A different holiday cake

The Christmas trees on the cake are made with ice cream cones and green frosting.

by Michael Mararian

I never make Christmas cookies for coworkers or those little white Mexican wedding cakes that people seem to love or the dreaded brick of candied fruit whose name we shall not speak.

OK, fine, I’ll speak of it: the fruit cake. Honestly, I have nothing against fruitcakes. They’ve never offended me personally; I just really don’t like the taste of them and it sort of freaks me out that they seem to last forever. After a nuclear holocaust, fruitcakes and cockroaches will remain to rebuild society.

With that said, I did not make a fruitcake for this assignment. Instead of any type of traditional offering, I went for a basic white cake with a fun decorative style: a winter snow scene with Christmas trees and a candy cane middle. It’s a festive little cake and I enjoyed making it, but, overall, I take after my dad a little bit when it comes to Christmas. He was a bit of a scrooge. (It didn’t help that he looked like the surly Burgermeister from Santa Claus is Coming to Town.) He was fine when I was small and Christmases were magical: my parents were expert ninja elves in hiding gifts and setting them up in the early morning hours for me to find when I woke up. My mother baked for the holidays and the house always smelled like cinnamon and pie crust. I would sit by the tree and gaze at my favorite little ornaments, sparkling in the lights, imagining them coming to life. On Christmas Eve, my mother’s side of the family would gather for a huge Italian feast followed by my grandfather throwing a bucket of quarters in the air for all the kids (and a few adults) to scramble after. My Uncle Gerald would show up in a Santa suit and all the kids would know it was him by his shoes. At midnight, we would start opening gifts and my cousins and I would fall asleep on the carpeted floor. Those days always bring a smile to my face.

But then, as I got a little older, Christmases changed. My father became grumpy and any gift you got him was either “too expensive” or “cheaply made,” followed by an “I don’t need this,” and a “why are you spending money on this?” My mother would scream, “You ruined Christmas!”, there would be tears, I would threaten to find a new family to live with, and then we’d eat in silence. A few hours later my dad could be seen at the kitchen table reading the directions to one of his gifts, which suggested that maybe it wasn’t such a bad offering after all. He was such a pain.

My mother got her revenge on him though—and in the most evil way possible. Long after my father was caught once for having a momentary “lapse of fidelity” in their marriage with a woman named Edna, my mom busted his chops every Christmas by labeling one of his gifts, “To Mike, from Edna.”

In any event, years later, and much like Scrooge, my dad ended up doing a complete 180 and suddenly became giddy over Christmas, excited about getting and giving gifts. I’m not sure what happened. It could’ve been his mortality setting in, making him realize that holidays were precious times not to be taken for granted—or perhaps he had a head injury we didn’t know about. Whatever it was, he changed. Maybe it’s my turn now.

A vintage JCPenney sweater makes this holiday baking project complete. Holiday cake continued

So, any guesses on how I made those Christmas trees on the cake? Anyone? Bueller? It’s actually a clever idea I saw someone do on Instagram. They are made by cutting ice cream cones in halves and pressing them against the sides of the cake. Tiny green frosting dollops are piped around the sides to create the evergreen foliage. The top little trees are also cones, turned upside down with the bottoms cut off. The cake is finished off by sprinkling powdered sugar over it to create snow and crushed rock candy at the base simulates chunks of ice. Between the layers, I tried to do a spiral of red and white candy cane, but the frosting was a little too soft and it smeared.

It’s not that I despise Christmas, really. I get joy out of seeing other people excited about it and I do love surprising people with well-thoughtout gifts, but with no children of my own, decorating the house would only be for me, my dog, and my five cats— who would attack the tree anyway.

But, now, as I write this, dressed in my vintage sweater by JCPenney, I’m looking at the cake I made and I have to say, it’s pretty cute. It does give me a little twinge of holiday spirit. And if I bring my face close to the buttercream frosted trees with the powdered snow, I am back to being a child again, mesmerized by the glittering Christmas tree. If nothing else, Christmas can capture a childhood memory. I need to keep that in mind going forward, especially now, when it seems all things innocent in our world have evaporated.

This little cake today turned out to be a very nice gift to myself.