Christmas Eve Tradition

From the time my parents moved to Mingo, in Sampson County, they started a small Christmas Eve get-together with some of the other couples with whom they were close friends. It's a tradition that continued for about 50 years, in fact, because my mother continued it and made it a huge Buies Creek gathering each year up until around 2000 or 2002. Following the Memorial Baptist Church Christmas Eve service at 5 pm, most of the church and half of Buies Creek were welcome to come to her house and partake of the annual "Ham Biscuit Get-Together."

Anyway, I've been feeling Mother's absence rather acutely this holiday and it's led me to put together a small gathering of friends with some traces of those yearly Ham Biscuit Get-Togethers.

Seven-Layer Cookies
(haven't made these in forever!)

Sugar Peanuts

Date Nut Balls

Fudge: with nuts and without

A Second Batch of Eggnog
(thinner version: I used milk instead of heavy cream)

Beautiful Eliza Blake came with her moms, The Jens

And ham biscuits, of course!