If the Spirit of Christmas embraces things such as love of family, togetherness, warm feelings, goodness, excitement and faith, then my mother was the quintessence of that spirit. Many adjectives seem appropriate when describing her love of life in general, particularly the Yuletide season, but to me none is more fitting than the word “merry.” She always had a sparkle in her eyes, breathless excitement in her being for even the most ordinary of undertakings and a constant joie de vivre. She was merriment personified.
Momma Casada on either on her last birthday.
Momma had a troubled childhood. Born in the lovely high country of North Carolina, she spent much of her youth far from her native heath. Her mother died when she was just beyond infancy, and her father apparently decided it would be best if she were raised by relatives. Her adoptive parents moved frequently, and it was always my impression that the resulting instability affected her a great deal. Certainly once she was back in the Smokies she never wanted to leave, and I heard her comment to that effect on many occasions: “There’s no place like these mountains.” Similarly telling was something my father related numerous times. Shortly after they married and bought the house, which is still in the family, owned and lived in by my brother and his wife, she told him: “I never want to move again.” Until the final months of her life, when Parkinson’s disease and dementia necessitated her residence in a nursing home, she never had to move.
Although Momma never said much about it, and certainly the care and devotion she lavished on her adoptive parents in their later years would have led one to think otherwise, clearly warmth and love were scarce commodities in her childhood. Likewise, she never had much in the way of Christmas gifts as a youngster. This was evident in two ways—the frequency with which she mentioned an elderly man who had befriended her and given her a quilt at a point when her adoptive family was living in California, and the pure delight Momma took in everything associated with Christmas right up until her death.
She loved the rituals of preparing for the season, especially decorating with materials from nature. Gifted with considerable crafting skills, at one time or another during her adulthood she made Cherokee-style baskets, knitted, crocheted, enjoyed macramé and appliqué, grew and rooted all sorts of indoor plants, prepared lovely flower arrangements, was a superb seamstress and had a real knack for decorating. Never was the latter ability on fuller display than during the Christmas season. It might be noted that Momma was exceptionally frugal, a combined product of upbringing and necessity, and all these hobbies saved money.
Momma was always involved in anything and everything Christmas-connected at church—filling pokes with stuff for young kids, performing behind-the-scenes work in connection with pageants and volunteering in any way she could. Similarly, some of my earliest Christmas memories revolve around charitable endeavors in which she would, usually although not always through the church, do her part and then some to make sure there was some joy in the season for those who were less fortunate. Later on, although anything but a political creature, she didn’t have much luck with food stamps, government support and the whole tone and tenor of the welfare state. But like many hard-working mountain folks, Momma believed in helping those who were down and out and needed assistance—she was an advocate for giving a hand, not government hand outs. She always worked with her children to craft handmade Yuletide gifts for their teachers, rightly feeling that the personal effort had more meaning.
Then there was Christmas-related cooking, and as an endlessly hungry boy who still holds his own as a trencherman, that was of immense importance to me. Momma was a splendid cook, and one of our family’s real losses in that connection was a compulsion, late in her life, to throw away a great many things. Among the items lost to that well-intentioned but misguided mania to organize were hundreds of discarded recipes.
Mamma Casada at the time of her retirement (she was the local librarian for a decade after my siblings and me were grown and gone).
Fortunately though, she had already passed many of her favorite recipes on to my wife and other family members. Among those that survived were chestnut-and-cornbread dressing, simple yet scrumptious cooked squirrels and rabbits, orange slice cake, applesauce and black walnut cake, pumpkin chiffon pie, cracklin’ cornbread, Russian tea, popcorn balls made with molasses, fried pies, stack cake and a number of types of homemade candy. However, if I had to pick out one dish in which her culinary skills shone brightest, it would not necessarily be associated with Yuletide, although I would hasten to add that we would invariably enjoy fried chicken at some point during the holidays.
She could fry chicken better than anyone I’ve ever known, and that included Grandma Minnie, who was an absolute wizard in the kitchen. I know how Momma did it—each piece well coated with flour after having been dipped in egg, then slow fried, followed by a session of sitting in a cast iron skillet in an oven on low heat. This was standard dinner fare on Sunday, and by the time we got home from church, that big skillet full of chicken would have achieved crunchy, moist and tender perfection. All of her children know the process and remember it well, but duplicating the end product to a degree that matches her fried chicken has always eluded us.
Momma took quiet pride in her cooking skills, and she loved to see her family and friends eat.
Seldom was she happier than when she could put game or fish, killed or caught by Dad or me, on the table as a main dish. It was free (something that appealed to her deeply ingrained sense of frugality) and wonderfully tasty. Throughout my boyhood, and I think precisely the same held true for both my siblings, she truly fed the multitudes in terms of setting the table for our friends. We never had a lot of money but you could rest assured the Casada table was set with a precious plenty. There was no issue whatsoever with an extra place setting or two. Interestingly, and it’s a testament to Momma’s generosity and hospitable nature, my friends ate with us far more than I ever ate with any of them. We were at times almost a communal kitchen for neighborhood kids.
Speaking of kids, no starry-eyed youngster, no “Christmas will never come” mindset, or the firmest of believers in Santa Claus has ever derived more sheer joy from receiving gifts than Momma did. As much as she gave of herself, and she was tireless, totally unselfish in that regard, she loved to open presents to her. Curious as a cat or eager child, for days before December 25 finally arrived, she would pick up gifts bearing her name from under the tree, heft and maybe shake them a bit, and wonder aloud: “Now what that could be?” Similarly, I can hear her, decades since she left us, saying with a mixture of disbelief and excitement when handed a gift: “Another one for me!” She was careful in opening presents, because after all, wrapping and ribbons could be recycled in the “waste not, want not” approach to everything that was her mantra. Still, it was easy to tell she would have loved to rip the paper asunder like a child.
