Happy Sewing Days

Whipping the cream in Christmas Past

My family has many Christmas Dinner traditions, some so subtle that we don’t actually recognize them as traditions until they don’t happen.  One such was my mother causing a scene of some sort.  I miss this one sadly.  Sometimes I was humiliated, sometimes amused, sometimes annoyed, but never bored by her antics.  Another is the to-do over the whipped cream.  Yet another is that the person whipping the cream wears The Apron. My aunt Pauline made this apron  close to (or possibly even more than) fifty years ago for my Uncle Bill.  It was her own design, and everyone loves it.  Whoever is overseeing the turkey, making the gravy, (or whipping the cream,) usually wears it while he (at least it is usually “he” as she has many sons) is momentarily king of the kitchen. Recently my cousin Tim was visiting his mom, preparing a treat - in the apron, of course - and reminiscing about a visit from Uncle Tim, my Uncle Bill’s brother. Four year old Timmy had gotten up first, and come down to the kitchen were Uncle Tim was about to fix an “Uncle Tim fry-up.”  He said he would show Timmy how to make breakfast, and folded the apron so that it actually fit Timmy, and they cooked breakfast together.  Pauline told him that since he loved the apron so, he could take it home.  Tim was thrilled – so thrilled that his wife Michaella put a picture of him happily cooking in the apron on Facebook. 

This did not sit well with other traditionalists, and to avoid hurt feelings, Tim sadly brought the apron back so it could return to its status as “pro tem crown of the current kitchen king.” 

Pauline, seeing Tim’s disappointment, decided to reproduce the apron.  We traced out a pattern, made a trip to the material store, and spent a couple of fun days sewing it up.  What a success it was.  There were quite a few moist eyes around the table when Tim opened his gift.  Now Tim and  his family can wear the new apron at his house for the next fifty years at least, and all the brothers can continue to wear the old one when visiting their mother.  

Joe modeling the old and Tim the new aprons