The phone rang one afternoon prior to Christmas and seeing it was from an “unknown name,” I answered tentatively, expecting it to be a scam of some sort.
Instead of the caller telling me my social insurance number had been compromised, it was the pleasant voice of a young lady who was calling to speak to me personally, without a scam in mind.
Once she had clarified that I was the person she had called, she got to the business of her call. She had mistakenly been advised that the recipe for the community’s popular Christmas pudding and sauce was mine. I told her I loved the pudding and sauce in question but could not claim ownership of the recipe, that it belonged to the former owner of a wonderful Main Street shop.
As the conversation went on the caller said she could not understand one of the instructions. I offered whatever assistance I could over the phone and gave my advice about what a certain direction might mean.
She thanked me profusely for my help and we parted ways with pleasant good-byes, and from me, a hope of good luck with her pudding adventures. I secretly hoped she might share her finished product with me, for this year I did not make the family’s Christmas pudding, a staple of every Christmas dinner of most of my memories.
The days went by and her pudding exploits were moved to the back of my mind, until one day the phone rang again, telling me it was another “unknown name.”
I answered, and it was the lady with another question about the pudding, this time referring to how it should be steamed, lids tightened or loose. I gave the information as passed to me from my Mother as she steamed her puddings in her large canner: lids loose and then tightened once the steaming was complete. Again I was thanked for my assistance and we good our good-byes.
During the week of Christmas I was busy doing something to prepare for the big day when the doorbell rang. I went to the front door, thinking that’s the bell that had rung. No one was there so I peered out the dining room window and saw a strange young lady looking upwards at the window.
I opened the side door and said “hello” in a curious way, not recognizing the visitor but in the spirit of the season, exchanging greetings. She identified herself as my caller about puddings and I invited her in out of the frigid temperature.
She handed me a bag and inside was a jar of pudding and a jar of sauce, with a card. I was delighted and wanted to rush into the kitchen to sample the results of her labours.
Before I could do so, she told me that she and her friend with whom she made the pudding had known me for quite a few years as “Auntie Joyce.”
I was bewildered as I certainly didn’t recognize her as my niece but then she explained that she and her friend had worked for a few years with my nephew and as a result, they knew me as “Auntie Joyce.”
I told her that another of my nephew’s work colleagues also called me by that name, long before I knew his identity. She already knew about that connection.
We parted company with much laughter and with my sincere thanks for being such thoughtful “nieces.”
Thanks for your kindness, Louanne and Wanda. Your pudding and sauce tasted wonderful.
Happy New Year to all my other nieces and nephews out there, even the ones I haven’t yet met.
Joyce Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
