basic recipe remains.  When we remember to return to it we can certainly tweak  or twist  the basics a little bit, but in the end, we know we have committed to getting a positive, wanted, hoped-for, anticipated end result that will give us something to look forward to every time.

Merry Christmas!