Grandma Mary Trubisky.
Submitted Photo
When I think of Christmas and tradition, I fondly think of Grandma Trubisky and her honey jar.
When I was a youngster, we spent every Christmas Eve at my grandparents’ Ohio home. As soon as you walked in, Grandma brought her honey jar and gave you a Christmas blessing by “painting” the sign of the cross on your forehead with the honey. Now, it wasn’t just a little dab, but one very generous helping “to last the night.”
As the evening progressed in this little house with a lot of family, it got hotter, and that honey would slowly start dripping down your forehead between your eyes. We youngsters would always wipe it off when grandma “had her back turned,” and the grownups would just shake their heads and grin. They had already learned that “somehow” Grandma knew as soon as that honey got wiped away. Then back she had come, jar in hand, to bless you once again. You could never avoid the honey blessing because she kept an accurate count in her head and never forgot anyone.
Eventually, you learned, let it drip, and just enjoy the rest of the evening at that kitchen table, celebrating the birth of The Baby. There was straw under the table to remind us of the Baby’s humble beginnings, and Grandpa began the meal with a looong Slovak Prayer. At that time, we observed a strict holiday fast of no meat or dairy products. We spent hours at the dinner table, the grownups singing Slovak Christmas carols as we kids sang a few in English.
We usually left by midnight, not because Santa was coming, but so we could get up early for the even more important event of Christmas Mass the next morning at 8 a.m.
Our grandparents or parents are no longer with us, and the rest of us are scattered across the country, so we no longer have this celebration. However, I know the blessing goes on. I know that ever since she arrived, my Grandma Mary is standing right there, next to Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates. And — I can assure you that nobody, but nobody, is getting in without The Blessing (doesn’t matter your religion — Mary doesn’t care). She is there, I know, jar in hand, doing her work for the Lord.
