Red hats spark many wonderful Christmas memories

By Susan Anderson-Khleif

Recently I was at D.C. Cobb's for their delicious Friday fish fry lunch. There was this wonderful group of women there in red hats and purple outfits! They let me take their photo.

There is a great poem by Jenny Joseph, 1932-2018, called "Warning." It begins:

"When I'm an old woman I shall wear purple

"With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me."

It continues with phrases about not following convention, like going out in the rain in your slippers or picking flowers from other people's gardens, and ends with:

"But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

"So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

"When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple."

It made me very happy to see this friendly group, and it reminded me of happy times when Baheej and I used to go up to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, for our medical care. We usually ate at our favorite restaurant, Michael's, and there was a group of women in a chapter of the Red Hat Society that used to meet and have lunch or dinner together at Michael's. We saw them many times over the years.

The women at D.C. Cobb's were not a chapter of Red Hat, just a group of friends dressing up for fun. But they triggered a nice memory for me, of when Baheej was still here.

There are some good thoughts in that old poem. I think such thoughts will probably help a bereaved person, because the poem encourages us to be ourselves, express our true feelings, and not be completely stifled by social customs and expectations.

Anyway, all the festive red hats cheered me and made me think of the approaching Christmas, now at hand. The little Swedish tompten (elves) wear red hats. St. Nicolas wears a red hat. I bought myself a tompten-like red stocking hat for Christmas.

The whole Scandinavian Christmas is very red; tree decorations predominantly red with white lights. Table settings have lots of red. Many, many tompten with red hats are out and about in my house. My tree is already up and decorated because I never took it down last year. That alone diverted from usual social customs!

Some people were surprised when they saw the Christmas tree in summertime, but as the "red hat" poem reminds us - such differences are OK. I enjoyed the tree all year, and now it's ready to go for the real day! I have added lots of other holiday decorations in the house, of course, such as lights on patio railings and bushes.

As a child growing up, we followed all the Swedish food traditions at Christmas. In our case, Swedish potato sausage, rice pudding, Lutfisk with a delicious butter cream sauce, Swedish Christmas coffee cake, a sweet yeast bread with cinnamon and sugar inside and white icing on top. My mom was a great baker and cook. And she made the homemade Swedish potato sausage.

Grandmother Anderson made the Lutfisk and it was tasty. She knew how to make it just right, still firm and not mushy. Of course, under that delicious cream sauce, it was bound to be tasty.

The Norwegians also eat a lot of Lutfisk, which starts out as dried cod, a technique to preserve it for the winter.

Once, in Bergen, Norway, Baheej and I went into a harbor cod storehouse filled with dried cod hanging everywhere, stacked high. Quite a sight.

Well, I can't make most of all that. Perhaps the rice pudding. I will probably do Nazareth-style cooking for myself, because my family (nor myself) will be flying or traveling over the holidays. A leg of lamb and hashweh (a rice and lamb stuffing) will be great. I love Christmas!

One Christmas some years ago we were in Helsinki, Finland. It was sparkling with lights and candles and tompten with red hats everywhere - a real Christmas wonderland. Such a wonderful place and wonderful memory.

So the point is: I will wear my new red hat and enjoy Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I will play Christmas music. I mailed all my packages early as recommended. I have a gift under the tree for my beloved Baheej, which I do every year. And a couple gifts for my kitties - can't forget them.

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas.

• Susan Anderson-Khleif of Sleepy Hollow has a doctorate in family sociology from Harvard, taught at Wellesley College and is a retired Motorola executive. Contact her at sakhleif@comcast.net or see her blog longtermgrief.tumblr.com. See previous columns at www.dailyherald.com/topics/Anderson-Kleif-Susan.