A Christmas Tradition

Thirty-some years ago a few people gathered in the home of my parents ranch house for the wedding of two teenagers. It really doesn't seem like it was that long ago. I am still crazy about my man-boy and I think he's still rather nuts about me. We have had a lot of great things happen in our time together with the cherry on the cake being our four children. As they were growing, it was my main focus in life to try to give them a childhood full of fun memories and experiences. Although there were great things throughout the year, it seems that Christmas was always the greatest time of magic and excitement.

As a child, my memories are filled with the great smells of home. It seemed that my mother was always baking this or that--and ALWAYS bread. At Christmas we would make pulled taffy that would burn your hands as you pulled. You didn't dare not pull though because it was the pulling that made the taffy so great! Mom would make all sorts of chocolates; mints, peanut butter cups, chocolate covered cherries, ect. I am not sure what happened to all of that candy. I know that I snuck my fair share of it though.

A tradition that began with our wedding and now has a prominent place in our Christmas tradition is the Marshmallow Cookie Roll. For our wedding, since it was the day before Thanksgiving, mom made this frozen pumpkin cake stuff that was pretty good but it was the marshmallow roll that caught my attention. I thought about posting the recipe here but decided against it. I don't want everyone in the world having it because then it would lose it's uniqueness and become another ordinary recipe like "Funeral Potatoes" and green jello with carrots (to bad someone didn't horde THAT recipe! uugh!). The kids all have the recipe though and they continue the tradition that began with the marriage of two little teenage kids many, many short years ago.