Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

f" II m|| ||Hf""ll" "If""I wmm Efffflgaa r 1235 Assembly St. and Dutch Sq. Mall ; Homemade Specialties Beginning with high quality, natural ingredients and working in small batches, we prepare our homemade specialties the old-fashioned way. Golden brown nuts, buttery popcorn with creamy caramel glaze and cheddar cheese coat- M ing, peanut brittle and pistachios. Boxed and Jm tinned, in barrels and canisters. With all the various sizes and snacks, there's a Cromers Mm delight for one, for a bunch, for a crowd. And for Guaranteed fresh! Your gift goes out within 24 hours of roasting the nuts and popping the corn. Ife ** * % jir CS017 Ine family's ( lanish-, Pakis TARIQ GHAFFAR cial to The Gamecock Christmas to my family means pulling from the nily closet customs from before we became rtericans. \t my house, Christmas comes one day early, nes celebrate Dec. 24, and my mother is a Dane, :refore the Ghaffars celebrate Christmas before >st. It's not as great as it sounds, though ? thing Christmassy happens during daylight on : 24th with the exception of lots of cooking. Dn the eve of the 24th, my younger sister paripates in a ritual that is practiced on Danish ms. The young children set out a bowl of rice dding ? sometimes in the barn and sometimes the house ? a sort of tip for Santa. In the mornthe children wake up to a dish that has been en clean. In Denmark, the phenomenon is extined by cats eating the pudding during the ;ht. In my house, though, we have no cats, and : phenomenon goes unexplained. Dn Christmas morning, (Christmas Eve morn; to others), everyone sleeps until 11 a.m. or so. ;sents are opened in the evening, and the kids ? ' young brother, younger sister and, to be nest, me ? spend the day stalking around the nered Christmas tree in the living room, rhe tree is essentially a normal Christmas tree. >wever, it wears long strings of multiple 1-inch nish flags. Also, our tree wears more than the patagonia A Variety Of Christmas {: Gift Ideas, j PLUS FREE GIFT WRAPPING f "the Great Outdoor Cottm IN FIVE POINT} ACROSS. FROM FOOD* 940 HARDEN ST. COLUMBIA, SC. Christmas cell tani-, Americc average amount of tinsel. 1 don't think this i culturally divergent, though, because I've see some American families' trees constructed com pletely out of tinsel. Along with the flags an tinsel, the tree is forced to wear ornaments that m brother, sister and I have been making ever sine we could grip a crayon. I'm sure others share th experience, but I want to know why only th ugliest ornaments we made stay with the family fc life. Another pastime in the present-exchang waiting game is swatting the 50-or-so red an white silk balls suspended from the high livin room ceiling. Normally this would be strictly foi bidden, but rules of that nature have been relaxe since my dad shattered the living room light fixtur while trying out his new tennis racket durin Christmas five years ago. It made swatting an oc casional silk ball look like harmless frolick. Another element that makes the Christmas er vironment very different around my house is th presence of 4-inch cardboard elves in every cor ceivable nook and cranny. They hang on all th picture frames in the house, at the tops of all th doors, off the mistletoe and in all the windows Behold, a paranoia has grown from it. I fin myself unconsciously wondering if Santa i overstaffed, if some great mischief will befall me or if perhaps I'll wake up and all my shoes will b repaired. One element my house has in common with th American Christmas experience is the use of com mercially produced records of Yuletide music Both American and Danish recordings are playei in my house. It's a part of Chrismas I enjoy less The American records and the Danish are equall jangly sounding. I think my dad shares my opi nion; he occasionally revolts by playing Pakistan music. He's from Pakistan. Anxiety, gluttony and competition are invited t< our Christmas dinner table. The main course i normal, usually with a turkey or steak and variou Danish potato and vegetable side dishes. It i polished off efficiently to make way for the mail purpose of the dinner ? dessert. The dessert is brought in. It is invariably a hug bowl of rice pudding accompanied by a bowl o In 10 Colors! ^ m \m i ?"' 'A First time doi J If you haven't ( ||&jF $20 on your fii -I O^r Jh I ^ Ciot^S y\ I Hours nC? ?. V hJnn fi. Th..r 7 < | (tie-fi * i h iviv^ii i iiui / c 7 I ^ec* 7 am " ScmcffR IITues 8 F"8:30 I Bring this ad, icrionj U get $20 foi U0N \\v Call today 799 7571 QWb*~~? sbration: in-style is hot strawberry sauce, and an immortalization of n Santa cast in chocolate to stand in the middle of i- the table. In the rice pudding a single almond is d buried. If you find it, the chocolate Santa is yours, y After being served, the family members cease talke ing, and shovel busily while staring suspiciously at e their neighbors. It is a common but ethically ques e tionable practice for the one who finds the nut to ?r store it in his cheek until either the rice pudding is gone or nobody can eat any more ? barbaric, but e a part of tradition. After the Santa has been won d and claimed, the winner usually divides it up g among the members of the family, enjoying the powers of wealth and generosity, but careful to d save the head for himself, e After dinner is finished and the table has been g cleared (the fastest table-clearing of the year), everybody enters the living room. The room is lit by little more than the tree's lights and candles, i- One person (usually a different child each year) e sits beside the tree and hands out all the gifts t o the t- family, announcing to and from whom the gift is e before presentation. When done correctly, the e process brings as much attention on each person's unwrapping as is needed according to how many d gifts each person receives. College students, for exs ample, receive fewer presents than little girls, :, therefore they receive more attention while e unwrapping. By the time the gifts have all been unwrapped e and the valuables have been separated from the i- paper, it is quite late, and no amount of chocolate will postpone sleep much longer. The family d hoards together the day's haul and drags it to i. respective rooms. y In the morning, Christmas will begin for most i- other families. The Ghaffars will not be excluded li from that, either. The children will get up early anyway ? my brother to throw his new football, o me to swing my new fishing pole, my sister to ride s her new bike, my dad to put together her new bike, s and my mom to encourage him and feed us. s The dav is spent watching television, hunting for n batteries and playing with new toys. It ends, probably like Christmas in most houses, with a sleepy, e warm self-satisfaction over having done good and f having received goods. rh Cutro fi(l!ll!/l i ii l?ati a vaou illjlIII/ >r Christmas! '""'jj/ iors earn up to $80 in 2 weeks! { Jonated in 2 months or more earn 1 st return. 1 I Plasma Center : \ 1620 Gervais Street im - 4 pm Appointments available but I 2 Pm not necessary / am - 6 pm /i, Jl if you are a first time donor ana /!jjl I r your donation. /yJMf for information 254-2280