Laurie Brock is an Episcopal priest currently serving as Associate Rector at St. James Episcopal Church, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Her essays have appeared in anthologies and e-zines, and, yes, she actually likes fruitcakes.

My grandmother started making her Christmas fruitcakes in August. The generous amount of alcohol she added to age them guaranteed preservation far into future months, even years. Maybe she waited until September or October. I just remember the insufferably hot kitchen, which, in south Mississippi, could have been anytime between March and November. So, in the deep late summer heat of my grandmother’s kitchen sans air conditioning because, according to her, such things were superfluous and wasteful, all minds turned to Christmas.

Logic has never been a familial strong suit.

She never had a recipe, not written down. Just years of the liturgical motions. A cup of flour here and a handful of dried fruit there. Real dried fruit, not the alarming red and green pieces shipped in from a chemical factory and sold in the grocery during the holiday season. Enough chopped nuts to be seen. A gallon or two of liquor. Go get some eggs from the chicken house, and remember the white hen will peck you. Mix everything together. Cover with cheesecloth. Let rest.

That is the edited version that we share with people who might judge us. The unedited version began with several family members sitting at my grandmother’s green and silver linoleum table drinking late afternoon iced tea. As conversations in the South tend to do, we drifted among pleasantries: Isn’t Darlene’s new baby cute? How is Harold’s new job working out? Then someone would ask about my cousin Geraldine, who began flirting with the dark side in sixth grade when she failed math and claimed a ninth grader as her boyfriend and never looked back. One of my aunts heard she was living in Texas with an ex-con. They had matching tattoos. My grandmother would sigh, wondering if her granddaughter might ever live a safe and calm life, and head for the flour canister. Soon, my mother and her sisters would join her, sharing in the grief of Geraldine the lost sheep as they chopped nuts and whisked eggs.

My sister and I would get the molasses to join the mix while the another aunt wondered about my uncle, who decided our family was a bit too weird to call his own. We hadn’t seen him at a family gathering in several years, yet somehow, someone always had some news about his life. His was safe and calm, but away from the dazzling and uncomfortable humanity that is family.

As we took turns greasing loaf pans and ladling the batter into them, our conversation would add more names as we wondered how he was doing since the divorce or if she’d ever quit drinking too much. Family and friends walked into the kitchen to measure our progress, add their opinions about cooking or family members or the state of the country, or to get more iced tea and head for the porch to listen to the women talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly that is who we all are. Then, as the summer fell away with devastating stubbornness to fall, we sautéed the cakes in various liquors until the time came to bake again and give them away.

She died before I or anyone else though to ask her to write down her fruitcake recipe. Her death was at an old age from cancer, so life gave us the warning. We just didn’t ask for the written instructions, because perhaps the recipe of her Christmas fruitcake had nothing to do with specific ingredients, something we knew deep within us.

Too often, the holiday seasons invite an illusion that we must see our lives as perfect creations with no mistakes, no messes, and no regrets. My grandmother, in one of her greatest Christmas gifts, allowed us to see and love our fruitcake family. We are, as are all families of God, imperfect mixtures of ingredients. Essentially, we are all fruitcakes. Fruitcakes beloved of God, but fruitcakes indeed. While we cooked with her, we confessed our family’s imperfections, lamented the errors of our ways, and hoped for more chances together. While creating real fruitcakes, we talked about our familial ones and celebrated our honest, real delicacy of love and life.

Life is that strange creation of joy and error, sin and righteousness that is lived in years of liturgical motions. A cup or two of difficult decisions and a handful of delight that makes the rest taste much better with enough faith to be seen and a gallon or two of hope to get us all through the challenges. Go get some friends to talk about it all with. Mix everything together. Cover with love. Let rest.

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