Holiday Candy Dish Text and images by Rodney Kemerer, Friends of Robinson Gardens Board Member We have very few moments of enlightenment in our lives. Sometimes we do not even recognize them. For me, one of my best occurred while staring at a candy dish. Let’s put it into reverse for a moment. The last real Holiday/Christmas we enjoyed was 2019 - after that, masks killed the mistletoe. Normally during the Holidays my wife and I host various get-togethers, mostly informal with different groups we work or socialize with. The prepping for these events, which last almost the entire month of December, begin with early cleaning and excessive decorating. Part of this tradition was handed down by both sets of parents. A fully decorated house was a requirement if you wanted to participate in the season.

This Christmas Season looks like it is going to be a lot like last year. The Pandemic lockdown has cancelled the usual activities and it feels like a total loss to everyone. Within that loss is a hidden gift, much like the one you find tucked into the tree branches after all the gifts are opened. That gift this year is the gift of memory. Rather than being caught up in the usual frenzy, we now have time to sit back and look back to Christmas Past. To things we never realized that are woven into our Holiday Memory Bank. My father, rest his soul, was cheap. I believe both by necessity and personality. This presented itself in odd ways and, mostly when I was a kid, they were annoying to me. Like saving every coffee can that came into the house or, worse, every piece of cardboard. Christmas presented a special challenge for him in that it was hard to avoid the usual related expenses. One that he carefully circumvented was The Christmas Tree Lot. There was something about paying for a dead tree for limited use that chewed at my father’s very fiber