“Rise and Shine! Rise and Shine!” This was my mother’s ritualistic morning greeting to coax me out of bed in time to get ready for school, eat breakfast and catch the school bus. Christmas morning was the only day of the year that she did not have to charm me out of bed. But I think that is pretty much true of most children who anticipate the special morning filled with excitement and joy every year.
In my older years, I would wake to the smell of bacon frying and my father on the telephone shouting “Rise and Shine!” to my siblings who had families of their own. You see, he wanted to be sure they were awake in time to get to Big John and Mama Jessie’s house in time for our annual Christmas breakfast.
Christmas breakfast at our house was no average breakfast. There was the meat: fried bacon, fried pork chops, fried ham and fried sausage. There were the eggs: fried eggs, scrambled eggs, boiled eggs. There were the fresh fruits: cantaloupe, tomatoes and grapefruit. There were the jams and jellies: strawberry jelly, blackberry jelly, apple jelly, peach preserves and fig preserves. There were the beverages: orange juice, grapefruit juice, regular coffee, decaf coffee, hot apple cider, sweet tea, Coca-Cola and Pepsi. There were grits, and, of course, there were my mom’s famous homemade buttermilk biscuits and gravy.
The tables would be set and all the food prepped, and we would have to wait for the first batch of the famous biscuits to come out of the oven so daddy could say the blessing for the food. Then, the party would begin!
The last time we all had Christmas breakfast together as an entire family, we were almost 40 strong in number counting all of the in-laws, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Along with all of the traditional foods for the holidays, our home was always decorated with traditional decorations including fresh magnolias and bowls of fresh fruit, homemade candies and cookies. When Roberta and I were first married, my mom would ship a huge box of magnolias from the tree that stood just outside my bedroom window, along with a tin of her homemade peanut butter balls, to us in New York to decorate our home for the holidays.
Each year I recreate a portion of that traditional breakfast for our family to enjoy here in Florida. I confess that we do not have quite the variety of foods for just the four of us; however, we do have the essentials: bacon, eggs, grits, tomatoes, jellies, and, of course, biscuits and gravy.
When designing our Christmas breakfast table this year, I chose to use a faux magnolia leaf tablecloth and accent it with green charger plates. The Nikko Classic Collection Christmas China is the same china that my mom served breakfast to all forty of us on each year. The centerpiece is an antique dough board that my father’s mother used for many years to make her biscuits for her 11 sons each morning. I filled the dough board with fresh magnolia leaves and fresh oranges accented with cloves and designer ribbon.
Merry Christmas y’all and happy eating!