Christmas Morning: Gramma Daly's Crumb Cake

I grew up in the middle of my Grandfather's farm.  He granted the lots to his three children to build houses on. Ours in the middle, my father's brother and his family on one side, and my father's sister and her family on the other.  It was known as "the hill" and there were 10 kids growing up so it was our own little neighborhood.

We had horses and a horse-drawn sleigh, a skating pond, a sledding trail, a swimming pool, a swamp, a brook, climbing trees, a sandpile, a tire swing, and a Christmas Tree Farm.  My parents couldn't understand why I wanted to go away to summer camp.

On Christmas, my brother would get up at all hours of the night, sneak into the living room, and peak at all of his presents before anyone else got up.  Then he could finally get to sleep.  The rest of us kids would get up at dawn because we were so excited to see what Santa brought we couldn't sleep either. My parents (who were up till late getting out the presents) would be the last ones awake, and we weren't allowed to open family gifts until they were up.

Christmas morning meant three breakfasts after we finished opening our family presents.  Once those were opened, it was time to begin the trek between houses to see what the other kids got for Christmas.  My Aunt Gen would make my Gramma Daly's Crumb Cake for breakfast.  Then we would make the trek past our house over to my Aunt Lorraine's house for homemade egg nog and cold lobster salad sandwiches.  As I got a bit older, the egg nog got spiced with rum. 

After that, it would be back home to get ready for Christmas Dinner, usually at one of my aunts on my mother's side of the family.  We would walk into the house with it smelling like Christmas Eve dinner all over again because by now my brother was up again and heating up leftover baked stuffed shrimp for breakfast.

That was three, right?

Comments

[Louise]

Merry Christmas, Margot & Chris! W