The Banana Nut Bread Christmas

The holidays can be a very stressful time of year.  So much emphasis is placed on gift-giving and, if you enjoy giving, or just wish you

could do more, it can be especially hard to deal with and quite depressing if you are unable to do so.  I can remember many times of

maxing out credit cards to give gifts to everyone, only to have to pay them off for the entire following year.  I can also recall many people

completely melting down during the holiday season, worrying over bills and money and not feeling like they had anything to give.

It does not have to be this way.  A creative mind and loving heart can surely go a long way.  Just doing something nice for someone over

the holidays can mean the world to them. Gifts from the heart are my favorite!

There are many ways to celebrate and share in the season on a shoe-string budget or even if you have no money at all.  As my family

grew, there were so many children that it was impossible to purchase gifts for all of them.  We decided to do a dollar store pollyanna and

the children picked their own gifts and there was something under the tree for everyone. They had fun finding something for their

pollyanna and exchanging their pollyannas on Christmas night and were excited to open the gifts picked for them. I try to place all my

efforts on what I believe is the true meaning of Christmas, celebrating the birth of Christ and spending time and making memories with

the family and friends I love.

In the spirit of Christmas, I share with you the year of the banana nut bread. My best friend and I were really struggling financially one

particular year and having trouble making ends meet.  We would go to the Produce Junction and share a bag of apples, a bag of

bananas, a bag of pears, lettuce, tomatoes, etc. and for a few dollars, would have fruit and vegetables for our families.  We then would

go to the Schmidt Bakery and purchase four loaves of bread for $1.00 and split that too as well as sharing costs at Bachetti’s Meat

Market where we split the family package of chicken or ground meat or whatever we saw for a good price.

However, in spite of how tight things were, we still could not rest without giving something to our coworkers, childrens’ teachers, the

school bus driver, etc. for Christmas. There seemed to be so many people we wanted to get gifts for but didn’t have the money to do so.

While shopping at B.J.’s, we found an industrial size box of banana nut bread mix. We purchased this mix and 30 mini loaf pans at the

dollar store at 10 for $1.00 and then proceeded to make 300 mini banana nut breads. We had so much fun making this banana nut

bread.  It never occurred to us that we could only fit a few loaves in the oven at once.  We ended up baking banana nut bread, drinking a

cheap bottle of wine and talking and laughing all night long.  EVERYONE got banana nut bread that year.. neighbors, the mailman, family

members, co-workers, the traffic guard, etc.

I will never forget that year as being one of the best Christmases we ever had and it was by far the poorest!