Blogs
Kick the Fruitcake
By Erma Bombeck
Redbook Christmas story
Sept. 10, 1991
Everyone visualizes a Christmas where the tree is trimmed, the presents are beautifully wrapped, and the menu is planned. I lower my expectations and standards.
We’re not talking Martha Stewart here. I know in my heart I will not brush my cookies with gold leaf or make a cassoulet which lists 22 ingredients including such staples as six 5-pound ducks and two cups of fresh duck fat!
On Christmas morning I will go to church, where I say a prayer to Sister Sara Lee, St. Ocean Spray, and our Lady of Butterball. After a brunch, the family opens presents and we play Kick the Fruitcake. Dinner is a buffet (I refuse to spend 85 hours preparing a dinner that turns cold while my husband goes out for film for the camera and is consumed in 12 minutes).
We all hug one another and say how grateful we are for those wonderful presents and I pass out sales slips so they can return them.
Why break a tradition with stress?
(From the Erma Bombeck Collection, University of Dayton Archives. Used by permission.)