Christmas Candy

Seems innocuous and for the most part it is. I receive this particular tin full of brown sugar brownies with pecans and candy orange slices every year from my sister. We don't ever call it brownies. To us it is Christmas Candy. That what our mother called it. It was one component of a Christmas box or tin of cookies that our mother baked and distributed to the people that gave us service throughout the year (paperboy, mailman, etc). Most years this simple tin and its contents hit me like a sledgehammer. It contains much more than Christmas Candy it bring up memories of our mother. Her baking all the Christmas goodies, making us a Saturday dinner because she took the noon Mass at the Altar Society table on Sunday so the other mothers could be with their families, her scrimping and saving so I could go to Catholic school, the stoic countenance she assumed when diagnosed with cancer and her fight to overcome it, her arranging for her sister to cook my homecoming meal when I came home from college when she was dying and countless other things. I was always on the receiving end of her motherly love. I think my sister got her share also. That is why I think she does this simple thing each year so neither one of us will forget. This tin brings as many sad moments as joyous ones. If offered a million dollars for it, I would not hesitate say NO. These memories are too precious to me. I was and still am a momma's boy. I say that with pride because of what my mother was to me.