When you are poor, it's amazing what a little style and creativity can do. My mother could take a few crystal dishes, some candles, a bowl of pine-cones and a tablecloth, and perform a Christmas miracle.
The days leading up to Christmas were dedicated to baking a variety of "heirloom" recipes that had been handed down to my mother by my grandmother. That's when my mother went to work making loaves of brandy-soaked fruitcake, platters of fudge, tins of "bourbon balls" (a liqueur-saturated pastry), and her South Carolina version of goulash.
This last tradition was added to the list, I realize now, because it could feed a family of six for two days with minimal preparation time. I didn't know that at the time; I grew up thinking that goulash was a part of everyone's holiday fare.
Goulash was one of many exotic cultural dishes my mother prepared before Christmas. During those weeks leading up to the big day, hamburger was a constant in our kitchen. It was only the addition of those final few ingredients that would reveal what meal-of-the-world we would be eating on any given night; kidney beans meant chili, Italian seasoning meant spaghetti, white sauce meant stroganoff, and paprika meant goulash. How was I to know this was her version of "hamburger helper," allowing her the extra time she needed to do her Christmas baking?
Life was so much simpler back in the days when the International House of Pancakes was actually considered an exotic dining experience (all those flavored syrups...and Belgian waffles!) We didn't have the Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous around for comparison back then, and there were no Kardashians or Atlanta Housewives available to show us how the high-falutin' side lived or dined. In those days, when Mrs. Jones served green-bean casserole instead of peas and Mrs. Smith made mashed potatoes instead of rice, that was our interpretation of diversity.
Despite being a small-town girl from Greenwood, South Carolina, my mother possessed the spirit of a bohemian and a woman of the world. I have no idea how she managed it, but despite working full-time with four children, she always made sure our knowledge extended beyond the limits of our small home town, and our modest rented houses felt like real homes.
Our tiny two-story house in Reno, Nevada was a pauper’s castle, a potpourri of treasures thrown together like cannonball soup from the heirlooms and artifacts my mother painstakingly pieced together out of love.
Despite years of poverty in her young marriage, my mother had a fabulous sense of decorating style that allowed her to combine and arrange mismatched possessions in a way that was both classic and exotic. Her inspired touch made our home feel like a palace, filled with fascinating and unusual things from far-off lands. She had a carved jade lamp from China and a cloisonné lantern from Indonesia; an ornate French angel clock, an American dry sink and a mahogany Queen Ann desk from England. Copies of obscure artwork by old masters hung on every wall, alternating with carved mirrors of all sizes.
My mother took great pleasure in continually rearranging her green velvet couches, wrought-iron bird cages, oriental rugs and hand-painted antique chamber pots filled to overflowing with grape ivy (the chamber pots, my mother remarked in humor, were to ensure we always had a pot to piss in). And her home was always filled with lush, beautifully-manicured plants she took great care in watering, coffee-cup in hand.
All of these unusual things created a magnificent symphony when brought together with Mother’s eye for beauty, and her creativity brought dignity to our otherwise impoverished young lives. Much of my mother’s exotic art and furniture collection came from my Aunt Alice, who lived in a posh flat in downtown San Francisco and was a frequent visitor to our home; she was also a “launderer” of unusual possessions, if you will. During my childhood years she ran a kind of Underground Railroad for furniture she acquired through pseudo-black-market transactions she could not possibly explain to her husband, my Uncle Bob.
Aunt Alice’s monthly household allowance wasn’t designed to afford her everything her good taste craved, so when she made a discreet purchase or lucky trade for some piece of furniture she simply had to have but couldn’t explain to her husband, she’d hustle it on over to our house in Reno with the understanding that some day in the future she would return to reclaim it.
My aunt’s primary source for these furnishings was the St. Vincent de Paul thrift shop, where she was a dedicated and tireless socialite volunteer. As cast-offs from their wealthy patrons arrived by the truckloads at the shop, Aunt Alice could purchase the finer pieces inexpensively before they ever hit the floor – a practice conducted discreetly by all of the socialite volunteers of the day. Due to Aunt Alice’s antiquities and accessories addiction, my mother ended up with enough furniture to populate a small auction house.
Many of my mother’s acquisitions were antiques, but Aunt Alice didn’t much care if something was a real antique or a faux designer piece. In fact, she was a big fan of “fauxing” various items as a way to change-up the accessories in her home; one day she’d order two planters painted black and brushed with gold, and the following month she’d change her mind and have them painted olive green and brushed with silver. If she liked a particular table but hated the color, she’d hire an artist to turn it into green faux marble or smother it in layers of antiqued silver leaf.
To serve her proclivity for the perfectly decorated home, my aunt engaged a continuous stream of gay interior designers who passed in and out of her house with carved stone angels, antique game tables and silk pillows from China. If she saw something she just had to have, she acquired it – and so it would arrive at our house, where it remained in our home until she could plan its rotation into her San Francisco apartment without arousing Uncle Bob’s suspicions.
On occasion my Aunt Alice and Uncle Bob would arrive together, and Aunt Alice would make a big deal out of some piece of furniture she liked (usually the last piece she had smuggled into our house). She would then suggest to my mother that they make a trade for something of Aunt Alice’s back in San Francisco. This would allow the desired piece to show up in Aunt Alice’s living room with Uncle Bob none the wiser. On other occasions my aunt would offer my mother some nominal amount of cash for a piece – like ten dollars – which Uncle Bob would graciously pay to Mother for a piece that, unknown to him, his wife had already purchased for five.
When these obtuse back-room dealings were completed, my mother would quietly hand the extortion money back to Aunt Alice while Uncle Bob and my dad were off in another room, thereby funding yet another of my aunt's shopping expeditions. Over the years Aunt Alice gave my mother many of her things, both out of genuine kindness and as a kind of payoff for her role in their game. All in all, it was a mutually beneficial arrangement.
My siblings have custody of my mother's possessions now, but I inherited a modest share of the two things I always admired the most - her amazing spirit of optimism and her bohemian sense of adventure. She always encouraged my passion pursuits, from dance to art - almost in a vicarious way. She was not free to act upon her dreams to see the world, but she took great pleasure in encouraging and sharing in mine. She was my angel and gave me wings.
We are deeply connected by that spirit we shared, each expressing our great love of the world in our own way, in our own time. In place of her Chinese lamp, I traveled to China with a group of accupuncture students. In lieu of her English ironstone teapot, I traveled to England. As a substitute for her French clock, I lived with writers and artists in Paris. And instead of creating a pauper's palace out of treasures from around the world, I have surrounded myself with friends from around the world.
My mother gifted me with her sense of humanity and her love of the peoples of the world. That is the heirloom I will treasure most when I think of her this Christmas.
This post is for John and his new love. Merry Christmas to my mother's beloved son!
❀♥✍♥❀
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