I spent most of my childhood in this little village in Stokes County where my Grandmother lived. By the time she married and left her home in Rockingham County, the quiet little cove had come to tolerate daily arrivals of Norfolk and Southern trains. The sound of those steam engines huffing up the hill and the wail of their whistles as they rounded the curve before stopping at Walnut Cove were as familiar as the crunch of wagon wheels had been in former days. My Grandmother raised eleven children, three sons and eight daughters. She had been totally absorbed by her family and the Walnut Cove community by the time my Grandfather died, before I was born. I never thought of Christmas Day in Walnut Cove as a unity of traditions. It was just the way Christmas was celebrated at my Grandmother's house.
. . . . . . . . I awoke to the sounds of someone building a fire in my room and snuggled down till I could hear the flames crackling in the pine logs and sensed that the chill was gone. By the time I was dressed and downstairs, the kitchen was already steamy and warm, lively with activity. Turkeys roasted in the ovens of the old wood stove. Katie peeled big white potatoes over a bucket to catch the peels while Susie monitored the pots that were already simmering on the top of the stove. Whatever day it was, however important its content, patties of sausage and biscuits were always warming on the back of the stove. Fresh butter and homemade blackberry jelly were on the table.
Spicy hams, brought in from the smoke house and cooked the day before, sat on the back porch shelf. Nearby, little puffs of steam rose from the milk that had already been boiled and stood cooling so the cream could be skimmed off. On most mornings, the cream would be churned into sweet butter. But this was Christmas Day and it would be the nectar of a Grandmother's Christmas Gift.
Christmas Day in Walnut Cove was as bright and merry and garrulous as you could ever imagine that a Christmas should be. The little town shone with gem-like radiance, morning frost silvering the rooftops and glittering from every clump of greenery. Chilled air moving from the mountains through the valley sent smoke curling up from every chimney in town. The maples' bare branches etched terse tracings against a winter sky.
All morning long, cousins arrived by ones and twos and threes, dressed in Sunday clothes and showing off their new toys. Aunts and Uncles, burdened with heavy winter clothing and gaily wrapped packages, hurried into the house to stand by the fire warming their hands. Watching the family arrive, listening to their greetings, absorbing the merriment of Walnut Cove on Christmas Day was as exciting as a visit from Santa Claus.
By mid day, the huge family had arrived. They roamed from one house to another -- Uncle Paul's across the street or Aunt Anne's and Aunt Sadie's two doors down, or farther down the street to Uncle Bill's or Aunt Sallie's. It was marvelous to walk into their living rooms. Christmas trees were cut from the tops of the white pines that grew in the pasture down by the branch. The fresh aroma permeated each house. Aunts and Uncles and cousins crowded the living rooms, and spilled into adjacent rooms, everyone smiling and laughing and talking and joking. When I introduced my new husband to Christmas in Walnut Cove, I began to appreciate what had always been mine. He was dazzled - awed - by the size of this family, overwhelmed by the sound of it, enchanted by the merriment of Walnut Cove on Christmas Day.
When everyone reassembled at Nannie's house for Christmas Dinner, the furniture was pushed back against the walls to make room for tables and chairs in every room. The big dining room table was reserved for Nannie and her older children; her younger children and the spouses were relegated to the sun porch that opened onto the dining room; grandchildren had places in farther rooms. Someone said the Blessing; at least we presumed so because there was lots of shushing from the grownups' room. We never heard it but knew when it was over by the murmurs of "Amen." The seating order governed the serving order. By the time we children were served, Aunts and Uncles were waiting for seconds. Forty or fifty or sixty people had dinner at my Grandmother's every Christmas Day until she was almost ninety years old. Her sons and daughters tried in vain to convince her that Christmas Dinner was too great an undertaking, but she never agreed to doing it any other way.
After everyone had eaten all they could of turkey with dressing and gravy, ham, string beans and mashed potatoes, baked apples and sweet potatoes with marshmallows, squash, biscuits and cornbread, the desserts appeared -- so many different kinds of cakes and pies, I can't even remember them all. Christmas Dinner was a rich and abundant feast of hardy tastes and smells; but one item on the menu surpassed all others. Nannie's Boiled Custard was the very essence of Christmas in Walnut Cove, rich and robust and lusty. She served it from an old pressed glass pitcher set on a tray in the middle of the sideboard. One Uncle checked our distant room every Christmas so he could return and report that we were all done and the Boiled Custard could be served.
By 1962, my Grandmother's family had grown to seventy-five or eighty people. She had enriched each life with precious memories of Christmas Day in Walnut Cove -- a special day that frolicked and laughed and hugged and joked and glowed. My children and their children will not know a Christmas as vibrant as it was in Walnut Cove.
. . . . . . . . . . When I was a young woman, I asked Nannie how to make Boiled Custard like she did, with lumps. I carefully wrote down what she told me and tucked it away. One summer day, Nannie went to her sideboard and gently lifted an old pitcher from one of its nooks. With her sleeve, she brushed away specks of dust. This was her Mother's pitcher, she told me, so I should always take care of it. I wrapped the old pitcher and put it away, almost forgetting about it. I did not understand then that her gift embodied the essence of Christmas in Walnut Cove.
Soon, I was caretaker of my own family's Christmas. I rumbled around and found that old pitcher and shined it up one Christmas morning. By now, it was almost a hundred years old and I was at least the fourth in a line of Granddaughters who polished it on Christmas morning. I did not comprehend the perfection of it's message; but I remembered that the old pitcher had once stood on Nannie's sideboard on Christmas Day filled with Boiled Custard. That Christmas morning, I made Nannie's Boiled Custard and poured it into the old pressed glass pitcher that was her Mother's, and set it on the sideboard. Our sons are young men now with children of their own, and I'm no longer the only Granddaughter in my family. Caroline Browning is almost five years old.
Each Christmas, the old pitcher is shined and filled with Nannie's Boiled Custard and we accept it now as our Christmas tradition. Through the years, I have come to better comprehend its message. Maybe I had to know Christmas through my own Granddaughter's eyes before I could understand. In time I added a sprig of evergreen, signifying life everlasting; and I fastened it on with a red ribbon to celebrate the joy of Christmas. Then I set it on a tray on the sideboard.
Last Christmas, I learned that Boiled Custard is still a cherished tradition on Christmas Day in Rockingham County. When I asked my informant - to his total and utter astonishment - if Rockingham County custard is lumpy and lusty, he told me that it is. Now I understand.