For me, there is a collection of things that mostly have to happen in order for Christmas to feel right. There are foods to eat, places to go, items to make, a hat to wear, and things to do. One of the most symbolic to me is the making of the Boyer candy.
As long as I can remember, the big event that truly denotes the start of Christmas is the first day of candy making. We gather at my grandma’s house, she’s already got a batch approaching hard crack on the stove. We add our flavors and choose colors to match. Throw in a little bit of that Boyer magic and a few hours later—and a few layers of skin later—there’s an enormous bowl of sparkling candy pieces covered in powdered sugar. It’s amazing to see it. We choose the jars that friends and prior recipients have returned or donated to us and fill with the sugary tokens of the holidays. Some ribbon, red paint, and a nice label is enough to convert the simplest baby food jar into a proper candy container. My sister and I would take in jars for each of our teachers, and a couple to our closest friends; we weren’t trying to score any brownie points, we were just being friendly to those people who tried to hard to enrich the lives of so many unruly children. Occasionally we’d hear them say things which seemed to imply that the teachers would talk about the candy amongst themselves and they’d actually want to have us in class just to get their own jars; some even wanted us to come back in following years for more!
The most amusing thing is that aside from the nights when we actually make the candy, most of us don’t even eat any of it (unlike the cookies and the pies, of course).
But things change with age. Christmas traditions are not immutable.
So what we try to do is keep the year-to-year changes small, so that massive changes come gradually. There comes a time when one’s belief in Santa will dwindle and so trips to go and sit on his lap will cease. Something else will rise to fill that empty spot in the holiday and life will go on. A similar thing is happening with the Candy.
Since I left home for college, the Candy Making must be planned around my break schedule so that I don’t miss out on the tradition. Regardless, I no longer get to participate in the entire event as it is usually done on two nights and I am only here for one.
Years ago I took on the role of the Color Namer. This person tries their best to accurately describe candy colors that are virtually indistinguishable since the translucent candy is covered with an visually obstructive layer of powdered sugar. For example, try to imagine the differences in the following reds dowsed in white: rose, bright red, clown red, blood red, and elmo red. Mine was more a job of creativity, where the colors are meant to be playful monikers for the individual candies, differing completely from year to year. Since I now miss out on the latter half of the action, someone else gets to follow in my footsteps. Now I get to read the colors and smile. It’s like the difference between writing a book and reading a book.
This is my last year in undergraduate education, and many of the people that I’ve grown accustomed to over my years here I will not see again for a long time after I leave here. They’ve heard me talk about the Candy, but now I wish to give them a glimpse of the magic of its creation. I want to include them in the tradition that I love. I’m going to try and make a small amount of it with them, here in Rochester.
So, what’s the point of a tradition? Why have these sometimes arcane patterns?
It is something you do as a group to celebrate together. It has a similar purpose to in-jokes and nicknames. Things spawned and perpetuated by a group of people to hold the bond together. Tradition is a willingness to share something of yourself with each other.
Q: Am I really into tradition?
A: Just with Christmas.
