Christmas Magic

My friend, TravelinOma, asked this question on her blog, "What unique Christmas traditions bring magic into your home?".  That's an easy one for me to answer.

Christmas doesn't really start at our house until I've made Eggless Cake.  Eggless Cake is something that my mother in law made only at Christmas time.  It's filled with nuts, raisins and wonderful smelling cinnamon, nutmeg and clove.  After I had been married to my husband for a few years, he asked me to make Eggless for him.  I called my mother in law for the recipe. She felt that I could only learn the proper way to make Eggless and have it be successful was to make my first Eggless under her watchful eye.  I wasn't able to do that, but fortunately, my first effort was a success.  I've been on my own with Eggless baking ever since.  My mother in law gave me the ultimate compliment when after eating some of my Eggless, she said, "This is better than what I make.".

Eggless smells wonderful as it's being mixed up and cooking in the oven.  The aroma of the cinnamon, nutmeg and clove fill the house.  At some point early in our marriage, my husband insisted that I had to make Eggless before we could decorate the tree.  It has been our tradition for many, many years.  It takes some planning on my part to be sure Eggless baking and tree decorating coincide.  I also make small Eggless cakes to give to friends at Christmas.  Since none of my sister in laws like Eggless, they don't make it.  So now, the only way my husband's brothers get Eggless at Christmas is if I make some to give to them. 

Only half of my kids like Eggless cake and I don't think that the baking of Eggless necessarily brought the magic of Christmas into our home for them.  But it did and still does for my husband and me.