Year after year she would, once all the presents had been opened, offer thoughts to the effect “I can’t believe how lucky I am,” “I’m so thankful,” and “This has to be the best Christmas ever.” She may not have had much of anything that was “the best” as a child, but far from looking back with regret or bitterness, as an adult she instead brought an attitude of optimism, excitement and simple goodness to the season of Christmas.
She enjoyed a good joke. There were always gag gifts in our family, and at times Momma would laugh until tears rolled when Daddy received something such as a pair of underwear adorned with images of Mickey Mouse or a Sammy Davis, Jr. audio tape (Daddy absolutely detested Sammy Davis). Her laughter was infectious, and even though she was the butt of jokes more than a fair share of the time, it never troubled her.
The Spirit of Christmas wrapt in joyful surprise.
A classic case came when on the Christmas, late in Momma’s life, when my brother and sister-in-law gave her a box of dried beans labeled “Hillbilly Bubble Bath.” As was her wont, Momma had shaken the nicely wrapped package a number of times prior to Christmas Day. The beans rattled around quite noisily but she couldn’t for the life of her come up with a thought as to what the decorative wrapping might hide. Such was her intense curiosity that when it came time to open presents, she gently implored: “Can I open this box first?” When she did and the gag gift was exposed for all to see, there was a moment when, as her family convulsed in laughter, she didn’t realize just what had happened. When the piece of mischief did dawn on Momma, her response was “Oh, shoot!” before she joined the rest of us in the magic of mirth. That was about as close to an oath as she ever came.
As a clan, Casadas have never been exactly gifted when it comes to diplomacy. All of us are wont to speak our piece in decidedly direct fashion, and if Momma hadn’t been moderating influence, goodness knows where her offspring might be. Daddy could be highly opinionated, and his father, Grandpa Joe, was the essence of mountain mule-headedness or what high country folks describe as “quare.” Momma, on the other hand, always had just the right thought, action or word when a soothing, smoothing touch was needed. She possessed a seemingly endless supply of dimes when a child did some extra work around the house, was always a soft touch when it came to providing a snack or special dish and was game to try almost anything one of her children asked her to do. But of all the countless times she offered just the right gesture, a few words of praise, complimented my hunting prowess or fishing skills, or maybe tendered a little pat on the shoulder, the moment I remember most came at holiday time when the whole family was seated at the table.
My younger brother Don was probably 16 or 17 years of age, and all of us, including my wife of only a year or two, sat down to one of Momma’s toothsome meals. Midway through the feast and from totally out of the blue, Don suddenly brought up a most unexpected subject. “I’ve come to a conclusion,” he pronounced, “I was born by accident.” It was undeniably true, since he came along a half generation after my sister and me, but heretofore no one had ever so much as dared hint at the matter.
Silence reigned supreme for a seeming eternity in what has to rank as the finest example of a pregnant pause I have ever experienced. Then Momma offered the perfect response. “Yes, but you were the most wonderful accident I could ever imagine.”
Mamma Casada walking on a swinging bridge (which scared her but no so much she wasn’t up for the adventure).
That way of thinking was at the core of Momma’s being. She was completely unselfish, genuinely moved anytime something was done for her, loving in the sort of fashion that grows in meaning over time and given reflection and the embodiment of everything associated with the true spirit of Christmas. No one loved the season more or brought more to it in terms of warmth and a giving heart. I was blessed by having her make Christmas truly special for me over a period of almost six decades, and maybe offering some index to her innate sense of understanding what was meaningful to her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and daughters-in-law forms a fitting way to conclude this rather lengthy excursion into Yuletides of yesteryear.
Many Christmases after her death we enjoyed a cake—most likely one from a recipe she provided—atop a Fostoria stand she gave to Ann (my late wife). Also, at some point during the season I make a point of re-reading some book she gave me, indicating her recognition of a budding bibliophile, as one of my gifts. That began with first book I ever owned, Zane Grey’s Spirit of the Border, which she chose for me when I was nine years old. It still holds a place of pride on my bookshelves. My daughter will wear jewelry she passed down, my sister will recall them wrapping gifts together or sewing something for some family members and I know my brother and his wife think of her every year when they fashion a cross using materials from the wilds of the Smokies. It is a practice of reverence and respect for the bounty of the land Momma would have adored.
Most of all though, and it often happens at the oddest of moments and for reasons that transcend my ability to explain, I’ll think of her. Doing so will bring temporary sadness, but it will soon give way to gladness and a smile. That’s the way she would have wanted it, because Anna Lou Moore Casada was a woman and a mother who walked life’s path as a shining embodiment of the Spirit of Christmas. She gave, and gave unstintingly, of herself.
Born in Bryson City, North Carolina, Jim Casada has had a long career as a teacher, author, and avid outdoorsman. He grew up in a time and place where families depended on the land and their community to survive. Many of the Smoky Mountain customs and practices that Casada reflects on are gradually disappearing or have vanished from our collective memories. In A Smoky Mountain Boyhood, Casada pairs his gift for storytelling and his training as a historian to produce a highly readable memoir of mountain life in East Tennessee and western North Carolina. His stories evoke a strong sense of place and reflect richly on the traits that make the people of Southern Appalachia a unique American demographic. Casada discusses traditional folkways; hunting, growing, preparing, and eating wide varieties of food available in the mountain region; and the overall fabric of mountain life. Divided into four main sections—High Country Holiday Tales and Traditions; Seasons of the Smokies; Tools, Toys, and Boyhood Treasures; and Precious Memories—each part reflects on a unique and memorable coming-of-age in the Smokies. Buy Now
