Covid Crazy Christmas

While I was doing some yard work the other day, I was thinking how eagerly I was looking forward to going to the Christmas Eve service at Christ Moravian Church in Winston-Salem.

And then I remembered: Oh, yeah.

Can't. Covid.

I could feel my seasonal joy escaping my soul like air from a leaky balloon.

No Love feast. No gigantic 110-point Moravian star mystically hanging from the ceiling. No acne-challenged pre-teen soloist singing "Morning Star." No candlelight raised above our heads. Not this year.

Sigh. I feel like I've been making these life-altering adjustments all my life, even though it's been less than nine months. Mask. Sanitizer. Distance.

But I still had Kim's Moravian sugar cakes to look forward to.

Until I didn't.

There was a time when Kim made sugar cakes from scratch, using a time-honored Moravian recipe she followed on hand-written scraps of paper that have trickled down through the generations. It's a very labor-intensive project that requires waiting for yeast to rise, not to mention peeling pecks of potatoes as a necessary ingredient of the original recipe.

This year, we've upped our house decorating game.

 In an effort to cut down on all this work, Kim and I discovered a sugar cake mix at Winkler Bakery in Old-Salem a few years ago. It cut Kim's cake labor in half and the confections still tasted just as good as the original.

But Covid has shut down Old Salem. Repeated trips to the Winkler Bakery were met with locked doors until we got it through our thick, doughy skulls that the place was deserted. We even tried ordering the Moravian Sugar Cake pre-mix online, but there were Covid conditions: you could pick up your order at the Old Salem Bake Shop at the Marketplace Mall, but only if you gave a secret knock on the back door at the appointed hour. Come alone. Head on a swivel.

It sounded too much like a drug deal. I could see SWAT teams sweeping down on us to confiscate our cache. It was a no-go.

So now we've been reduced to using a recipe that's close enough, but not quite the same. It's quick to make, and it uses beer for its yeast substitute, so it can't be all bad. It's more like friendship bread, I guess. I had some last night. It's OK.

So now we're trying to save our traditional Christmas by decorating our freshly painted house. In the past, our decorations have been simple. But last year, the Lexington Recreation Department sponsored a Light Up the Block contest, and our block won, basically using decorations we were going to use anyway.

This year, we upped our game a little bit. A few more lights and some garland around the front door. Kim made swags for the porch railings and I put up a spotlight to illuminate our wreaths. I have to say, it doesn't look too bad in this year of our crazy Covid Christmas.

It'll do.