To start with everyone should know that Grandpa Morrow is in the Maple Sugar Hall of Fame (which is in Vermont for those who don't believe such a thing exists). He also has a sugar house in upstate New York named after him. We have this carving of the sugar house above our mantel.
We has waffles (whole wheat) with maples syrup. I should point out that this is grade B dark amber, which was not his favorite, but what we had opened. The day started nicely with reminiscences of Grandpa opening the syrup he got for Mom every Christmas morning to test to make sure it was great A light amber. This annoyed her a great deal as once it is opened it must be refrigerated, and we never got through a whole bottle in a year. When I was a kid there were always multiple open gallons of maple syrup.
My remembrances of Grandpa also led to one of my favorite Christmas stories. My Dad and sister and I were looking at getting Grandpa an extra pie (he loved pie, with milk, all pie) and went into Marie Calendars to get one. Who should we spy but Grandpa looking at pies. After hiding in the bathrooms until he left we eagerly asked the people at the counter what pies he had gotten. When we discovered he hadn't we determined to make another pie so there would be 4 for Christmas. (The next year we made an additional 12 small pies, because we could). Due to Grandpa's love of pie we went to Marie Calendars for this great dessert.
I am loving the newly formed hopeful tradition of remembering the amazing people in our families, and look forward to more remembrances as the years go by.
