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When I think of what Christmas means to me, I think of the birthday cake that we make every Christmas for Jesus.
This tradition started when our two oldest children, Angela and Chip, were very young.
It was so important to me that they experience the holiday as more than Santa Claus and presents.
Each year we bake this special cake in the shape of a circle ... the symbol of eternal life ... to remind us of Jesus' birth and the gift of eternal life He brought us.
We always light a candle on it and sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus.
When we adopted our youngest son, Jerome, he was three and a half years old.
It was just four weeks before Christmas and we were looking forward to a very special season.
We baked the traditional Baby Jesus Birthday Cake the day before Christmas and set the dining room table for the celebration.
On Christmas morning, Jerome came running into the kitchen yelling: "Is he here yet?"
"Who?" I asked.
"Baby Jesus" he replied.
"Oh, he isn't coming" I said
"But we baked him a cake!" he replied sadly
I felt so bad that I hadn't explained our tradition better and that he had thought Jesus was actually coming
I tried to explain that it was a symbolic celebration.
Poor Jerome.
He really didn't understand why Jesus had not come.
I felt a little sad for my part in the confusion.
When Jerome was six, he was killed in an accident.
I didn't think anything would ever comfort me.
That first Christmas after his death, I wanted to skip Christmas.
But my husband encouraged me to go on with all our Christmas traditions for our other children.
When we lit the candle on our Baby Jesus Birthday Cake, I remembered how much Jerome had wanted to see Jesus that first Christmas he was with us and how disappointed he had been.
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But then it occurred to me that Jerome was in heaven with Jesus celebrating His birthday with him in person.
And that thought brought me a lot of comfort and peace.
We still continue our family tradition by baking the Birthday Cake for Jesus and now I make it for other families that have experienced a death during the past year.
Here's the recipe:
Sour Cream
Coffee Cake
1 cup (2 sticks) margarine
2 eggs
1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups sugar
1 cup sour cream
1 3/4 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
Filling:
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 cup chopped nuts
1/3 cup brown sugar
Cream together margarine, sugar and eggs.
Add vanilla, baking powder, salt, sour cream and flour
Mix the filling ingredients together in a small bowl.
Pour half of the batter into a greased and floured bundt pan.
Sprinkle the filling mixture over the batter.
Pour the remaining batter on top of the filling.
Bake at 350 degrees for one hour.
Cool completely in pan.
When cool, turn out of pan and sprinkle with confectioner's sugar
This will keep for several weeks wrapped in foil.
Our family tradition is to serve this on Christmas Morning with a candle for Jesus' birthday.
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