Egg nog is not my favorite drink but it’s an integral part of the holidays in my family. My late grandmother Nettie, whose birthday was yesterday, used to drink savory and James cream sherry at the holidays…. And sometimes she’d mix it into egg nog. My late mother, Gloria, was an egg nog snob. She’d buy carton after carton until she found her favorite one… and even it wasn’t good enough. She’d add a little cinnamon and nutmeg of her own to spice it up. And, my father Randolph, Dickie Boy, Uncle Dickie … makes a killer eggnog cheesecake or so I hear since I don’t like cheesecake. When he was trying to reinvent himself after a career as computer science professor, he started Professor B’S Exotic cheesecakes. His baking company made cheesecakes with unusual flavors to remind people that even the ordinary can be extraordinary. The cakes became a favorite among my co-workers and the many charities my father helped. My mother was always my dad’s sous chef. Cheesecake became a staple at every family gathering. In fact, at the last family barbecue my mother was able to attend there was cheesecake. Despite having trouble swallowing or moving, my mother sat in her wheelchair after four hours of dialysis and asked for cheesecake. I hand fed her a small piece of the carrot cake cheesecake because she could use her hands. She devoured it and then asked for more. She didn’t eat solid much after that day but she said being surrounded by her family including her new great grandson, the barbecue loving prepare by my fiancé and her favorite dessert was one of the happiest days of her life. She died less than a month later but I learned that the smallest things can be the sweetest if you savor it. Now every time I see egg nog or anything linked to it, like this day 5 ugly Christmas sweater countdown sweater, I smile.

(It also doesn’t hurt that when I met my fiancé a woman thought he was a Leonardo DiCaprio clone (probably has something to do with their similar hair lines and blue eyes) and my fiancés nickname is moose)

#christmas #uglychristmassweater #chronicillness #chronicpain #spoonies #leodicaprio #’memories #family #traditions #cheesecake