I Dreamed of Leif Last Night

We so seldom remember our dreams. I wonder how many times I dream about Leif. When I woke up this morning, I had been dreaming about Leif. In my dream, he was eating cookies and drinking milk, and he was wearing the blue sweater he is wearing in this photo with his dad. It was so clear, and there was more to the dream than that, but all I could keep in my memory was the darling little toddler with the cookies and milk. I wish I'd have more dreams of him to remember.

This photo was taken by Leif's beloved Aunt Lannay when we lived in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1977. He was two years old. 

He loved cookie dough.

If Leif were here, he'd be eating this. He loved cookie dough, particularly this kind of cookie dough, for Norwegian Berliner Kranse. This is our family's favorite cookie and a Christmas tradition. I grew up with it, and so did my mother and her mother, and her grandmother. It's an old and strange recipe that uses both raw and hardboiled egg yolks pressed through a sieve, and it's wonderful. Leif and his brother used to tell me I should just put the bowl of cookie dough on the table and let them eat it instead of dinner.

I always loved making cookies with my boys. These were especially good for kids to help make the dough because you have to work the flour in with your hands. What kid doesn't like squishing his hands in flour, sugar and butter? We had a good time making the dough and eating it, forming and baking the sugar covered rings. I practically had to guard the cookies to make sure we still had some for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The tradition was to bake them on the 23rd.

So, I baked them today, but it was only fun through nostalgia for all those Christmases past. When my boys grew up, they no longer wanted to help, but they still liked to eat the dough and the cookies. Later my grandchildren helped make them.

This is the first time in a long time we haven't had either of our sons or our grandchildren with us for Christmas, and it seems too quiet and not really festive. Christmas is meant to be shared. My heart goes out to all those who are alone and lonely on Christmas and New Years.

I have Peter and my mother to spend our traditional Christmas Eve with, and on Christmas Day we will be joined by Leif's best friend and a friend of mine and her sister. I'm glad we will have the company and I hope they'll enjoy the cookies, but it won't be the same as it was when I was looking forward to Leif driving up to our door and Peter Anthony flying in.

This is our sixth Christmas without Leif. It still isn't right. I still miss him. I still want him to come home for Christmas, and I still get tears in my eyes when I hear the song, "I'll Be Home For Christmas." How I wish he were! He could eat all the cookie dough he wanted!

Pac Man Cookies

I still marvel when I find a new photo of Leif, one I've never seen before. I found this one in a box of photos that belongs to my mother. I was going through it and dividing up photos to send to the family members in them. It's such a warm, happy photo. I had forgotten about the time Lannay and Leif made Pac Man cookies together.

Lannay and her husband, Doug, were visiting us in Honolulu, Hawaii. This was around Christmas 1983 or early January 1984. I love it because we all look so happy. That's me in the background, cooking on the stove (the same stove that caught fire one night when it wasn't being used!). Lannay and Leif were rolling out the dough like sugar cookies. . . . and using a Pac Man glass (you can see it by Lannay's elbow) to cut out the circles. They had colored some of the dough pink, and some blue, though that didn't work out so well. The colored cookies are already baked and Leif is all ready to take a bite.

Although I no longer remember, it undoubtedly was his idea, just like it was his idea to bake the giant R2D2 cookies I wrote about (with photos) some time ago. What fun we had in the kitchen when our boys were kids!

It was a special treat to have Lannay and Doug there . . . Lannay was Leif's favorite aunt and they always had a special relationship.

I wish I could go back to those days. Peter and I look at photos and search for some confirmation that we gave Leif a happy childhood, as much as we could, at any rate. Leif was sensate and moody, and prone to frustration, but it's also clear that he had emotional highs and happy times. Every photo that shows them, genuinely, not just a "smile for the camera" smile, is a treasure.

Leif's Favorite Christmas Cookies

All my life we've had the tradition of baking Norwegian cookies and Norwegian Christmas Bread for Christmas. I don't think I've ever had a Christmas my whole life when I haven't at least had our favorite Berliner Kranser cookies, which, though they are Norwegian and a very old family recipe, are oddly enough named "Berlin Wreaths." The Christmas bread is called "Julekage" which translated would mean Yule Cake, I think.

My son's never took to Julekage because it has raisins in it, but all three of my guys loved Berliner Kranser, the butter cookies with the melted sugar topping and the odd recipe with the 4 hard boiled egg yolks mashed through a sieve. They used to help e make them, and snitch as much of the raw dough as they could get away with. I remember Leif with his mischief eyes coming in and swiping some when he was older and not helping make them any more.

I loved making those cookies for them and loved seeing them enjoy them. I never made them before December 23rd or 24th because they would have been long gone before Christmas. I used to find joy in sending some home with Leif, knowing he'd probably eat them all with a big glass of milk in the middle of the night while he was messing around on the computer or watching television in his apartment.

Last year, Aly made them, with my help, and Peter A. was here to eat them with his dad. The year before that, all three of my guys were still there waiting for them to come out of the oven. This year, with Peter A. far away in India and Leif dead, it's just Peter W. who gets to eat them without competition.

For some reason, these cookies didn't seem to catch on with the grandchildren. When we made several batches of cookies last year, they were more interested in the frosted, decorated cookies or ice cream than our old favorites. But no matter, what will always bring the joy to my heart is that I could bring joy to Peter W., Peter A. and Leif with these glorious old cookies. I just wish Leif were here to enjoy them now.
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The photo of Leif was taken on Christmas Eve 1987 when we were living at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, north of Chicago. He was one month shy of his 13th birthday and was in the seventh grade. By that time he was already six feet tall.

The cookie photo is a handful of Berliner Kranser made here.

Leif and the Sweets - Heidelberg, Germany - August 1978 - Age 3 and a half

Germany is full of wonderful pastry shops called Konditoreien, which I guess could better be translated as "confectionary" shops. They have beautiful creations in their windows, Torten (fancy cakes), Plaetzchen (cookies), candies, marzipan creations, candied fruits and more. They are different from bakeries, which have breads and cookies but not the fancy cakes.

It was always fun to look in the windows of all kinds of shops, but these were especially attractive and we loved to stop at one for a treat. In Germany it's traditional to have afternoon coffee, much as the English have tea, with some sweets. We didn't make a practice of this at home, but we always enjoyed it when visiting Peter W's relatives in Heidelberg or the Stuttgart area, and if we were out on a day trip in a city we might treat ourselves at a Konditorei, where the hardest part was choosing among all the goodies.

Here Leif is posing (with his "struteper" tongue sticking out again) in front of a Konditorei window on the Hauptstrasse (Main Street) in Heidelberg in August 1978. He was so cute in his little shorts suit.

Like most kids, he enjoyed sweets, but he never "understood" chocolate or had any interest in it unless it was a chocolate brownie. Chocolate candy wasn't a favorite of his. He loved ice cream, particularly butter pecan, and he enjoyed the German marzipan goodies.

In the village of Sachsen bei Ansbach where we lived for two years, we didn't have a Konditorei but we did have an excellent bakery. I still miss their wonderful "Schweizer Brot," which was a light rye. What my boys loved there, though, were the "Drei Augen Gebaeck" (Three Eye Cookies). These were a rich shortbread cut in two rounds about four inches in diameter. One round had three holes about the size of pennies cut out of it, the three eyes. The two were sandwiched together with red currant jelly in between. They were sumptuous! All the years of Leif's life later, and Peter A. still, they remembered those cookies.