Pink Saturday - Childhood memories

Pink Saturday - Beverly, at the blog "How Sweet the Sound" hosts Pink Saturday. Let the color pink inspire you!

For the first three Pink Saturdays of December, she suggests posts in a holiday theme. For this Saturday, December 5, the theme is - "Tell us one of your childhood memories about a special holiday."

Christmas 1968, Cincinnati. My family had moved to a new town, I had a new school, new friends. I was in eighth grade - just entering my teens.

Christmas morning we began opening presents, Mom, Dad, my three brothers and me.

My brother B., Christmas 1970.

I don't remember my gifts except for two -

One, a stack of books, Dell Yearling paperback novels, from Mom and Dad. I was a voracious reader, and the only risk in giving me books was that I might have already read them.

Two, a green plastic berry basket, like the ones at the grocery, except instead of strawberries it was filled with dark pink and deep purple berry candies, wrapped in cellophane and tied with a ribbon. Each berry was a gumdrop coated with small round nonpareils. Although this was presented as a "Santa" gift, I am sure my mother chose this for me.

They're a gummi candy made by Haribo, called "German Raspberries" - although they are common today, at the age of 12 I had never seen such a thing before. I was enchanted by them, and by the cleverness of the presentation, as if they were real berries.

The Christmases of my childhood have blended and merged into one big memory of wrapping paper and pajamas and seeing my mother's handwriting on gift labels and warm breakfasts.


But this is one memory that has stayed with me as vividly as if it had happened today. I remember curling up on the couch reading "The Wolves of Willoughby Chase" and slowly eating those berries, holding them in my mouth, feeling the crunch between my teeth of the dissolving nonpareils, tasting the sweet bloom of flavor as I bit down into the soft jellied center. The rest of the room and indeed, the rest of my family disappears as I immerse myself in the adventures at Willoughby Hall with Bonnie Green and her delicate cousin Sylvia, as they try to foil the evil Miss Slighcarp and her schemes. All the while the snow blankets old England and the wolves range outside.

I don't eat many gumdrops these days, but during the Christmas season I sometimes get a craving for those German raspberries.