By Shannon Williams
It is that time of year, when you have to start “digging”. By that, I mean, digging through whatever system you use to store your holiday recipes. I have a no system system !! I have all the makings for a system, but have never put it in in place, so I used old banker boxes. I have a little bit of a problem with recipes. I love to read them, and save them !! I cut them out of newspapers, magazines, off Facebook, and get them from anyplace I can. So, about this time each year, I have to drag out the boxes and start to make sure I have them all together. Now I have tried several times to keep all the holiday ones together, but then I want to cook one during the year and the system goes down the drain.

This year, I started late one night to get them all together. It was a hot mess from the start. One of the boxes had seen better days and one box was half of the system that I had not finished. As I looked, I was finding several copies of the same recipe. (What did we do before we all had copiers in our home!!) You could tell how old some of them were by the type of paper they were printed on, and yes, several of them are on recipe cards!!! Each year, I tell myself, I am going to take the time to scan all the holiday ones into the computer, but they end up sitting in a pile on the desk, and about July I give up and throw them back in the box.

I hear people who are close to retirement state that they are going to organize their photos or recipes or keepsakes or whatever it is that needs to be organized. Do people still make that plan? Are all the people who are off of work due to Covid have very organized lives? Or do we all just have to dig to find what we need. With all the systems for recipe collections, you would think this issue would have been long resolved in my life, but to tell the truth, it is totally out of control; but I always manage to find that one special one I was looking for!

I think if I had them all neat and orderly in the system, I would miss the digging part. I get to look at ones I have had for years or ones I have never taken time to prepare. I lovingly remember who gave them to me. Many of them are from co-workers though the many years. I do not think people have pot lucks at work as they used to. It was the best way to try new stuff and get more recipes.

I have recipes from my college roommates and their families, and still make several of them today. It took two nights and a big mess in the living room, but I found each recipe I needed for all the holiday cooking and baking I do each year. Maybe this will be the year I finally scan them into the computer in a little file, but I would miss so much.

Hope you have great times coming up as you prepare for the holidays.

[Nov-16-2020]